Pursuing Nazi War Criminals

A Lecture and Presentation by Eli M. Rosenbaum

Reception to follow

January 22, 2009. 7:00pm

Portland Jewish Community Center, 6651 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR (map)

(Please contact Margaret Thomson if you are driving and can take passengers or if you need a ride. She will come up with carpool arrangements.)

We are honored to have Eli Rosenbaum speak to the Portland community.

Eli Rosenbaum, Director, Office of Special Investigations (OSI), Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice, is the longest-serving prosecutor and investigator of Nazi criminals in world history, having worked on these cases at the U.S. Department of Justice for more than 20 years. A graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and of the Harvard Law School, he has served since 1994 as Director of the Justice Department's OSI, which investigates and prosecutes WWII-era Nazi criminals. Since December 2004 OSI also investigates and prosecutes cases involving participants in post-World War II crimes of genocide, extrajudicial killing, and torture committed abroad under color of foreign law. Rosenbaum previously served as a trial attorney and then deputy director at OSI. Under Mr. Rosenbaum's leadership, OSI has received major awards from Jewish organizations and Holocaust survivor groups, and it has been called "the most successful government Nazi-hunting organization on earth" (ABC News). Rosenbaum's book, Betrayal: The Untold Story of the Kurt Waldheim Investigation and Cover-Up (St. Martin's Press), was selected for "Best Books of 1993" by The San Francisco Chronicle.

This event is being co-sponsored by Portland State University and is being funded through the generous donation of alumnus Jordan Schnitzer.

Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture

Transformative Thinking in the Domain of Civil Rights: President Obama and Extending the Vision of Dr. King

Reception to follow.

January 20, 2009. 5:30pm

Wood Hall, Room 7

Professor Gerald Torres of the University of Texas Law School will be speaking at the law school at our annual Martin Luther King Memorial Lecture.

Our new president will have been sworn in earlier that day. Thus, we will truly be celebrating the work of Dr.King and where it has led- the inauguration of the first African American President.

Professor Torres is one of the country's leading experts in critical race theory. Torres came to the University of Texas School of Law in 1993 after teaching at the University of Minnesota Law School, where he also served as associate dean. Torres has served as deputy assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D.C., and as counsel to then U.S. attorney general Janet Reno.

His latest book, The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2002) with Harvard Law Professor Lani Guinier, was described by Publisher's Weekly as "one of the most provocative and challenging books on race produced in years." Torres' articles include "Translation and Stories" (Harvard Law Review, 2002), "Who Owns the Sky?" (Pace Law Review, 2001), “Taking and Giving: Police Power, Public Value, and Private Right” (Environmental Law, 1996), and “Translating Yonnondio by Precedent and Evidence: The Mashpee Indian Case” (Duke Law Journal, 1990).

Torres is a past president of the Association of American Law Schools. He has served on the board of the Environmental Law Institute, the National Petroleum Council, and on EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Law Institute. Torres was honored with the 2004 Legal Service Award from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) for his work to advance the legal rights of Latinos. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard and Stanford law schools.

This event is being funded through a generous gift from Stoel Rives.

Other News and Events