KERRY KENNEDY CUOMO TO ADDRESS HUMAN RIGHTS IN APRIL 3 LECTURE

Human rights activist Kerry Kennedy Cuomo will speak about her work Thursday, April 3, as part of the Old Dominion University President's Lecture Series.

Her talk, "Speak Truth to Power," will take place at 8 p.m. in the Mills Godwin Jr. Life Sciences Building Auditorium. It is free and open to the public.

The author of "Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World," Kennedy Cuomo began working in the field of human rights in 1981 when she investigated abuses by U.S. Immigration officials against refugees from El Salvador. Since then she has led more than 40 human rights delegations to some 30 countries. She established the RFK Center for Human Rights, which provides a base of support to human rights defenders and uncovers and publicizes abuses such as torture, disappearances and repression of free speech.

The daughter of Ethel Kennedy and the late Robert F. Kennedy, she served as executive director and is now on the board of directors of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, a nonprofit organization she organized in 1988 that addresses the problems of social justice. She also directed the National Juvenile Justice Project, which helps cities create more effective and less costly programs for dealing with young offenders, and the RFK Journalism and RFK Book Awards, which recognize authors who prod the public conscience and expose the problems of the dispossessed.

Chair of the Amnesty International Leadership Council, Kennedy Cuomo is a judge for the Reebok Human Rights Award and serves on the boards of Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and the Bloody Sunday Trust. She is a member of the Massachusetts and District of Columbia bar associations.

For more information about the President's Lecture Series at Old Dominion University call 683-3114.