Alumni Magazine - Spring 2008 - (Page 9)

ON CAMPUS lecture DEAN: NIXON ABUSES PALE COMPARED TO BUSH Students’ curiosity kept 70-year-old Dean, this year’s Tresolini Lecturer in Law, ﬁelding questions on everything from surviving law school to repairing the presidential nomination process. “I’ve taken history classes in which Mr. Dean’s contributions have been discussed, and it was surreal to sit within 50 feet of such an influential writer, lawyer, and political commentator,” said Missy Leuzzi ’09, a double political science and English major who joined the discussion. Dean later addressed a much larger—and notably grayer-haired—audience in Zoellner’s Baker Hall. Spanning from Nixon’s election to the current administration, Dean examined each president’s use of executive power, its impact on other branches of government, and lessons citizens can draw as they select future leaders. Nixon, he said, was the ﬁrst president to politicize the Supreme Court, and Jimmy Carter created the modern vice presidency. He believes George H.W. Bush was restrained, while Bill Clinton exercised “raw presidential power.” Since leaving the White House in 1973, Dean has focused on investment banking and writing. His latest book, Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches, has incited debates about the Bush administration’s legacy since its 2007 release. An outspoken critic of that administration, Dean reiterated his views on Bush’s penchant for secrecy and his deception over the war in Iraq. “He has been exercising powers he doesn’t have,” Dean said. “I look back on the WaterPHOTO BY THEO ANDERSON For the students, John Dean was living history. As the White House counsel to Richard M. Nixon, best known for his devastating testimony against his boss, Dean shared his insights with a generation that was not yet born when the Watergate scandal broke. Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean talks with students before delivering this year’s Tresolini Lecture in Law. gate abuses and it just pales. In his darkest moments, I can’t imagine Nixon telling the CIA to use torture as an interrogation technique.” Dean ensured the audience he does not have an agenda. “I don’t carry partisan water for anyone. Good government—that’s all I’m interested in.” Wade Haubert, a political science graduate student, said, “The message he conveyed is that we are going down a very dangerous road where the executive office has seen an exponential increase in its powers.”—Tricia Long lecture LEVY EXAMINES SEXUALITY & FEMINISM The message women are bombarded with in today’s culture is that being sexy requires shopping, feminist author Ariel Levy told a packed house in Packard Auditorium in March. “How do you know what you want when the culture is telling you how to be sexy?” Levy asked. Between Brazilian waxes, cardio striptease classes, and breast implants, the message is that women cannot be sexual without spending money, said Levy, a staff writer for The New Yorker. And women in the media are representing an inaccurate portrayal of sexual enlightenment, she added. Levy’s witty discussion of sexuality and feminism—titled “Have All the Girls Gone Wild? Raunch Culture and Internalized Sexism”—drew from her recent book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, which examines sexually explicit behavior in young women and its association with pop culture. So, how can women who are smart, funny, and accomplished ﬁnd love and healthy relationships in today’s society? “It is different for everyone,” Levy said. “I am not a sex therapist, so I don’t have a prescription, [but] feminism is supposed to say it’s OK to say what you don’t want, and it’s OK to say what you do want.”—Gabriela Saade spring 2008 9 PHOTO BY DOUGLAS BENEDICT

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Alumni Magazine - Spring 2008

Alumni Magazine - Spring 2008 Contents From the President's Desk Mailbox On Campus Research Arts & Culture Sports Alumni News Cover Story: In Galileo's Wake Technically Funny The Healing Game Looking for America The Last Word

Alumni Magazine - Spring 2008

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