Constitution Day talk to focus on combatting terrorism

The first lecture in this fall's Constitution Day lecture series is scheduled Friday, Sept. 17. Marc Landy, professor of political science at Boston College, will give a talk titled "Terror and the Constitution" at 5 p.m. in the Pohndorff Reading Room of Scribner Library (third floor).  

Landy will discuss the powers available to the president under the Constitution to combat terrorism and how both the Supreme Court and Congress have construed those powers. He will therefore touch on some of the recent Supreme Court decisions dealing with enemy combatants.

Landy is a well-known scholar in American government whose specialties include American political development, the American Presidency, and environmental politics and policy.  His books includeAmerican Politics: The Enduring Conflict (McGraw Hill, 2003, with Sidney Milkis), Presidential Greatness (University of Kansas Press, 2000, with Sidney Milkis), and The Environmental Protection Agency From Nixon to Clinton: Asking the Wrong Questions (Oxford University Press, 1994, with Marc Roberts and Stephen Thomas). In addition to teaching at Boston College, Landy chairs the Irish Institute, regularly teaching public officials from Ireland and Northern Ireland about American politics through a series of executive programs run by the Irish Institute.

A reception will follow the lecture.