Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmentalist lawyer and activist, will speak this weekend at the University of Austin — a recently certified college that emphasizes “intellectual freedom.”
Kennedy will headline the launch of UATX’s debate society, Austin Union, on Saturday, sharing an “intimate conversation ” with past ACLU head Nadine Strossen on the subject “The Importance of Civil Discourse, Free Speech and Debate in a Healthy Democracy.” Strossen is the John Marshall Harlan II professor of law emerita at New York Law School.
The March 9 speaking event comes as Kennedy is polling at 13% as an independent presidential candidate and amid reports that he is considering taking up the Libertarian Party nomination.
UATX was awarded full university status last year after its initial launch in 2021, as previously reported by The Dallas Express. The college was co-founded by former New York Times writer Bari Weiss, historian Niall Ferguson, technology entrepreneur Joe Lonsdale, and Dr. Pano Kanelos, the founding president.
“But opinions cannot be refined without some sort of resistance,” the Austin Union Manifesto declares. “No two people can build a relationship without laying the bricks of disagreement to rest between themselves. No society can be sustained without a peaceful mode of public civil discourse.”
Kennedy’s campaign has drawn the most significant support as an independent candidate since Ross Perot won 19% of the popular vote in 1992. His populist platform is highlighted by isolationist-leaning foreign policy, welfare expansion, and a scathing criticism of pharmaceutical companies and vaccine mandates.
The Austin Union launch event kicks off on Saturday with a lively debate between Professor Morgan Marietta, dean of the Center for Economics, Politics, and History at UATX, and Richard Albert, professor of Government and Constitutional Law at UT Austin on the subject, “Is the U.S. Constitution Broken?”
Marietta resigned as chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Texas at Arlington last year over concerns about the university’s stance on academic liberty. He is the UATX faculty advisor to the Austin Union.
“Our goal with this [debate] society is to model healthy and civil debate highlighting points of agreement as well as principled dispute, rather than merely scoring points against the opposition,” Marietta said in a press release. “The Austin Union audience can expect a respectful appreciation of opposing views, with enough disagreement to spur continuing discussion of decisions of great importance to all Americans.”
