“Race, Gender and Justice in America” will be the topic addressed by Patricia J. Williams, Columbia University professor of law, at DePaul University’s annual Frederick Douglass Distinguished Lecture, Oct. 18 at 7:30 p.m. in the Schmitt Academic Center, 2320 N. Kenmore Ave., Room 154.

The event, sponsored by the university’s Center for Culture and History of Black Diaspora, also includes recognition of the winners of the Frederick Douglass Essay Contest. This year, two DePaul graduate students and two undergraduates will receive plaques and monetary awards for outstanding essays on the meaning of American citizenship in the new millennium. Essay contest winners are: Niambi Bailey, junior, art major; Kathryn A. Pulkrabek, junior, English major; Patrick Leonard, master’s degree program in Liberal Studies; and Terrance Pratt, a doctoral student of psychology.

Williams, the recipient of a 2000 MacArthur Genius Award, has taught at the University of Wisconsin School of Law, in Harvard University’s Women’s Studies Program and in the City University of New York Law School at Queen’s College. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and Harvard Law School.

Her book, “The Alchemy of Race and Rights,” was named one of the 25 best books of 1991 by the Voice Literary Supplement and one of the “feminist classics of the last twenty years” by Ms. Magazine. Williams also has authored “The Rooster’s Egg” and “Race and a Color Blind Society.”

The Frederick Douglass Distinguished Lecture program is free and open to the public. For more information call the center at 773/325-7510 or visit the Center for Culture and History of Black Diaspora's website.