The Hoover Institution invites you to attend the George P. Shultz Memorial Lecture Series Launch Event on Human Rights on Wednesday, February 12th, 2025 from 5:00 - 7:00 PM PT in the Shultz Auditorium, George P. Shultz Building.
We are honored to invite you to the inaugural George P. Shultz Memorial Lecture on Human Rights, celebrating the remarkable legacy of the late George P. Shultz. As a former Secretary of State, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of the Treasury, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Shultz played a transformative role in shaping US economic and foreign policy in the late 20th century.
This lecture series, made possible by the generosity of the Koret Foundation and established by the Hoover Institution, commemorates Shultz's unwavering commitment to diplomacy and human rights. Secretary Shultz’s underlying belief made the choice to advocate for Soviet religious groups and Refuseniks a crucial one and was one aspect of the greatest Human Rights achievement of the Reagan Administration—securing the freedom of most of the Soviet Empire.
The first lecture will focus on the pursuit of human rights, honoring Shultz's enduring impact on global freedom and justice.
SPEAKERS
Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. She is the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm.
From January 2005 to January 2009, Rice served as the 66th Secretary of State of the United States, the second woman and first black woman to hold the post. Rice also served as President George W. Bush’s Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor) from January 2001 to January 2005, the first woman to hold the position.
Natan Sharansky, a spokesman for the human rights movement, is the Chair of the Institute for the Study of Global Anteisemitism and Policy and the Chair of the Combat Antisemitism Movement Advisory Board. Sharansky was a Prisoner of Zion and leader in the struggle for the right of Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel.
In his first few years in Israel, Mr. Sharansky established the Zionist Forum to assist Soviet olim in their absorption in Israel. In the 1990's, he established the Yisrael B'Aliyah party in order to accelerate the integration of Russian Jews. He served in four successive Israeli governments, as Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.
In 2018 he received the highest Israeli award - the Israel Prize for promoting Aliyah and the ingathering of the exiles. Mr. Sharansky is the recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1986 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006. He is the only living non-American citizen who is the recipient of these two highest American awards.
Abraham D. Sofaer was appointed the first George P. Shultz Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution in 1994. Named in honor of former US secretary of state George P. Shultz, the appointment is awarded to a senior scholar whose broad vision, knowledge, and skill will be brought to bear on the problems presented by a radically transformed global environment. Sofaer's work focuses on the power over war within the US government and on issues related to international law, terrorism, diplomacy, and national security.
From 1985 to 1990, he served as a legal adviser to the US Department of State, where he resolved several interstate matters, including the dispute between Egypt and Israel over Taba, the claim against Iraq for its attack on the USS Stark, and the claims against Chile for the assassination of Orlando Letelier. He received the Distinguished Service Award in 1989, the highest state department award given to a non–civil servant.
MODERATOR
Peter M. Robinson is the Murdoch Distinguished Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he writes about business and politics, edits Hoover's quarterly journal, the Hoover Digest, and hosts Hoover's video series program, Uncommon Knowledge™.
Robinson spent six years in the White House, serving from 1982 to 1983 as chief speechwriter to Vice President George Bush and from 1983 to 1988 as special assistant and speechwriter to President Ronald Reagan. He wrote the historic Berlin Wall address in which President Reagan called on General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!"
