Professors to Discuss Lincoln's Legacy

Richard Pointer, professor of history, and Jesse Covington, assistant professor of political science, will lead a discussion, “Lincoln’s Legacy: Race, Liberty, and the Rule of Law,” Friday, May 1, at 7 p.m. in the Faulkner Gallery of the Santa Barbara Central Library, 40 E. Anapamu St. The discussion is part of Santa Barbara County Bar Foundation’s Law Week and is free and open to the public.

The discussion is based on Abraham Lincoln’s contributions to liberty in America. Pointer and Covington will focus their talk to racial equality during the crisis of slavery and the interrelated issues of constitutionalism and the rule of law during the test of America’s union.

Pointer, Fletcher Jones Foundation professor in the social sciences, specializes in the religious history of early America and has published many articles, chapters and two books, “Protestant Pluralism and the New York Experience: A Study of Eighteenth-Century Religious Diversity” and “Encounters of the Spirit: Native Americans and European Colonial Religion.” He earned his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. His teaching at Westmont includes courses on the American Civil War.

Covington specializes in political theory and constitutional law with particular interest in issues involving religion and politics. He earned his doctorate at the University of Notre Dame in 2007 with a dissertation “Taken on Faith: The Concept of Religion in First Amendment Jurisprudence.”