prof. samuel will be joining us up the microphone from few moments to introduce the panelists and to moderate the event. before she does that i want to thank the university of chicago president, bob zimmer who provided his vision and leadership here at the university of chicago and for that, i would like to invite him up to offer some welcomed comments for this evening's event. [applause] >> thank you very much neil. let me say how much i appreciate the idea that they are hosting this panel in hosting this discussion on this topic. the joint topic of academic freedom, which i like thinking about a bit more generally are two core issues for any university, particularly for the university of chicago. neil described very beautifully why these are so important. i might just offer my own take on this which is to start, universities are not just a random collection of people who are here doing what they are doing. universities are institutions with very clear ambition. that mission of education, mission

[applause] prof. samuels: thank you, president zimmer. my name is gina samuels. i will be the moderator this evening. i will take several roles that i will explain in a moment. i would like to welcome all of you here this evening and i would like to extend a special thanks to my faculty and staff. i have to say i'm quite humbled to see we are at stranding room only. thank you for coming. special thanks for dean guterman for being so supportive. for their cosponsors it, and particularly to my colleague darcy. finally, i extend a special community and ssa others of you in attendance tonight. the success in this dialogue and our exemplary practice of free expressions might deeply rests with each of you, and i will explain that more in a moment. we will proceed by my giving a brief introduction to this panel. then i will introduce each of the panelists. they will each talk for about ten minutes. i will then pose a question to them. we probably won't -- i have given them four questions. i think that is a bit ambitious, we will probably get through one or two. then i w