Frederick M. Lawrence, secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, will deliver a talk on academic freedom in the Unity Room of the Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center at 5 p.m. Oct. 18. The talk is free and open to the public.

Lawrence is a distinguished lecturer at the Georgetown Law Center and is one of the nation’s leading experts on civil rights, free expression and bias crimes.

He is the author of “Punishing Hate: Bias Crimes Under American Law,” examining bias-motivated violence and the laws governing how such violence is punished in the United States. He is an opinion contributor to The Hill and U.S. News and World Report, has written for Newsweek and The Boston Globe, and has appeared on CNN and other networks. He previously served as president of Brandeis University, dean of the George Washington University Law School, and visiting professor and senior research scholar at Yale Law School.

Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s first and most prestigious honor society, founded in 1776. Members include 17 U.S. presidents, 40 Supreme Court justices and more than 140 Nobel Laureates.