Journalist Gretchen Carlson to Speak at LMU

Gretchen Carlson, the television journalist and author whose fight against workplace sexual harassment helped spark a national discussion about female empowerment and activism, will speak at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 21 in the Life Sciences Building Auditorium. Carlson will join Robbin Crabtree, Ph.D., dean of the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts.

Any LMU registered student organization that attends the event with a minimum of 25 percent member participation will be entered to win a $500 award from LMU’s Alliance of Women Philanthropists. Three awards are available, and students can register here.

“We are honored to have Gretchen join us as the first speaker in a series created to engage students, faculty and staff members, and the community in discussions about timely and important societal issues – #metoo and #timesup,” said LMU first lady Carol Costello, honorary chairwoman of the Alliance of Women Philanthropists. “Her story is one of female strength and perseverance, and we are pleased that she will share it at LMU.”

The LMU AWP is sponsoring this inaugural Speaker Series with Bellarmine College, in partnership with ASLMU and the LMU Marians women’s service organization. The alliance is a community of influencers that collaborates with LMU’s administration, engages with like-minded women and supports the university individually while also determining how to distribute a yearly collective pool of funds to programs, services and scholarships.

Costello will be joined at the speaker series by AWP co-chairs Julie Rollofson Teel and Karen Knott, who will provide opening remarks. Costello, an HLN anchor, invited Carlson to come to LMU during a television interview. 

Carlson, who hosted “The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson” and “Fox & Friends” on Fox News and was a co-host of “The Saturday Early Show” on CBS News, brought sexual harassment in the workplace to greater consciousness in 2016. She filed a lawsuit that year against Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, prompting other women to step forward with similar accusations against Ailes, who resigned from the network.

She was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people for 2017. She is the author of a new book, “Be Fierce: Stop Harassment and Take Your Power Back,” in which she shares her experiences and those of other women who have reached out to her.

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