The Distinguished Lecture Series will kick off this year by welcoming the “Spitfire Tour” to Madison tonight.
Speakers for the event include Krist Novoselic, former band member of Nirvana; Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys; Ingrid Newkirk, the co-founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; and singer/songwriter Jill Sobule, who is also expected to give an acoustic performance.
The event is free for students and will take place at the Union Theatre at 7 p.m.
Other speakers scheduled this year include film director Spike Lee, author Elie Wiesel, feminist art advocates The Guerilla Girls, slavery reparations advocate Randall Robinson, and controversial author David Horowitz.
Tim Lindl, director of the Distinguished Lecture Series Committee, said the purpose of inviting Horowitz was to offer a dissenting viewpoint to Robinson’s speech.
“We hope [Horowitz] is going to talk about slavery reparations, but he is kind of hard to control.” Lindl said. “He has caused so many problems on this campus in the last year that we figured we’d have him come. This way, people can listen to him in a more personal setting and figure out if the guy is worth listening to or not.”
Elie Wiesel has lectured at UW Madison before. Other speakers who have been featured in the past include Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader, Reuben “Hurricane” Carter, and Howard Zinn, author of “The People’s History of the United States.”
The Distinguished Lecture Series Committee is funded through student segregated fees. This year, the committee received $98,500 from the Student Services Finance Committee, which Lindl said was not nearly enough to cover the costs of the speakers.
“Our actual costs were much higher,” Lindl said. “We had to raise $28,500 ourselves.”
The extra money was needed because speakers’ fees are extremely high. The fee for Robinson has recently doubled, and Horowitz’ fee has increased by 50%.
“Someday, I would like to see a series of people of Spike Lee’s caliber, but that would require a budget of twice what we have” Lindl said. “We offered Jimmy Carter $60,000 to come speak, but he refused. Bill Clinton gets $250,000 a lecture, and we can’t afford that.”
The committee is also looking for campus groups who would be willing to co-sponsor any of the speakers scheduled for this year, a task that has proven difficult with certain speakers.
“We contacted the College Republicans about co-sponsoring Horowitz, but they told us they didn’t want anything to do with him.” Lindl said.
The committee, which is in charge of nominating possible speakers, is open to anyone interested. This year, approximately 375 different speakers were suggested. Fifty of these were selected based on sexual, ethnic and political diversity, as well as availability. The committee debates the importance of each speaker and finally attempts to contact each of the top-ten speakers on the list.
“Our goal is to bring in speakers who will challenge established beliefs in this community, ” Lindl said. “‘Sifting and winnowing’ will be more effective if we can get the opposite of what Madison’s viewpoints tend to be.”
