LEWISTON – The founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group dedicated to seeking legal redress against white supremacists, will speak at Bates College at 4 p.m. Thursday, May 8.

Morris Dees will deliver a keynote address, “With Justice for All in Our Multicultural Nation,” in the Bates College Chapel.

Hosted by Bates College President Elaine Tuttle Hansen, this second annual Presidential Symposium on “Unswerving Values, Changing Times” is free and open to the public.

Dees has argued and won cases against the United Klans of America for the lynching of a young black man, against the group Aryan Nations and the White Aryan Resistance for anti-black hate violence, and against the Carolina Klan for burning black churches.

The center’s newest litigation focuses on immigrant civil rights. Noting that this issue is fertile ground for hate groups and other extremists looking to spread their racist beliefs, the law center reasons that it is important to understand the background and motives of the groups shaping the debate about immigration.

Dees has received numerous awards in connection with his work at the Center. Trial Lawyers for Public Justice named him Trial Lawyer of the Year. He received the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award and was awarded the Friend of Education Award by the National Education Association. In 2006, the /National Law Journal/ listed him among the 100 most influential lawyers in America.