LEWISTON – On successive evenings in February, Bates College presents two lectures by noted scholars from the law schools at Columbia and Yale universities. Both events are open to the public at no cost.

Alan Schwartz, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School and a member of the Bates class of 1961, offers a talk titled “The Economic Rationality Assumption and Its Challengers” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 1, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave. It is sponsored by the College Key Distinguished Alumni in Residence Program.

Patricia Williams, James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, will speak about “Reconstructing Civil Rights for an Uncertain Future” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, in the Bates Chapel, College Street.

A reception follows.

For more information about both events, phone 786-6255.

Schwartz, who earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physics at Bates, was a member of one of the two Bates teams that in 1961 pulled off seven straight victories on television’s “College Bowl” quiz show, retiring without a loss as the winningest undefeated school in the history of the 1959-1970 program.

A member of the Columbia Law School faculty since 1991, Williams centers her teaching and research on issues of race and gender.

A native of Boston and a graduate of Wellesley College and Harvard University Law School, Williams practiced as a deputy city attorney for the city of Los Angeles and as a staff lawyer for the Western Center on Law and Poverty, in California.