On December 4, 2011, Geoffrey Cowan, director of the CCLP, delivered the prestigious F.Y. Chang Lecture at the US-China Education Trust at Peking University in Bejing, China. The event came at the end of the China tour of Cowan’s play Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers, which played in theaters in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Beijing. Cowan lectured on the themes of his play Top Secret in the speech, which was called “National Security vs. Free Speech: An American Case Study.” A copy of the speech can be downloaded below.
Cowan is the latest in a line of distinguished honorees at the F.Y. Chang Lecture. He was preceded by former US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky in 2010 and US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in 2008. The annual lecture is a joint program of Peking University Law School, Tsinghua University Law School, and the Harvard University Law School East Asian Legal Studies Program. It is named in honor of Chang Fuyun, who was the first Chinese to graduate from Harvard Law School.