November 12, 2023 ALL

Today: America’s Obsession with Conspiracy Theories

John Carroll University’s Department of Political Science presents the 2023 Woelfl Seminar in Public Policy: “Politics, Prejudice and Truth: How the Kennedy Assassination Created America’s Obsession with Conspiracy Theories.”

Join us on Monday, November 13, 2023, at 5:30 pm in the Donahue Auditorium of the Dolan Science Center for a panel discussion with the Honorable Burt W. Griffin, Warren Commission Assistant Counsel. The faculty panel facilitating the discussion is Dr. Margaret Farrar, Professor, Department of Political Science, and Dr. Brent Brossmann, Professor and Chair of the Tim Russert Department of Communication.

Judge Griffin will pose the question of how a politically appointed investigation can secure and persuade the public of the truth about a high-profile political crime. He will place the motives of the investigators and the perpetrators in the context of prejudices and politics of the 1960s.

Judge Griffin is a former assistant counsel to the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (popularly known as the Warren Commission). He had primary responsibility for investigating and writing the report on whether Jack Ruby was part of a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy or Lee Harvey Oswald or both.

Judge Griffin is a life-long resident of the Cleveland area, a graduate of Shaker High School, Amherst College, and Yale Law School, and served for 30 years as a Cuyahoga County trial judge. In recognition of the 60th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination, he has written the recently published JFK, Oswald and Ruby: Politics, Prejudice and Truth.

The Woelfl Seminar on Public Policy was established in 1981 in honor of Rev. Paul A. Woelfl, S.J., the founder and long-time chair of the Department of Political Science at John Carroll University. The purpose of the Woelfl Seminar is to provide an academic forum for the discussion of significant public policy issues.

For information, contact the Department of Political Science at 216.397.4311.
This talk is free and open to the public.