'Firing Line' panelists announced

Noted race relations commentator Cornel West and former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork will be among the guests on Firing Line, a PBS television debate show which will be taped on campus December 3. The two-hour show, entitled "Resolved: Political Correctness is a Menace and a Bore," will examine free speech in society. It will be hosted by conservative syndicated columnist William F. Buckley. West, a Princeton University professor and author of the controversial book Race Matters, and Bork will be joined on the panel by syndicated columnist Michael Kinsley; Ira Glasser, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union; Rutgers University English Professor Catharine Stimpson; New York's Public Advocate Mark Green and Bard College President Leon Botstein. University of Colorado professor Richard Delgado, who was originally on the guest list, will not be able to attend the show. Firing Line Producer Warren Steibel is currently looking for a replacement. The show, which will be taped at the Annenberg Center's Harold Prince Theatre, will be broadcast on 300 PBS stations across the country on December 13. In Philadelphia, the show will be seen on channel 12, from 9 to 11 p.m. Only 50 tickets will be available to students who wish to attend the live taping, University spokesperson Barbara Beck said last night. About 250 other seats will be reserved for faculty, Firing Line staff and special guests. Director of Student Life Activities and Facilities Fran Walker said the 50 student tickets will be distributed by lottery. Students interested in attending the show's taping should go to the Student Life Activities office on the first floor of Houston Hall this week, where Walker will collect names to be put in the lottery. Walker said she will collect names until Wednesday, December 1. In addition to the Firing Line program, Steibel said he also plans to tape two half-hour segments in which a select group of six or seven students will discuss free speech with the panelists. "I wouldn't normally do the student taping," he said earlier this month. "I'm trusting the impassioned feeling [on campus] will make it a livelier debate." Steibel said the student programs will be taped immediately after Firing Line, but will be aired separately on PBS stations around the country sometime later in December. Steibel said Interim President Claire Fagin came up with the idea of taping a show on free speech on campus. "I am delighted that Firing Line is coming here to talk about this," Fagin said. "Penn doesn't by any means have a monopoly on freedom of speech, but [it has] certainly been a major focus lately."

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