Tuesday, November 12, 2024 6:30pm to 8:30am
About this Event
Patricia Timmons-Goodson, Dean and Chief Academic Officer of North Carolina Central University School of Law, will deliver the annual Stone Memorial Lecture at the Stone Center. This event will take place on Thursday, November 14th at 6:00PM.
Timmons-Goodson’s professional career in North Carolina represents more than three decades of unflinching and powerfully effective public service.
Timmons-Goodson earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1976, a Juris Doctor from its School of Law in 1979, and a Master of Judicial Studies in 2014 from Duke University School of Law.
Timmons-Goodson currently serves as the Dean and Chief Academic Officer of North Carolina Central University School of Law. After serving as a prosecutor, legal aid lawyer, trial and intermediate appellate judge, Timmons-Goodson was appointed to the Supreme Court of North Carolina by Governor Michael Easley. She will always be due special notice in the history books as the fourth woman and the first African American woman to sit on North Carolina’s highest court. She served twenty-eight years in the judiciary prior to her retirement from the Supreme Court in 2012.
In July 2014, President Barack Obama appointed Timmons-Goodson a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights and later designated her Vice Chair. The independent, bipartisan, fact-finding federal agency is charged with informing the development of national civil rights policy and enhancing federal enforcement of national civil rights laws.
President Obama further demonstrated his confidence in Timmons-Goodson by nominating her to serve as an Article III judge in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Though she was denied the necessary Senate hearings, her family remains justly proud of the nomination.
In recognition of her service to her alma mater and State of North Carolina, Timmons-Goodson has received among other awards the UNC-Chapel Hill General Alumni Association Distinguished Alumni and Harvey Beach Awards, the William R. Davie Award, and the UNC School of Law Distinguished Alumna Award. She holds honorary degrees from Johnson C. Smith University, St. Augustine’s College, and UNC-Chapel Hill.