The
Phoebe
R. Berman Bioethics Institute will host the fourth
Robert H. Levi Lecture in Bioethics and Public Policy at 7
p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 20, in 110 Hodson Hall on the
Homewood campus.
The speaker is Kenneth R. Feinberg, special master of
the Sept. 11th Victim Compensation Fund, who will discuss
his experiences administering the program that offered
victims of the attacks and their surviving family members
an alternative to litigation.
As special master, Feinberg managed all claims brought
by the victims and their families and disseminated all
public information concerning the fund. He will discuss his
duties within the claims process and will share stories
about his interaction with relatives and friends of victims
of the attack and survivors who were injured.
Focusing on the practical and emotional difficulties
of running this "deceptively simple but hideously complex"
program, he will address these major issues:
Should families of high-salary
decedents receive more money than families of low-salary
decedents and, if so, how much more?
Should families of people who died
on Sept. 11 be treated differently than families of people
who died during other attacks, such as the Oklahoma City
bombing?
If another similar attack happens,
should Congress enact a similar fund?
He also will explore several legal issues that arose
from the way in which the fund was developed and
executed.
Feinberg is an attorney and one of the nation's
leading experts in mediation and alternative dispute
resolution. He has been a court-appointed special
settlement master on numerous cases, most recently as one
of three arbitrators selected to determine the fair market
value of the original Zapruder film of the Kennedy
assassination and as one of two arbitrators selected to
determine the allocation of legal fees in the Holocaust
slave labor litigation.
The Robert H. Levi Lecture in Bioethics and Public
Policy was established in 1997 in honor of the late Robert
H. Levi, an alumnus and trustee of both The Johns Hopkins
University and Hospital. His wife, Ryda, and his three
children, Richard Levi, Alex Levi and Sandra Levi Gerstung,
designed the Robert H. Levi Leadership Program in Bioethics
and Public Policy. Alex Levi is currently a member of the
university board of trustees and the Phoebe R. Berman
Bioethics Institute national advisory board. The program is
designed to inspire intensive moral discussion about
critical issues in social policy and medicine.
The lecture will be followed by a reception. For more
information, contact Stephanie Davis at 410-516-0415 or rdavis@jhu.edu.