EVANSTON, Ill. — Students at Northwestern University will get a chance to ask Rod Blagojevich questions next week, when the disgraced former governor speaks to faculty and students at an event titled “Ethics in Politics: An evening with Former Governor Rod Blagojevich.”
The event, sponsored by Northwestern’s College Democrats, will be held at 7 p.m. March 2 at Cahn Auditorium in Evanston, according to the student newspaper, The Daily Northwestern.
“A conversation about ethics and politics is important to have,” Dan Rockoff, vice president of programming for College Democrats told the newspaper.
“There isn’t a better person out there to discuss this than former Governor Rod Blagojevich.”
Rockoff said corruption was a major issue during the Illinois primary election earlier this month, especially because four of the last eight Illinois governor have been indicted, including Blagojevich.
Blagojevich is scheduled to go on trial this summer on federal corruption charges. He is charged with substantive racketeering, attempted extortion of a U.S. Congressman, bribery of Children’s Memorial Hospital and a racetrack executive, and other charges, mostly related to his alleged attempt to sell President Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat.
Blagojevich will be given 15 minutes to plead his case to a panel of Northwestern faculty members, including a law professor, a political science professor and a journalism professor.
After he speaks to the faculty panel, students will have a chance to ask Blagojevich questions.
“Our belief is that students at Northwestern are interested in debating this issue,” Rockoff said. “They will be interested to see this kind of dialogue.”
An invitation to the event has been posted on Facebook and as of Tuesday afternoon, 475 people had responded they were planning to attend.
Tickets for the event were set to go on sale at the school later this week and 1,000 free tickets were to be made available to the Northwestern community.
Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.
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