Star Trek Icon George Takei to Speak at UCSD

(Gage Skidmore / Creative Commons)

Actor and civil rights activist George Takei will give the DeWitt Higgs Memorial Lecture in the Price Center West Ballroom at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 26.

The DeWitt Higgs Memorial Lecture at UC San Diego is sponsored by the UCSD Law and Society program, Warren College, and the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at California Western School of Law. Each lecture is devoted to a topic in the field of Law and Society. In the past, the Higgs Memorial Lecture has had notable speakers, such as Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom and American Law Professor and First Amendment scholar Geoffrey Stone.

Takei became famous for playing Mr. Sulu on the original Star Trek series in the 1960s. He was inducted into the Hollywood Hall of Fame in 1986. He recently starred in the Broadway show Allegiance, which was about his personal experiences during Japanese internment and World War II.

In an article he wrote about Japanese internment, Takei said, “It was normal to stand each day in our makeshift classroom, reciting the words to the Pledge of Allegiance, ‘With liberty and justice for all,’ as I looked past the U.S. flag out the window, the barbed wire of the camp just visible behind it.”

Takei has been a lifelong civil rights activist and serves as a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign’s “Coming Out Project.” Takei notably came out as gay in 2005 and revealed his 18-year relationship with his husband, Brad Takei, after former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed same sex marriage legislation.

Takei’s lecture, titled “Where No Story Has Gone Before,” is expected to discuss his internment during World War II and his career as an actor and political activist.

Undergraduates will be admitted free of charge, but graduate students, faculty, and staff are allowed to buy one ticket and one guest ticket for $20 each. Guest tickets can be used on members of the general public. Tickets will be posted on the Higgs Memorial Lecture website on April 9.

Ethan Coston is a staff writer for The Triton. You can follow him @Ethan4Books