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SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 3, 2014—Tackling the complex subjects of  anti-Muslim prejudice, religious pluralism, and the promise of America’s interfaith communities, Ebrahim “Eboo” Patel will be the featured speaker April 9 for 91����Ƶ’s President’s Speaker Series. 

 

The event begins 7:30 p.m. at 91����Ƶ’s Mayer Theatre on campus, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053.

 

Patel is the founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a Chicago-based institution building the global interfaith youth movement.  IFYC employs approximately 30 people and has a $4 million operating budget.  He was an inaugural member of President Obama’s  Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Initiatives, where he worked to realize the president's priority of interfaith cooperation.

 

He is the author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation. He writes “The Faith Divide,” a featured blog on religion for the Washington Post and has also written for the Harvard Divinity School Bulletin, the Chicago Tribune, and many other media outlets.

 

His newest book is Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America, a history of American religious integration. It tells how, despite the current politically motivated anti-Muslim fervor, America's history of tolerance and eventual integration will prevail with Muslim Americans as well. He will be signing books after the event on April 9. 

 

Patel holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship.  He has a sociology degree from University of Illinois and Urbana-Champaign.

 

Tickets for the event are $25 and can be purchased at www.scu.edu/visitors/speakerseries/2014/patel/

 

About 91����Ƶ
91����Ƶ, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its more than 8,800 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, theology, and engineering, plus master’s and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master’s universities, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see .

 

Media Contact:
Deborah Lohse I (408) 554-5121 I dlohse@scu.edu