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ROCK HILL A professor who gained notoriety with repeated mentions on Fox News’ Glenn Beck show will be at Winthrop University on Thursday, discussing American politics, social movements and the nation’s welfare system.
Frances Fox Piven, political science and sociology professor at the graduate school and university center of the City University of New York, will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Richardson Ballroom in the DiGiorgio Campus Center. The event is free and open to the public.
The New York Times wrote about Piven in 2011 when the notoriety she gathered from Beck’s show took a dark turn, with some people saying the professor’s life was in danger because of Beck’s TV and radio show broadcasts.
An article she and her husband co-wrote in 1966 grabbed Beck’s attention in 2010 when the TV personality put Piven on his “Tree of Revolution.”
The article was about poverty in America and a proposal to organize a grass-roots attempt to reform the welfare program by overwhelming the system.
Piven has received lifetime achievement awards in three disciplines and stood behind former President Bill Clinton during the signing of the National Voter Registration Act – known as the “Motor-Voter” bill.
Her Winthrop visit is sponsored by the university’s John C. West Forum on Politics and Policy.
