Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Jay Rosenstein film receives Peabody Award

“The Lord Is Not On Trial Here Today,” a documentary produced by UI journalism professor Jay Rosenstein, in partnership with WILL-TV, was one of the winners of the 70th Annual Peabody Awards, announced last week.

The awards committee said: “A beautifully researched documentary by a Champaign, Illinois, station, it examines a First Amendment case critical to the establishment of separation of church and state in public schools.”

The film tells the personal story of Vashti McCollum’s lawsuit against the Champaign public school system after her son, Jim, was abused by classmates and punished by the school for not taking part in a voluntary Protestant religion class. After she lost in lower court decisions, she won a resounding 8-1 decision in the U.S. Supreme Court, establishing the foundation for the separation of church and state in public schools.

Rosenstein said he was stunned and humbled by the recognition provided by the award. “I am thrilled that this award will help a new generation of Americans learn about the inspirational story and courage of the late Vashti McCollum,” he said.

The documentary also recently won a 2011 Gracie Award for Outstanding Documentary from the Alliance for Women in Media, and also won two regional Emmy Awards (Mid-America Region), a CINE Golden Eagle, the Broadcast Education Association’s Best of Competition Award in the faculty long-form documentary division, and a bronze Telly Award in the documentary category.

Rosenstein’s production debuted in October 2010 on WILL-TV, and is scheduled for national broadcast by PBS during May. The complete broadcast schedule will be available on the film’s website at www.thelordisnotontrial.com.  

 

Read Next

Life sciences Photo of Michael Ward standing in tall grass on a riverbank.

How are migrating wild birds affected by H5N1 infection in the U.S.?

Each spring, roughly 3.5 billion wild birds migrate from their warm winter havens to their breeding grounds across North America, eating insects, distributing plant seeds and providing a variety of other ecosystem services to stopping sites along the way. Some also carry diseases like avian influenza, a worry for agricultural, environmental and public health authorities. […]

Announcements Marcelo Garcia, professor of civil and environmental engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering.

Illinois faculty member elected to National Academy of Engineering

Champaign, Ill. — Marcelo Garcia, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Social sciences Male and female student embracing on the quad with flowering redbud tree and the ACES library in the background. Photo by Michelle Hassel

Dating is not broken, but the trajectories of relationships have changed

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — According to some popular culture writers and online posts by discouraged singles lamenting their inability to find romantic partners, dating is “broken,” fractured by the social isolation created by technology, pandemic lockdowns and potential partners’ unrealistic expectations. Yet two studies of college students conducted a decade apart found that their ideas about […]

Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

507 E. Green St
MC-426
Champaign, IL 61820

Email: stratcom@illinois.edu

Phone (217) 333-5010