“Freedom at Risk: Church and State at Home and Abroad” will be addressed by The Rev. Oliver S. “Buzz” Thomas in East Tennessee State University’s Dr. Roy S. Nicks Distinguished Lecture Series on Thursday, March 27, at 7 p.m. in the D.P. Culp University Center ballroom.
Thomas, an educator, minister and attorney, is executive director of the Niswonger Foundation and one of the nation’s leading experts on religious liberty and the separation of church and state.
He graduated first in his class at both the University of Tennessee, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa honor society, and the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where he earned a master of divinity and was chosen as the school’s outstanding divinity student.
He also earned his doctor of jurisprudence degree from the UT College of Law and his master of law from the University of Virginia.
As a minister, Thomas served churches in Tennessee and Louisiana.
As an attorney, he has practiced at every level of state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court, representing such clients as the National Council of Churches, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Children’s Defense Fund.
He has appeared as an expert witness before the Judiciary Committees of the U.S. Congress on numerous occasions.
As an educator, Thomas taught First Amendment law at the Georgetown University Law Center and has lectured at such institutions as Harvard and Notre Dame, as well as Pat Robertson’s Regent University.
More recently, he served as chair of the Maryville Board of Education, Tennessee’s top-ranked school system, and has provided First Amendment training to teachers and administrators in hundreds of school districts from North Carolina to California.
Thomas is co-author of “The Right to Religious Liberty,” the American Civil Liberties Union handbook on the law of church and state, and “Finding Common Ground,” a First Amendment handbook endorsed by the Department of Education and used in many of the nation’s public schools.
He is also the author of “10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can’t Because He Needs the Job).”
His articles have appeared in a variety of national publications, and he has been a guest commentator on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, C-Span and National Public Radio.
The annual Nicks Lecture is named in honor of Dr. Roy S. Nicks, former ETSU president and chancellor emeritus of the Tennessee Board of Regents.
The Nicks Endowment fund and its lecture series were established to “encourage the fellowship of people and exchange of ideas on issues relevant to the improvement of the educational system,” while also providing high-quality professional development and intellectual stimulation.
This free public event is co-sponsored by the ETSU Claudius G. Clemmer College of Education, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, Educational Leadership Association, and Student Government Association B.U.C. Fund.
For more information or for special assistance for those with disabilities, call the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at (423) 439-4430.

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