A panel discussion featuring Koa Beck, editor-in-chief of Jezebel; Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate; Zerlina Maxwell, senior director of Progressive Programming for SiriusXM; Gabriel Sherman, special correspondent for Vanity Fair; and Genevieve Roth, Shorenstein Fellow (moderator). Cosponsored by the Women and Public Policy Program and Harvard IOP.
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Read coverage of the event in The Harvard Gazette.
Koa Beck is the editor-in-chief of Jezebel and a contributor to WNYC’s The Takeaway. Her literary criticism and reporting on gender, LGBTQ issues, culture, and race have appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Observer, The Guardian, and Esquire, among others. Her short stories have been published in Slice, Kalyani Magazine, and Apogee Journal. Koa has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and serves on the board of directors of Nat.Brut, an art and literary magazine. She is the former executive editor of Vogue.com and the former senior features editor at MarieClaire.com. Koa lives with her wife in Brooklyn, NY.
Dahlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate, and in that capacity, has been writing their “Supreme Court Dispatches” and “Jurisprudence” columns since 1999. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and Commentary, among other places. She is also host of Amicus, Slate’s biweekly podcast about the law and the Supreme Court. Lithwick earned her BA in English from Yale University and her JD degree from Stanford University. She is co-author of Me Versus Everybody (with Brandt Goldstein) and of I Will Sing Life (with Larry Berger). In 2017, Lithwick was the recipient of a Golden Pen Award from the Legal Writing Institute; the Virginia Bar Association’s award for Excellence in Legal Journalism; and the 2017 award for Outstanding Journalist in Law from the Burton Foundation for a distinguished career in journalism in law. Lithwick won a 2013 National Magazine Award for her columns on the Affordable Care Act. She has been twice awarded an Online Journalism Award for her legal commentary. Lithwick has held visiting faculty positions at the University of Georgia Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, and the Hebrew University Law School in Jerusalem.
Zerlina Maxwell is the senior director of Progressive Programming for SiriusXM. She is also the co-host of the radio show Signal Boost with Jess McIntosh. She was formerly the director of progressive media for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. She worked in the campaign’s press shop pitching coverage to progressive media outlets and curating daily messaging for online influencers. She also acted as a campaign spokesperson for the Presidential Debates. She is currently an MSNBC political analyst, speaker, and writer for a variety of national media outlets. Her writing focuses on national politics, candidates, and the intersection between pop culture and politics, as well as specific policy and culture issues including race, feminism, domestic violence, sexual assault, victim blaming and gender inequality. She has a law degree from Rutgers Law School – Newark and a B.A. in International Relations from Tufts University.
Gabriel Sherman is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair. He is the author of The Loudest Voice in the Room, a New York Times best-selling biography of Fox News founder Roger Ailes, which is currently being adapted into a limited series for Showtime. Previously, Sherman served as national affairs editor at New York magazine. He is a regular contributor to NBC News and MSNBC.
Genevieve Roth (moderator) is currently a fellow at the Shorenstein Center, focusing on the impact of culture on social change. She is a founding partner of Invisible Hand, a social impact and events agency that focuses on the intersection of media, women’s empowerment, and social justice. Before founding Invisible Hand, Roth was the director of creative engagement for Hillary for America. From 2011 to 2016, she was the executive director of special projects at Glamour, where she was responsible for producing the magazine’s Women of the Year Awards. In 2014, she cofounded and served as director of The Girl Project, Glamour’s global philanthropic initiative that aims to increase girls’ access to education.
