It's Time to Talk 2009 Keynote Speaker

Valarie Kaur, Award-winning Filmmaker, Writer, and Lecturer

A third-generation Sikh American born and raised in Clovis, California, Valarie is a writer, public speaker and lecturer in religion and ethics and an award-winning film maker. She presently studies the intersections between religion and law at the Yale Law School. Valarie also serves as founding director of the Discrimination and National Security Initiative at the Harvard Pluralism Project.

As a Harvard Presidential Scholar, she recently received her master's in theological studies at Harvard Divinity School. For more than five years, she created, wrote, produced, and developed the first feature-length documentary film on hate violence in post-9/11 America - Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath.

Valarie began the journey to create Divided We Fall as an undergraduate at Stanford University, where she earned bachelor's degrees in religious studies and international relations. She began the journey to make Divided We Fall on Sept. 15, 2001 in response to the murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a turbaned Sikh American her family knew. Balbir Singh Sodhi was the first of at least 19 people murdered in post-9/11 hate crime.

At Stanford she also taught courses on philosophy, religion, and created the school's first-ever course in Sikh studies. Her honors at Stanford included the Howard Garfield Award in Religion, the Haas School Public Service Scholar, the Asian American Leadership Award, the Beinecke Scholarship, and selection as graduation speaker for her class. She won Stanford's Golden Medal for her honors thesis on post-9/11 America, which eventually became Divided We Fall.

The world premiere of Divided We Fall in September 2006 sent Valarie on a packed international speaking and screening tour which continues today. She has been invited as an authority on the subject at more than one hundred universities, colleges, and religious centers across the country. She has been featured in print, radio and television media including CNN, NPR, the BBC, and Frances Moore Lappe's book You Have the Power: Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear. The State of California recently presented Valarie with an official commendation recognizing her work as a scholar, activist, and storyteller.