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DANBURY, CONN. — Lawyer and writer Kenji Yoshino takes an updated look at civil rights.

Current civil rights law, Yoshino notes, protects groups of people against obvious discrimination. But U.S. laws continue to reflect a societal bias against differences from the norm. And, he argues, nearly everyone is affected; people downplay personality traits to fit in at work, at school, or in other social spheres.

Yoshino’s examples include Jewish men who don’t wear yarmulkes to work, African American women who shun cornrows as a hairstyle, disabled people who try to hide their disability and gay people who are discouraged from engaging in public displays of affection.

Yoshino will speak in a Diversity Lecture Series talk at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 8, in the Student Center Theater on the Western Connecticut State University Midtown campus, 181 White St. in Danbury.

Yoshino’s latest book is titled “Covering,” which is a term coined by sociologist Erving Goffman for the method people use to “tone down” stigmatized identities.

“Because everyone is outside of the mainstream in some way, we all experience pressure to cover,” Yoshino said. “Famous examples of covering are all around us: Ramón Estévez covered his ethnicity when he changed his name to Martin Sheen, as did Krishna Bhanji when he changed his name to Ben Kingsley. Margaret Thatcher covered as a woman when she went to a voice coach to lower the pitch of her voice. Helen Keller had her natural eyes (one of which protruded) replaced with brilliant blue glass ones. FDR always made sure he was behind a desk before his Cabinet entered to ensure that his wheelchair was hidden.

“So a person with an X identity can cover by making sure he doesn’t look like a stereotypical X, disaffiliating himself from X culture, not engaging in activism about X causes, and distancing himself from other Xs,” Yoshino said.

Yoshino is the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at the New York University School of Law. Prior to moving to NYU, he was the inaugural Guido Calabresi Professor of Law and Deputy Dean of Intellectual Life at Yale Law School, where he taught from 1998 to 2008. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, took a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, and earned his law degree at Yale Law School. A specialist in constitutional law, antidiscrimination law, and law and literature, Yoshino has published in major academic journals, such as the Columbia Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal. He has also written extensively in other popular venues, such as The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. He has appeared on “The Charlie Rose Show,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Washington Journal”, and “The Tavis Smiley Show.” He currently is working on a book on Shakespeare and the Law.

His WestConn lecture is sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Affirmative Action. Admission will be free and open to the public.

For more information, call the Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486.

Western Connecticut State University offers outstanding faculty in a range of quality academic programs. Our diverse university community provides students an enriching and supportive environment that takes advantage of the unique cultural offerings of Western Connecticut and New York. Our vision: To be an affordable public university with the characteristics of New England’s best small private universities.