Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt served as First Lady from 1933 – 1945. She was also a politician, diplomat and activist. The first of two lectures Roosevelt presented here, in 1954, was titled, “The United Nations: Our Strongest Ally.”

Tom Coleman and Russ Carnahan

Tom Coleman and Russ Carnahan

This discussion focused on the topics of voting rights and the threats facing American democracy and featured former U.S. congressmen Russ Carnahan, a Democrat from St. Louis, and Tom Coleman, a Republican from Kansas City.

Kristin Henning

Kristin Henning

Georgetown Law Professor Kristin Henning joined Daniel Harawa (WashU Law) to discuss her new book, Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth.

Danielle Allen

Danielle Allen

Distinguished political theorist, Danielle Allen, gave a presentation that challenged common assumptions about both the founding of the United States and the implications of the Declaration of Independence.

Panel of Speakers

Panel of Speakers

In a session titled “Inclusive Growth in St. Louis: Embracing Inclusive Leadership,” a panel of experts from different sectors discussed strategies to create inclusive and meaningful leadership.

Panel of Speakers

Panel of Speakers

This two-part discussion, titled “Creating Inclusive Access to Education, Training & Technology,” featured leaders from various sectors addressing how to create more equitable access to education, training and technology in our community.

Rev. Traci Blackmon, David Campbell, Rev. Serene Jones, Rabbi Rolando Matalon and Iman Eldin Susa

Rev. Traci Blackmon, David Campbell, Rev. Serene Jones, Rabbi Rolando Matalon and Iman Eldin Susa

Americans today are deeply divided. Religion has played a crucial role in promoting conflict and polarization, yet religious communities are an essential part of bridging current social and political divides. This panel of religious leaders and experts explored ways that religious communities might become spaces that bridge divides, rather than make them deeper — bridge building that is located in a larger sense of civic engagement and community.

Zareena Grewal

Zareena Grewal

The Quran is one of the most iconic objects in American debates about racial and religious tolerance. Is the Quran a “good book”? Is it like the Bible and other scriptures? Or is its message more violent, more misogynistic, more intolerant? Or is the danger in the power readers ascribe to the book?

Susan Stokes

Susan Stokes

Stokes presented a public lecture entitled, “Is ‘Direct Democracy’ Good for Democracy? The Logic(s) of Referendums.” Stokes is the Faculty Chair of the Chicago Center on Democracy, where she guides the strategy and direction of the center.

John C. Danforth and Matt Malone

John C. Danforth and Matt Malone

People of faith in the U.S. today are as politically polarized as other Americans, prompting painful breakdowns in personal relationships and communities. What would it take to accept responsibility for actively healing these political and religious divisions, activating solutions rather than continuing assaults?

John C. Danforth, former U.S. Senator from Missouri; Matt Malone, president and editor-in-chief, America Media

Abbe Smith

Abbe Smith

Smith, noted criminal defense attorney and professor of law at Georgetown University, discussed her new book, Guilty People.

Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law at Georgetown Law and director of the Criminal Defense & Prisoner Advocacy Clinic

Glenn Hubbard 

Glenn Hubbard 

Hubbard presented the Murray Weidenbaum Tribute Lecture: ‘After the Election: Recovery, Reform and Renewal.’

Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, Rev. Dr. Zandra Wagoner, Rev. Traci Blackmon, J.T. Snipes

Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, Rev. Dr. Zandra Wagoner, Rev. Traci Blackmon, J.T. Snipes

This Interfaith Week discussion titled “Faith in the Fight: Organizing Interfaith & Secular Coalitions for Racial Equity & Justice.”

Jason De Leon

Jason De Leon

The 2019 Holocaust Memorial Lecture featured a presentation by Jason De León, professor of anthropology at UCLA, entitled ‘Understanding the Current Politics of Migrant Life andDeath along the U.S.-Mexico Border.’ De León uses ethnographic analysis, forensic science and archaeological research to study the lives and deaths of migrants in the Sonoran Desert.

Michelle Oberman

Michelle Oberman

Michelle Oberman, the Katharine and George Alexander Professor of Law at Santa Clara University, presented on the battle over abortion law.

Karine Jean-Pierre

Karine Jean-Pierre

The Nov. 10, 2019 finale of the Blacks in America: 400 Years Plus trilogy, featured Karine Jean-Pierre, NBC and MSNBC Political Analyst. This event, a University Libraries’ Mary Curtis Horowitz Lecture for Civic Engagement and Social Policy, was part of a three-part trilogy to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Africans in the United States.

Eddie Glaude

Eddie Glaude

Eddie Glaude, theJames S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and frequent MSNBC contributor, offered reflections on difficult truths about race and the moral crisis at the heart of American democracy.

Pepper Schwartz

Pepper Schwartz

The Me Too movement has brought a long-needed course correction to sexual harassment, sexual intimidation, and workplace sexual abuse. In this lecture, Dr. Pepper Schwartz discussed the chronology of events to understand why this has happened and examined policy dilemmas of competing values about due process, victim protection, offender punishments, and differing approaches within and outside of feminism.

Dan Tokaji

Dan Tokaji

Dan Tokaji, associate dean and the Charles W. Ebersold and Florence Whitcomb Ebersold Professor of Constitutional Law at Ohio State University, discussed‘Voting Rights, Gerrymandering, and the Uncertain Future of Democracy

Lee Epstein, Adam Liptak and Greg Magarian

Lee Epstein, Adam Liptak and Greg Magarian

For nearly a decade, it has been an annual tradition to celebrate Constitution Day at Washington University School of Law with a U.S. Supreme Court review examining some of the major cases from the Court’s last term and providing commentary on the nature of what is happening on the Court today as well as what lies ahead.

Kim Gardner

Kim Gardner

Gardner was elected St. Louis Circuit Attorney in 2017, after serving as a Missouri House Representative from the 77th District. She received national attention last year for her role inpursuing the investigation into alleged unlawful activities by Missouri governor Eric Greitens, leading to his resignation.

Wesley Bell

Wesley Bell

Ferguson Councilman Wesley Bell’s recent upset of Robert McCulloch’s 28-year-run as St. Louis County Prosecutor was a stunning victory for the underdog running on a platform to reform its criminal justice system.

Jean Peters Baker

Jean Peters Baker

Throughout her long tenure in the Jackson County prosecutor’s office, Baker has served in nearly every unit. In 2012 she was elected as its leader.

Adam Foss

Adam Foss

A brief rundown of Adam Foss’s early years shows a trajectory that aligns with his choices as an adult: Born in Columbia and adopted by an Irish-American family from Massachusetts; experienced childhood as one of color in a small town; arrested at age 19 for marijuana possession but got off easy because his father was a white police officer; was a first-generation college student; took a class on restorative justice which inspired him to seek a law degree; interned at a small municipal court in an impoverished and dangerous Boston neighborhood.

Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan

Through his several books on the growth, preparation and consumption of food, Michael Pollan has shown us the way toward food enlightenment. Now with his 8th book, he is leading us on another enlightened journey, one that holds the promise of peace of mind for millions suffering from serious mental disorders such as PTSD.

Crystal Feimster

Crystal Feimster

The historian Crystal Feimster will deliver the annual Holocaust Memorial Lecture.

Norman Ornstein

Norman Ornstein

Norman Ornstein is an American Enterprise Institute scholar and keen observer of the American political system. In his last two books, co-authored with Thomas Mann, Ornstein takes us on a historical journey to identify the roots of decline in the quality of Congressional governance, illustrates how the “politics of extremism” was born and how its growth was allowed to continue unfettered for decades until it created the political environment ripe for producing a president like no other.

David French

David French

A former major in the United States Army Reserve (IRR) French was deployed to Iraq and served in Diyala Province as Squadron Judge Advocate for the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, where he was awarded the Bronze Star.

Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney

Washington University’s School of Law will host a visit by former Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, on Monday, Feb. 27 that includes an Assembly Series presentation at 3 p.m. in Graham Chapel.

Arsalan Iftikhar

Arsalan Iftikhar

Whenever some violent lunatic snaps and claims some kind of warped justification for his murderous acts as a so-called Muslim warrior, it’s not his damaged childhood or the flood of assault weapons in America or the climate of unrelenting violence in our country that gets blamed – it’s Islam, an ancient, Abrahamic religion.” — Arsalan Iftikhar

Honorable John Paul Stevens

Honorable John Paul Stevens

Stevens objected to the court’s ruling in the 2000 election-deciding case of Bush v. Gore. The court overturned the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to order a recount of all of the state’s ballots. Joined by David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, Stevens wrote that, “Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. I respectfully dissent.”

Jack Devine

Jack Devine

Jack Devine’s talk,”The Importance and Ethics of National Intelligence,” held on September 16, 2014, served as the annual Elliot Stein Lecture. During his 30-year tenure as the CIA’s acting director of operations, Devine served as America’s top spymaster for eight presidents.

Carl Hart

Carl Hart

On October 10, 2014 Carl Hart, neuropsychopharamacologist at Columbia University, delivered the annual Chancellor’s Fellows Lecture on “Demystifying the Science of Drug Addiction: Neuroscience, Self-discovery, Race and U.S. Drug Policy.”

Carla Power

Carla Power

On April 14, 2015 at 5 p.m. in Umrath Hall Lounge, veteran journalist Carla Power talked about “Reading the Quran at Starbucks: An American Secular Feminist and a Traditional Muslim Scholar Find Commonalities.”

Catharine MacKinnon

Catharine MacKinnon

On November 14, 2013 at 12 p.m. in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom, Catharine MacKinnon, a principal architect of landmark sex equality laws in the United States, talked about “Trafficking, Prostitution, and Inequality.”

David Axelrod

David Axelrod

In a career spanning four decades, campaign strategist David Axelrod has influenced the outcomes of more than 150 Democratic campaigns, many of which were considered landmark victories. But in 2008 he orchestrated his most historic campaign, helping elect the first African-American as the 44th president of the United States. His address, part of the SU Speaker Series sponsored by the Washington University Political Review, is titled “America’s Future: Insights from a Presidential Adviser.”

Eric Schultz

Eric Schultz

As a sophomore at WashU, he served as Speaker of the Congress of the South 40. For the Assembly Series, he will share how his experiences as a student helped prepare him for a career in politics, then invite the audience to engage in a dialogue.

Jonathan Gruber

Jonathan Gruber

On October 4, 2013 at 6 p.m. in Brown Hall, Jonathan Gruber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist and renowned health care expert, talked about “Health-care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, How It Works.”

Marriage Equality Panel

Marriage Equality Panel

On February 3, 2015 at 6 p.m. in the Graham Chapel, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Residential Learning, Jill Stratton moderated a discussion on “Marriage Equality and the GOP” by a panel featuring Meghan McCain, Gregory T. Angelo and Fred Karger.

James Boyle

James Boyle

On February 29, 2012 James Boyle, the William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law and co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School talked about “Cultural Agoraphobia: Why Most of What You Know About the Internet is Wrong.”

Reza Aslan

Reza Aslan

On February 17, 2015 at 6 p.m. in Graham Chapel, Reza Aslan, delivered the Washington University Foreign Policy Engagement Lecture on faith, extremism and democracy.

Sherrilyn Ifill

Sherrilyn Ifill

On September 17, 2014 at 2 PM at the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in Anheuser-Busch Hall, Sherrilyn Ifill talked about the legacy of the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v the Board of Education and discussed how this relates to the still-present socioeconomic issues underpinning African-Americans’ anger and frustration that have surfaced in Ferguson, MO.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates

On February 18, 2015 at 7 p.m. in Graham Chapel, Ta-Nehisi Coates, senior editor for The Atlantic and well-known author, spoke on the subject of racism in the United States as part of the Washington University Political Review Lecture.

Walter Mondale

Walter Mondale

When he came to campus in 1984, the Democratic presidential candidate Walter “Fritz” Mondale was greeted by cheering students, and especially by WashU’s female students: Mondale chose the first woman, Geraldine Ferraro, as his running mate, and supported the Equal Rights Amendment.

Xavier de Souza Briggs

Xavier de Souza Briggs

On January 22, 2015 at 12 p.m. in the Brown Hall Lounge, Xavier de Souza Briggs, vice president of the Ford Foundation’s Economic Opportunity and Assets program talked about “Toward a Just and Inclusive America.”

Kenji Yoshino

Kenji Yoshino

On September 8, 2014 Kenji Yoshino, Professor of Law at NYU talked about his new book – Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights. In his book Yoshino provides readers plenty to consider about the act of “covering,” why it’s done and how it harms people’s individuality.