National Issues

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.”

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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, 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.

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, 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

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.