Social Justice

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.

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."

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.

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."

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."

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.

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.

Strang is co-founder of StrangBradley, LLC, and is an adjunct professor at Marquette University Law School, the University of Wisconsin Law School, and University of Wisconsin’s Division of Continuing Studies. The author of “Worse than the Devil: Anarchists, Clarence Darrow, and Justice in a Time of Terror” will publish his second book in 2018.

Claudia Rankine’s book of prose poetry, Citizen: An American Lyric, is about as timely a study on what it means to be an African American living in a white world can be. On Monday, Sept. 21, Rankine, author of Washington University's First Year Reading Selection, Citizen: An American Lyric, will discuss her work and read passages from her book at 7 p.m. in Graham Chapel.

Former White House environmental adviser, CNN political commentator and social entrepreneur Van Jones opened the fall 2016 Assembly Series at Washington University.

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.

In 2015 Packnett was recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s “12 New Faces of Black Leadership,” an honor that helped introduce her to the national news media. That same year, Packnett helped launch two social justice organizations: We the Protesters, and Campaign Zero.

Pioneering urban ethnographer and cultural theorist Elijah Anderson is the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Sociology at Yale University, where he also directs the Urban Ethnography Project. He is one of the nation’s most influential scholars in the field of urban inequality, cultural sociology and race relations, and has authored a number of seminal publications in the field.

Julian Bond was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement and activist for social equality and liberty for all people. On (insert date) 2011, he delivered his lecture “Post Racial America: Fact or Fiction.”

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."

For her dedication as a judge, Van den Wyngaert, a native of Antwerp, Belgium, was ennobled in 2013 as a baroness by King Albert II of Belgium.

“The anthropological concept of culture is extremely important and often misunderstood because many of the things that are assumed to be biologically determined, like criminality or homosexuality or IQ, are really behaviorally and societally defined.” This quote from Robert W. Sussman, PhD, professor of physical anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, forms the basis for his Phi Beta Kappa/Sigma Xi Lecture. “The Importance of the Concept of Culture to Science and Society,” part of the university’s Assembly Series, will be held at 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 9, in Steinberg Hall Auditorium.

Hopwood’s memoir, “Law Man” will be available for purchase at the book signing immediately following his presentation.

The 2014 Holocaust Memorial Lecturer, David Shneer, delivered a presentation called “Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War and the Holocaust,” on November 4 in Wilson Hall Room 214. Shneer used photography as a new way of considering issues of Russian Jewish history, Yiddish culture, the diaspora, and the Holocaust.