Frank Askin
Professor, Rutgers University School of Law - Newark
Campaign Finance
Does the First Amendment guarantee of Freedom of Speech mean that the government is prohibited from restricting the use of business corporations’ treasury funds to influence the electoral process? How about non-profit corporations such as NARAL (Pro-Choice America) or the National Rifle Association?
Frank Askin
Professor, Rutgers University School of Law - Newark
Civil Liberties and National Security
Does Benjamin Franklin's statement that "they who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" still have relevance in the Age of Terrorism? Or is it necessary to sacrifice some of our traditional liberties in the interest of national security in the nuclear age?
Frank Askin
Professor, Rutgers University School of Law - Newark
War and the Constitution
When the Founders placed the power to declare war with Congress in Article I of the Constitution and made the President Commander-in-Chief in Article II, does that give the President the authority to order military action without a Congressional Declaration? What did Jefferson mean when he wrote to James Madison that the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had "chained the dog of war"?
Cathy Bao Bean
Author, Educational Consultant, retired philosophy professor
Justice for All?
What are the cultural values and ideas that would make “justice” for individuals to be more important than what happens to the “all” as a result? Or vice versa so that “justice” is better achieved when the effect on the “all” is given preference? In other words, can a nation be seriously multicultural without also diversifying what “justice for all” means? If so, how?
Helen G. Brudner, Ph.D.
Associate Director, School of Political and International Studies, Fairleigh Dickinson University
Challenges to Privacy and the Constitution
A discussion of the possible impact of modern technology, biotechnology, educational technology and environmental concerns on individual rights of privacy. Is your home your castle? Does your freedom end where my nose begins? Can society test you blood, your genes and your intelligence in the name of the common good? These are just a few of the questions this talk seeks to address.
Linda E. Fisher
Professor of Law, Seton Hall University
What's Justice Got to Do with It? Responsibility for the Subprime Meltdown
The current financial crisis has given rise to a great deal of finger-pointing – who is to blame for the defaulted mortgages that led to a worldwide financial meltdown? Was it subprime borrowers who obtained mortgages exceeding their ability to pay? Was it banks that sought out mortgages to securitize and failed to verify creditworthiness? Investors who looked only for high rates of return? This lecture will address these questions and others in an attempt to get beyond the name-calling and examine underlying issues of justice and responsibility. For instance, should caveat emptor ("let the buyer beware") still be the governing rule in financial transactions? If multiple parties are each partially responsible, how should blame be apportioned? What do basic notions of fairness have to do with these issues?
William Gillette, Ph.D.
Professor of History, Rutgers University
New Jersey's Modern Politics
A survey of the state’s politics and governmental institutions under the Constitution of 1947. In particular, New Jersey’s modern governors will be surveyed.
Milton Heumann, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Rutgers University
Speech and Hate Speech: Conflict Within the First Amendment
Ought we to proscribe certain categories of speech? The speaker provides criteria and examples of sanctionable speech under various college codes and asks: Under what conditions are words so inherently wrong/bad/dangerous that they ought to be forbidden?
Milton Heumann, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Rutgers University
The Supreme Court in the Democratic System
To paraphrase the Rev. Falwell: “Should we have nine old folks overriding what is democratically decided?" How can we reconcile a Supreme Court with democratic principles? Is there a real tension? Should the Court “oppose” popular preferences with respect to the death penalty, abortion and prayer in school? This lecture raises these and other questions and involves participants in arriving at answers.
American Historical Theatre
A nonprofit organization specializing in first-person living history presentations.
Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a Woman?
This program tells the story of Isabella Baumfree, who changed her name to Sojourner Truth and walked through Long Island and Connecticut, preaching “God’s truth and plan for salvation.” After months of travel, she arrived in Northampton, Massachusetts, and joined “The Northampton Association of Education and Industry," a utopian community where she met and worked with abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass.
Beth Kiyoko Jamieson
Lecturer, Political Science, Princeton University
Jail the Innocent or Free the Guilty? The Politics of Crime and Punishment in the U.S.
The power of the state to keep us safe is most visible when it is used to incarcerate law-breakers. This lecture will describe the decisions that must be made before a person's freedom is denied, and will provide several vivid examples of situations in which those calculations are complex. How certain of guilt must we be to justify punishment? Are there limits to the punishment we may impose? In an imperfect criminal justice system, how many errors can we tolerate? Discussion will cover questions of capital punishment, torture as a tactic of information-gathering, and the moral dues we owe to the wrongly convicted.
Beth Kiyoko Jamieson
Lecturer, Political Science, Princeton University
Racial Preferences, Reparations and Questions of Justice
Affirmative action debates address questions of political, economic, and educational fairness. This program examines what the courts have decided, what legislators have tried to do, and how we might think about this complex political issue.
Beth Kiyoko Jamieson
Lecturer, Political Science, Princeton University
The Politics of Marriage
Contemporary debates about same-sex marriage raise questions about the foundations of legal marriage itself. Why is the state in the marriage business? What are the connections between religious marriage and legal marriage? Is marriage a just institution? Using examples pulled from the headlines, the courtrooms, and history, we will explore the dimensions of this debate.
Charles F. McSorley
Independent historian; member, American Political Items Collectors
The Suffragette Movement: How Women Won the Vote
This lecture and slide presentation uses humorous (and not so humorous) postcards and memorabilia to offer insight into how American women were regarded as they struggled to win the right to vote.
Richard Schwartz
Social Studies Coordinator, Whippany Park High School
From Racial Conservative to Racial Progressive: Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln began his presidency as an opponent of slavery's expansion and an opponent of slavery; as early as 1854 he had spoken of the "monstrous injustice of slavery itself." But during his first years in the White House he approached the "peculiar institution" in conservative fashion. How and why did Lincoln change with time, and is his reputation as "The Great Emancipator" well-deserved? What did he do--and not do--about the monstrous injustice of slavery?
Deborah Yaffe
Freelance Writer/Journalist
Other People's Children: Abbott v. Burke and New Jersey's Struggle Over Equity in Education
How much is a rich society required to spend on the education of the poor? How much inequality can we tolerate in our schools? If some children have fewer educational opportunities than others, is the United States still the country we imagine it to be – a place where anyone who works hard can succeed? In courtrooms, schoolhouses and legislative chambers, New Jerseyans have spent 40 years arguing these questions, as the long-running school finance lawsuit Abbott v. Burke helped reshape the state’s political, educational and economic landscape. A new governor, a new school finance law and a new economic landscape have left Abbott’s status unclear, but the issues the case raises remain as relevant as ever. In this engaging, non-technical lecture, the author of Other People’s Children: The Battle for Justice and Equality in New Jersey’s Schools puts the complex issue of school funding in historical and human context, examining the themes that recurred repeatedly during years of conflict and profiling the people caught up in the struggle.
