The Strike is a feature documentary that tells the story of a generation of California men who endured decades of solitary confinement and, against all odds, launched the largest hunger strike in U.S. history. 

Sponsored by the Black Law Students Association, UO Law's Public Law and Policy Program and Legal Studies Program, and the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics. 

Free and open to the public. 

UO Libraries has partnered with the UO’s Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics to launch an annual lecture series in honor of University of Oregon alumnus and retired U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio. The DeFazio Annual Lecture promotes public knowledge of politics, governance, civic engagement, and social history by spotlighting esteemed speakers with expertise in the policy areas that DeFazio advanced during his congressional career.  

Please join us for the inaugural lecture delivered by E.J. Dionne Jr., nationally recognized journalist and political commentator for The Washington Post. Dionne is a distinguished government professor at Georgetown University, a visiting professor at Harvard University, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a frequent commentator on politics for National Public Radio and MSNBC. 

The DeFazio Annual Lecture is made possible through partnership with the UO’s Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics and by generous support from the Coquille Indian Tribe. 

This event is free and open to the community. Please plan to arrive early, as seating may be limited.

Learn more by visiting: https://library.uoregon.edu/rep-peter-defazio-annual-lecture

Chloe Thurston, Northwestern; and Emily Zackin, Johns Hopkins; will discuss their forthcoming book. The Political Development of American Debt Relief traces how geographic, sectoral, and racial politics shaped debtor activism over time, enhancing our understanding of state-building, constitutionalism, and social policy.

Will Jones, professor of history at the University of Minnesota, will deliver the Bob Bussel Labor History Lecture on April 24, 2025.

The UO Labor Education and Research Center (LERC) created the lecture in recognition of Bob Bussel’s years of service as LERC’s director and an affiliated member of the UO history department.  The lecture features historians with a distinguished record of scholarship, a commitment to public history, and an interest in labor and working-class issues.  Will Jones is a professor of history at the University of Minnesota with a particular interest in issues of race and class.  Professor Jones is the author of two books and numerous articles on labor and working-class history.  He is also a past president of the Labor and Working-Class History Association.

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He also chairs the Hoover Institution Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and is the principal investigator of the Global Digital Policy Incubator, part of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. Diamond has served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and advised and lectured to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other agencies dealing with governance and development. His books include In Search of Democracy (2016), and The Spirit of Democracy (2008). He has edited or coedited some fifty books on democratic development around the world.

Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. He is also director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His latest book, Liberalism and Its Discontents, was published in May 2022.

This event is sponsored by the School of Global Studies and Languages, Global Studies Institute in the Division of Global Engagement, Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, and the Department of Political Science.

Free and open to the public. 

Danielle Allen, 2024-25 Wayne Morse Chair, is a political theorist, professor at Harvard University and an advocate for democracy. Her acclaimed book, Our Declaration, offers a profound analysis of American democratic principles. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Allen contributed crucial insights on equitable policy responses and effective governance. Allen recieved the Kluge Prize, which recognizes work in disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prizes, in 2020. In 2022, she ran for Governor of Massachusetts, emphasizing the need for systemic reform and inclusivity in state government. She writes a column on constitutional democracy for the Washington Post.

Sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics as part of its 2023-25 theme, Defending Democracy. Cosponsored by the UO Office of the President.