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Defending Democracy

2023-25 Theme of Inquiry

Join us in exploring the crisis of democracy in the United States by reckoning with problems and considering solutions.

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Eugene Friends of Farm Workers received a Wayne Morse Center Project grant to promote and host two events at the Lane County Fairgrounds on October 10, 2024.
This year, the Wayne Morse Center selected more than 70 students to participate in its programs for undergraduates, law students, and graduate students.
The Wayne Morse Center has awarded Project Grants to five organizations for 2024-2025. This program provides funding to support events and activities related to the Center’s two-year-long themes of inquiry.

Events

Event: The Roots of Polarization: From the Racial Realignment to the Culture Wars
Oct 15
The Roots of Polarization: From the Racial Realignment to the Culture Wars noon

A Morse Bookmarks event featuring Neil O'Brian, assistant professor of political science at UO.  In the late twentieth century, gay rights, immigration, gun control,...
The Roots of Polarization: From the Racial Realignment to the Culture Wars
October 15
noon
William W. Knight Law Center 110

A Morse Bookmarks event featuring Neil O'Brian, assistant professor of political science at UO. 

In the late twentieth century, gay rights, immigration, gun control, and abortion debates all burst onto the political scene, scrambling the parties and polarizing the electorate. Neil A. O’Brian traces the origins of today’s political divide on these issues to the 1960s when Democrats and Republicans split over civil rights. It was this partisan polarization over race, he argues, that subsequently shaped partisan fault lines on other culture war issues that persist to this day.

Neil O’Brian is an academic expert in U.S. politics with focus on public opinion, political parties and polarization. In May 2024, he was named a 2024 Andrew Carnegie Fellow

Event: The Future of Multiracial Democracy
Oct 29
The Future of Multiracial Democracy 5:15 p.m.

Featuring Sara Sadhwani, assistant professor of politics at Pomona College. Sadhwani specializes in Asian American and Latino voting behavior, elections, interest groups and...
The Future of Multiracial Democracy
October 29
5:15–6:45 p.m.
Knight Law Center 175

Featuring Sara Sadhwani, assistant professor of politics at Pomona College. Sadhwani specializes in Asian American and Latino voting behavior, elections, interest groups and representation. Her analysis of politics and elections has been featured in The Washington PostThe New York TimesCNNNPRBloombergPoliticoThe GuardianVoxThe Los Angeles TimesNBC NewsThe HuffPost and many more. In a voting rights case before the California Supreme Court, she coauthored an amicus brief that summarizes empirical research on the benefits of maximizing the voting strength of historically excluded communities.

Event: Post-Election Roundtable
Nov 7
Post-Election Roundtable 5:30 p.m.

Election takeaways and discussion of what comes next with a panel of election experts featuring Rep. Peter DeFazio and University of Oregon professors Alison Gash, Chandler James,...
Post-Election Roundtable
November 7
5:30–7:00 p.m.
Ford Alumni Center Giustina Ballroom

Election takeaways and discussion of what comes next with a panel of election experts featuring Rep. Peter DeFazio and University of Oregon professors Alison Gash, Chandler James, Regina Lawrence, Neil O’Brian and Daniel Tichenor. Sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics.

Watch the livestream

Sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics.

 

Event: Start in the Workplace, the Politics will Follow
Nov 14
Start in the Workplace, the Politics will Follow 6:00 p.m.

Watch the livestream 2024 Margaret Hallock Lecture featuring Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO since 2014. Nelson...
Start in the Workplace, the Politics will Follow
November 14
6:00–7:30 p.m.
Ford Alumni Center Giustina Ballroom

Watch the livestream

2024 Margaret Hallock Lecture featuring Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO since 2014. Nelson represents 55,000 workers at 20 airlines. The New York Times called her "America's most powerful flight attendant" for her role in helping to end the 35-day government shutdown and InStyle Magazine placed her on their Top 50 Badass Women listThe New Yorker profiled AFA and Nelson's career in May 2022. 

Nelson has served as a leading voice on issues facing women in the workplace and across the country, encouraging women everywhere to "Join Unions, Run Unions." She serves as a member of the AFL-CIO executive council, the Communication Workers of America executive board, the Transportation Trades Department executive board, the Labor Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations and Trade Policy, and as vice chair of the International Transport Workers Federation Civil Aviation steering committee. She received the Jones-Blizzard Award from the United Mine Workers of America, the AFL-CIO MLK Drum Major for Justice Award, the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award from Jobs with Justice, the National Consumers League Trumpeter Award, Women’s March Spotlight Award, and Massachusetts Teachers Association Friend of Labor Award. Nelson grew up in Corvallis and earned a bachelor's degree from Principia College with majors in English and Education.

Sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics. 

 

Event: Our Democratic Future
Jan 15
Our Democratic Future 5:30 p.m.

Featuring Steve Levitsky. Levitsky is a professor of government and Latin American studies and director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at...
Our Democratic Future
January 15
5:30 p.m.
Location TBA

Featuring Steve Levitsky. Levitsky is a professor of government and Latin American studies and director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. He is senior fellow at the Kettering Foundation and a senior democracy fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His research focuses on democratization and authoritarianism, political parties, and weak and informal institutions, with a focus on Latin America. He is co-author (with Daniel Ziblatt) of the bestselling How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point.

Event: Ben Rhodes: A Conversation about Global Affairs
Jan 30
Ben Rhodes: A Conversation about Global Affairs 5:30 p.m.

Ben Rhodes is a writer, political commentator, and national security analyst. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers After the Fall: Being American in the World...
Ben Rhodes: A Conversation about Global Affairs
January 30
5:30–7:00 p.m.
Location TBA

Ben Rhodes is a writer, political commentator, and national security analyst. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made, and The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House. He is currently co-host of Pod Save the World; a contributor for MSNBC; a senior advisor to former President Barack Obama; and chair of National Security Action, which he co-founded with Jake Sullivan in 2018. Sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, the United Nations Association at the UO, and the School of Journalism and Communication.

Event: Democracy for a Small Planet
Mar 6
Democracy for a Small Planet

Frances Moore Lappé is a social justice activist and the author of 20 books, including Diet for a Small Planet, which sold millions of copies and was named as one of 75...
Democracy for a Small Planet
March 6
Ford Alumni Center Giustina Ballroom

Frances Moore Lappé is a social justice activist and the author of 20 books, including Diet for a Small Planet, which sold millions of copies and was named as one of 75 Books by Women Whose Words Have Changed the World by the Women's National Book Association. Her most recent works focus on “living democracy”—suggesting not only a government accountable to citizens but a way of living aligned with the deep human need for connection, meaning, and power. Among many awards, she has received the James Beard Humanitarian Award, the International Studies Association's 2009 Outstanding Public Scholar Award, the Nonino Prize in Italy for her life's work, and 20 honorary doctorates.

Event: Morse Bookmarks: The Political Development of American Debt Relief
Apr 17
Morse Bookmarks: The Political Development of American Debt Relief 12:15 p.m.

Chloe Thurston, Northwestern; and Emily Zackin, Johns Hopkins; will discuss their forthcoming book. The Political Development of American Debt Relief traces how...
Morse Bookmarks: The Political Development of American Debt Relief
April 17
12:15–1:45 p.m.
Location TBA

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.

Event: Bob Bussel Labor History Lecture
Apr 24
Bob Bussel Labor History Lecture 7:00 p.m.

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...
Bob Bussel Labor History Lecture
April 24
7:00 p.m.–8:30 a.m.
William W. Knight Law Center Room 175

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.

Event: Wayne Morse Chair Address featuring Danielle Allen
May 8
Wayne Morse Chair Address featuring Danielle Allen

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...
Wayne Morse Chair Address featuring Danielle Allen
May 8
Erb Memorial Union (EMU) Ballroom

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.

Videos of recent events

Countdown to Election 2024, featuring Lynn Vavreck

The New Town Hall: Building a Communications Platform for Democracy, with Kevin Esterling

Race, Rights and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture, featuring Alexandra Filindra

View more videos on our YouTube channel

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