As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its founding, this symposium returns to the bold universal promise of 1776—the claim that “all men are created equal” and endowed with “unalienable rights.” Cast at once as the rights of citizens of a new republic and as the rights of all of humankind, they also coexisted with a deep contradiction: the subjugation of Native Americans, enslaved people, and women. The principles at the heart of the U.S. founding launched a politics of rights whose origins and reverberations were transnational, even as access to them remained sharply unequal in practice.

“We Hold These Truths: 250 Years of the American Experiment at Home and Abroad” brings together a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and leading scholars of citizenship, political development, race, gender, immigration, and civil rights to reflect on this legacy. The panel will explore how America’s founding ideals have shaped struggles for inclusion at home and abroad, and how those ideals have been stretched, reinterpreted, and at times betrayed across two and a half centuries.

Refreshments will be available at 5:45pm.

Panelists:

Nick Kristof - New York Times

Megan Ming Francis - University of Washington

Peter Spiro - Temple University

Carol Nackenoff - Swarthmore College

Moderator:

Dan Tichenor - UO Knight Chair; Co-Director, Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics

Presented by the Schnitzer School of Global Studies and Languages and the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics.

Free and open to the public. No registration required.

This event will be livestreamed and recorded.  Join online

Free and open to the public. No registration necessary.

Featuring 2026-27 Wayne Morse Chair Katherine Cramer

Tuesday, October 20, 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Join In Person: Ford Alumni Center, Giustina Ballroom, 1720 East 13th Ave, Eugene

Join via Livestream link: https://www.youtube.com/live/R9hKcXuSzrc

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Data centers are rapidly reshaping communities across Oregon and the nation, generating public debate about energy, water, land, economic development, and the distribution of public resources. These controversies raise broader questions about the role of the public in decisions about major infrastructure; and about the trust people place in the institutions responsible for making those decisions.

Drawing on her research on public opinion, political culture, rural communities, and democratic life, 2026–27 Wayne Morse Chair Katherine Cramer will use controversies surrounding data centers as a window into how people understand the public’s role in shaping their communities. Cramer will examine what people are asserting when they call for greater public participation, question institutional decision-making, or express a desire to restore trust in government and other institutions.

Rather than taking a position on the development of data centers, Cramer’s talk will explore what these debates can teach us about democracy in practice and about the challenges and possibilities of rebuilding trust between communities, institutions, and decision makers.

The conversation is part of the Wayne Morse Center’s 2025–27 Theme of Inquiry, Common Ground: Cities, Towns, and Counties Confronting Shared Challenges, which examines how communities can confront difficult issues that cross geographic and political boundaries.

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About Wayne Morse Chair Katherine Cramer:

Katherine Cramer is the Virginia Sapiro Professor of Political Science and Vilas Research Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is known for her innovative approach to the study of public opinion, in which she uses methods such as inviting herself into the conversations of groups of people to listen to the way they understand their connections to politics and government, and to each other. She is the author or co-author of six books including the 2026 book with Larry Bartels, The Politics of Social Change: From the Sixties to the Present Through the Eyes of a Generation. She recently co-chaired the American Academy of Arts and Science Commission on Reimagining Our Economy (CORE) and has worked with the Center for Constructive Communication at MIT, and the affiliated nonprofit Cortico, since 2017 to create a platform and approach that aims to improve public understanding and policy making. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters.

Join the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics for a post-election roundtable examining the significance and implications of the 2026 election. The discussion will consider the political, social, and institutional dimensions of the election and its potential consequences for Oregon, the United States, and democratic governance. Bringing together perspectives from political science, journalism, global studies, and public policy, the panel will situate the election within broader questions about contemporary American politics and public life.

Moderater: Dan Tichenor, Philip H. Knight Chair of Social Science | Director, Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics Panelists:

• Aneesh Aneesh - Executive Director, Schnitzer School of Global Studies and Languages
• Hon. Peter DeFazio - Former US Representative (OR-04)
• Rebecca Tweed - President, Tweed Strategies
• Regina Lawrence - Dean, UO School of Journalism and Communication

Ford Alumni Center Giustina Ballroom, 1720 East 13th Ave, Eugene Livestream link TBA

Thursday, February 18, 12:00 - 1:30pm

A Conversation about Access to Healthcare with Ricardo Nuila, MD, author of The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine.

Ford Alumni Center, Giustina Ballroom, 1720 East 13th Ave, Eugene

Livestream link TBA

Part of the Wayne Morse Center’s 2025-2027 Theme of Inquiry Common Ground: Cities, Towns, and Counties Confronting Shared Challenges.

UO Libraries and Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics are excited to host the Rep. Peter DeFazio Annual Lecture delivered by Jamelle Bouie, an American columnist for The New York Times who writes about politics and the law through the lens of American political history.

The DeFazio Annual Lecture honors UO alumnus and retired US Representative Peter DeFazio and 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. The lecture series 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. A livestream will be available for those who can't join in person. 

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