“Revitalizing Democratic Pluralism” will be the focus as political scholars Melissa Rogers and Peter Wehner take the stage for a public forum on polarized politics at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 12, in Knight Hall’s Emerson Auditorium at Washington University in St. Louis.
Sponsored by the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and the School of Law’s Public Interest Law & Policy Speaker Series, the event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the lecture. To receive event updates and parking information, RSVP to rap@wustl.edu or 314-935-9345. For more information, visit the center’s website.
Rogers is a nonresident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and visiting professor at Wake Forest Divinity School. She served as executive director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships during the Obama administration. Previous roles include director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at Wake Forest University Divinity School and executive director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Her expertise includes the First Amendment’s religion clauses, religion in American public life and the interplay of religion, policy and politics.
Wehner is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. A frequent commentator on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CBS and C-SPAN, he has written a monthly column for The New York Times since 2015. His writings on political, cultural, religious and national-security issues have appeared in the The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Financial Times, The Weekly Standard and National Review. Wehner also served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations prior to becoming deputy director of speechwriting for President George W. Bush.
