Humanities & Society

Jill Biden (left), wife of former Vice President Joe Biden and a lifelong educator, will deliver the keynote address of “She Leads,” a two-day event organized by the Olin Fellowship featuring female leaders in technology, public service, medicine and other fields. Alumna Brittany Packnett’s talk Oct. 24 in Graham Chapel will kick off the conference.

Whatever impeachment moves the Democratic-majority U.S. House of Representatives makes next, it’s ultimately up to the Republican-controlled and administration-friendly Senate to hold a trial on the matter — and Washington University in St. Louis political scientist Steve Smith anticipates the Senate could make a number of moves to avoid the issue.

Voter turnout among Washington University in St. Louis students leaped to 41.8% in the 2018 midterm elections, more than double the 2014 midterm voting rate of 15.9%, according to a national study of campus voting rates by Tufts University’s Institute for Democracy & Higher Education.

Best-selling author Amy Chua and former U.S. Sen. John Danforth will come together for a public conversation, “Overcoming Political Tribalism and Recovering Our American Democracy,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12, in Graham Chapel at Washington University in St. Louis.

Attorney General William Barr announced July 15 a new Trump Administration plan, effective the next day, barring Central American immigrants from seeking asylum in the United States unless they seek it first in other Central American countries, a move that a Washington University in St. Louis immigration expert says “violates the clear language of the law.”

Michael Bloomberg, the 108th mayor of New York City, addressed the crisis of our politics and our planet during his Commencement address to the Class of 2019 at Washington University in St. Louis. “We have to reclaim our civic dialogue from those who are debasing and degrading it and preventing us from getting things done,” Bloomberg said.

Washington University in St. Louis has been designated a “Voter-Friendly Campus” by the Campus Vote Project and NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education for its success in increasing voter registration, education and turnout.

A Washington University in St. Louis expert in African policy says Nigeria’s upcoming presidential vote is a consequential event, one that will determine critical steps forward for Africa’s most populous country and largest economy.

Stephen Legomsky, an immigration law expert at Washington University in St. Louis, comments on the Feb. 15 announcement of a state of emergency by President Donald Trump. “This much is crystal clear,” he said. “There is no national security emergency at the southern border.”

“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.