Past Events
Silverstein Forum, Stiteler Hall First Floor (Accessibility)
Free and open to the public
Co-sponsored the the Penn Department of Religious Studies.
Discussant: Jolyon Thomas (East Asian Languages & Civilizations)
All attendees are encouraged to read Prof. Su's paper, available here.
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO OF THE EVENT HERE.
DETERMINING WHAT IS AND WHAT IS NOT a substantial burden on religion currently preoccupies the American legal and political milieu because of legal controversies surrounding its health-care statute. But defining what a burden is for the purpose of triggering legal protections for religious freedom has important consequences beyond a single issue. Professor Su considers and compares the caselaw of the United States, Canada, and the European Court of Human Rights and argues for an expansive understanding of the burden requirement in evaluating religious accommodation claims — an understanding that would encompass the spiritual practices of indigenous peoples and the lands they hold sacred.
ANNA SU is an Assistant Professor in the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Her primary areas of research include the law and history of international human rights law, U.S. constitutional law (First Amendment), and law and religion. Her research has appeared in the Vanderbilt Law Review, the International Journal of Constitutional Law and the Journal of the History of International Law. Prior to coming to Toronto, she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy based in SUNY Buffalo Law School, and a graduate fellowship in ethics with the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.She is the author of Exporting Freedom: Religious Liberty and American Power (2016).
FACULTY WORKSHOP - Varieties of Burden in Religious Accommodation (Anna Su)
Silverstein Forum, Stiteler Hall First Floor (Accessibility)
Free and open to the public
Co-sponsored the the Penn Department of Religious Studies.
Discussant: Jolyon Thomas (East Asian Languages & Civilizations)
All attendees are encouraged to read Prof. Su's paper, available here.
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO OF THE EVENT HERE.
DETERMINING WHAT IS AND WHAT IS NOT a substantial burden on religion currently preoccupies the American legal and political milieu because of legal controversies surrounding its health-care statute. But defining what a burden is for the purpose of triggering legal protections for religious freedom has important consequences beyond a single issue. Professor Su considers and compares the caselaw of the United States, Canada, and the European Court of Human Rights and argues for an expansive understanding of the burden requirement in evaluating religious accommodation claims — an understanding that would encompass the spiritual practices of indigenous peoples and the lands they hold sacred.
ANNA SU is an Assistant Professor in the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Her primary areas of research include the law and history of international human rights law, U.S. constitutional law (First Amendment), and law and religion. Her research has appeared in the Vanderbilt Law Review, the International Journal of Constitutional Law and the Journal of the History of International Law. Prior to coming to Toronto, she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy based in SUNY Buffalo Law School, and a graduate fellowship in ethics with the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.She is the author of Exporting Freedom: Religious Liberty and American Power (2016).
College Hall, Room 209 (Accessibility)
John Remensperger (University of Pennsylvania, Communication)
“From Democratic Practice to Protest: The California Bernie Sanders Delegation”
Tom Waters (City University of New York, Political Science)
“Grassroots Expertise at a New York City Community Board”
MUCH OF THE POPULAR PRESS COVERAGE OF THE BERNIE SANDERS delegates at the Democratic National Convention depicted them as out-of-touch ideological zealots, clinging to the hope that Sanders could somehow be nominated at the convention despite his clear disadvantage in the delegate math. REMENSPERGER, using the concept of “activist citizens,” argues that Sanders delegates attended the conventions to carry out “acts of citizenship” – protest, resistance, and organizing – by making broad claims to political justice. To facilitate these acts, activists amongst the Sanders delegates used new media technologies combined with traditional organizing tactics to leverage a tight-knit network of delegates that formed on social media in the months preceding the convention.
IN NEW YORK CITY AND ACROSS THE UNITED STATES, neighborhood councils established by local governments are incorporating citizen participation into decision making while engaging issues that require them to use expert knowledge. These participatory projects can be seen as a way to check the pervasive and potentially undemocratic role of expertise in society. WATER’s ethnographic study investigates the fine-grained human interactions as members of a New York City community board in a low-income neighborhood engage land use and housing issues. He finds that they can partially overcome the challenge of expertise by developing their own technical capacity, and that this enhances board members’ influence. But he also finds that members encounter difficulties that cannot be remedied by more technical capacity.
GRAD WORKSHOP - Strategies of Progressivism
College Hall, Room 209 (Accessibility)
John Remensperger (University of Pennsylvania, Communication)
“From Democratic Practice to Protest: The California Bernie Sanders Delegation”
Tom Waters (City University of New York, Political Science)
“Grassroots Expertise at a New York City Community Board”
MUCH OF THE POPULAR PRESS COVERAGE OF THE BERNIE SANDERS delegates at the Democratic National Convention depicted them as out-of-touch ideological zealots, clinging to the hope that Sanders could somehow be nominated at the convention despite his clear disadvantage in the delegate math. REMENSPERGER, using the concept of “activist citizens,” argues that Sanders delegates attended the conventions to carry out “acts of citizenship” – protest, resistance, and organizing – by making broad claims to political justice. To facilitate these acts, activists amongst the Sanders delegates used new media technologies combined with traditional organizing tactics to leverage a tight-knit network of delegates that formed on social media in the months preceding the convention.
IN NEW YORK CITY AND ACROSS THE UNITED STATES, neighborhood councils established by local governments are incorporating citizen participation into decision making while engaging issues that require them to use expert knowledge. These participatory projects can be seen as a way to check the pervasive and potentially undemocratic role of expertise in society. WATER’s ethnographic study investigates the fine-grained human interactions as members of a New York City community board in a low-income neighborhood engage land use and housing issues. He finds that they can partially overcome the challenge of expertise by developing their own technical capacity, and that this enhances board members’ influence. But he also finds that members encounter difficulties that cannot be remedied by more technical capacity.
College Hall, Room 200
Co-sponsored by the Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honor Society, The Jack Miller Center, and the Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative.
MITCHELL CENTER / PPU DEBATE - Is the Media to Blame for the Climate of Polarization? (with Michael Smerconish)
College Hall, Room 200
Co-sponsored by the Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honor Society, The Jack Miller Center, and the Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative.
National Constitution Center, 525 Arch Street
Watch a full video of the event here.
Co-sponsored by the National Constitution Center, The Jack Miller Center, and the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.
IN AMERICA TODAY, MANY RELIGIOUS BELIEVERS contend that government anti-discrimination policies require them to do things that violate their faiths, while others feel religious claims are being used to violate their rights. In countries worldwide, concerns about terrorism in the name of religion are fueling strong measures to police, even persecute, many minority communities - Muslims, Christians, secularists, and others among them. This panel brings together spokespersons for three faiths and for secular worldviews to discuss whether and how freedoms for and from religion are endangered today, and what Americans' responses should be.
KRISTINA ARRIAGA has worked on the defense of religious freedom domestically and internationally for over 20 years as Advisor to the United States delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, an appointee to the Civil Rights Commission, and as the Executive Director of Becket Law, a public interest law firm. She currently serves as the Vice Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Arriaga is a sought-after speaker on religious freedom. She has also appeared on TV and radio programs including MSNBC, C-Span, FOX, CNN Español, Council on Foreign Relations and National Public Radio. Her op-eds have been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. Arriaga is the recipient of the 2017 Newseum’s Free Speech award.
DAN BARKER is co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. He was elected co-president of the Foundation with Annie Laurie Gaylor in 2004, with whom he is co-host of Freethought Radio, a national weekly talk show. He is a contributing editor of Freethought Today and is involved with the Foundation’s state/church lawsuits. He regularly travels the country and the world giving lectures, performing concerts, and participating in debates with theists, many at college and university campuses. A former minister and evangelist, his books include Just Pretend: A Freethought Book for Children and Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher To Atheist. Recent books include Life Driven Purpose: How an Atheist Finds Meaning (2015), GOD: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction (2016), and the forthcoming Make Up Your Mind: Do We Really Have Free Will? (2018).
DAVID SAPERSTEIN was the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom for the Obama Administration from 2014-2017. Selected by Newsweek magazine in 2009 as the most influential rabbi in the country and described in a Washington Post profile as the "quintessential religious lobbyist on Capitol Hill," Rabbi Saperstein represented the Reform Jewish Movement to Congress and the Administration as the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC) for forty years. Also an attorney, Rabbi Saperstein teaches seminars in First Amendment Church-State Law and in Jewish Law at Georgetown University Law School.
Watch a full video of the event here.
FACULTY SERIES KICKOFF - Religious Freedom in Trouble? An Interfaith Discussion
National Constitution Center, 525 Arch Street
Watch a full video of the event here.
Co-sponsored by the National Constitution Center, The Jack Miller Center, and the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.
IN AMERICA TODAY, MANY RELIGIOUS BELIEVERS contend that government anti-discrimination policies require them to do things that violate their faiths, while others feel religious claims are being used to violate their rights. In countries worldwide, concerns about terrorism in the name of religion are fueling strong measures to police, even persecute, many minority communities - Muslims, Christians, secularists, and others among them. This panel brings together spokespersons for three faiths and for secular worldviews to discuss whether and how freedoms for and from religion are endangered today, and what Americans' responses should be.
KRISTINA ARRIAGA has worked on the defense of religious freedom domestically and internationally for over 20 years as Advisor to the United States delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, an appointee to the Civil Rights Commission, and as the Executive Director of Becket Law, a public interest law firm. She currently serves as the Vice Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Arriaga is a sought-after speaker on religious freedom. She has also appeared on TV and radio programs including MSNBC, C-Span, FOX, CNN Español, Council on Foreign Relations and National Public Radio. Her op-eds have been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. Arriaga is the recipient of the 2017 Newseum’s Free Speech award.
DAN BARKER is co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. He was elected co-president of the Foundation with Annie Laurie Gaylor in 2004, with whom he is co-host of Freethought Radio, a national weekly talk show. He is a contributing editor of Freethought Today and is involved with the Foundation’s state/church lawsuits. He regularly travels the country and the world giving lectures, performing concerts, and participating in debates with theists, many at college and university campuses. A former minister and evangelist, his books include Just Pretend: A Freethought Book for Children and Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher To Atheist. Recent books include Life Driven Purpose: How an Atheist Finds Meaning (2015), GOD: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction (2016), and the forthcoming Make Up Your Mind: Do We Really Have Free Will? (2018).
DAVID SAPERSTEIN was the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom for the Obama Administration from 2014-2017. Selected by Newsweek magazine in 2009 as the most influential rabbi in the country and described in a Washington Post profile as the "quintessential religious lobbyist on Capitol Hill," Rabbi Saperstein represented the Reform Jewish Movement to Congress and the Administration as the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC) for forty years. Also an attorney, Rabbi Saperstein teaches seminars in First Amendment Church-State Law and in Jewish Law at Georgetown University Law School.
Watch a full video of the event here.
GRADUATE WORKSHOP - Democracy, Corporations, and Communities
College Hall, Room 209 (Accessibility)
Katharine Jackson, Columbia University Political Science
"Excavating the Corporate Person: The Autonomy Rights of Big Business"
Averill Leslie, University of Chicago Dept. of Anthropology
"Town Meetings Are Not Direct Democracy: Representative Democracy as Participatory Democracy"