Amidst the current backlash against affirmative action policies in universities all across the nation, George Mason professor Amaka Okechukwu documents the challenges affirmative action policies face in today’s political climate. In To Fulfill These Rights: Political Struggle Over Affirmative Action and Open Admissions, Okechukwu provides context for the current battle to protect affirmative action, analyzes conservative messages and tactics against it, and gives a voice to the students and activists working hard to fight for inclusive policies.
Amaka Okechukwu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at George Mason University. She is a scholar of race, social movements, and urban sociology and her work appears in academic publications such as City & Community, Research in Social Movements... Read More →
Award-winning investigative reporter and New York Times correspondent Mike Isaac dives into his latest book, Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber. Through newly-revealed documents and interviews with employees, Isaac peers into the inner workings of Uber and reveals the turmoil within--from battles against the company’s own drivers to clashes with labor unions and from the toxic internal culture that propelled Uber to its heights and sowed the seeds of its own downfall.
David Weigel is a national political correspondent for the Washington Post. He has written for Bloomberg Businessweek, Slate, Reason, GQ, Esquire, USA Today, Rolling Stone, Politico, and many others. He lives in Washington, DC.
Mike Isaac is a technology reporter at the New York Times whose Uber coverage won the Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business reporting. He runs the weekly technology newsletter, Bits with Farhad Manjoo, and appears often on MSNBC. He lives in San Francisco, California.
Join former First Lady of Ghana, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, as she discusses her book, It Takes a Woman: A Life Shaped by Heritage, Leadership and the Women Who Defined Hope, and recalls how her childhood shaped her future success. Rawlings grew up believing that her gender should never hold her back, and so she never let it. As First Lady, she founded the 31st December Women’s Movement, an organization which played a vital role in empowering women and addressing systemic gender equality. Due to her success and commitment to social justice, she later went on to become the first woman to run for Ghana’s top office.
Dr. (Mrs) Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, the former First Lady of the Republic of Ghana and Executive President of Developing Women for Mobilization (DWM) formerly known as 31st December Women’s Movement, champion’s women and children’s rights. She is also the first female... Read More →
From college campuses to Hollywood circles, from prisons to the military, child abuse and intimate partner violence is prevalent. In Gender, Power, and Violence: Responding to Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence in Society Today, George Mason Professors Angela Hattery and Earl Smith examine these institutions and try to understand why this violence happens and the various factors that determine who perpetrates and who suffers. Sponsored by the Women & Gender Studies Program.
Earl Smith, Ph.D. is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and the Rubin Distinguished Professor of American Ethnic Studies at Wake Forest University. Dr. Smith is also the former director of the American Ethnic Studies Program as well as former Chairperson of the Department of Sociology... Read More →
Angela J. Hattery is Professor and Director of the Women & Gender Studies Program at George Mason University. She earned her B.A. in sociology and anthropology from Carleton College and her M.S. and PhD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her teaching and research... Read More →
In Can American Capitalism Survive? Why Greed Is Not Good, Opportunity Is Not Equal, and Fairness Won't Make Us Poor, Steven Pearlstein challenges often-taught business school theories and offers his critique of an American free market system that only benefits the richest 10%, while undervaluing workers and customers, shirking taxes, and leaving vulnerable communities in peril. Pearlstein explores the ways in which we can create shared prosperity within a newly shaped democratic capitalist system that no longer sacrifices fairness and morality.
Steven Pearlstein, a Pulitzer Prize-winning business and economics columnist for the Washington Post, joined the Mason faculty as Robinson Professor of Public Affairs in the fall of 2011. At Mason, he has focused on teaching economic principles to non-economic majors and helping to... Read More →
Democracy, tyranny, or both? In Lincoln: The Ambiguous Icon, Steven Johnston explores Lincoln’s complicated and surprisingly legitimized political practices—as a president who pursued racist policies yet hated slavery, who suppressed freedom of speech yet delivered inspiring speeches, who proclaimed U.S. exceptionalism yet indulged in the very worst when conducting political affairs—and suggests that the reason we routinely fall short of our democratic principles here in the U.S. is precisely because, just like Lincoln, we may not fully believe in them. Sponsored by SCHAR
Steven Johnston is Neal A. Maxwell Presidential Chair in Political Theory, Public Policy, and Public Service in the Department of Political Science at the University of Utah. He is the author of Wonder and Cruelty: Ontological War in It’s a Wonderful Life (Lexington Press, Politics... Read More →
At the age of thirty-four, Loretta Prater’s son was killed by police officers in Tennessee. In Excessive Use of Force: One Mother’s Struggle against Police Brutality and Misconduct, Prater places the death of her son into the larger conversation about police brutality against African American men. With a blend of narrative and research, Prater weaves her own experience into her analysis of current research and numerous other case studies to more fully examine the crisis of police brutality and misconduct in America. Sponsored by Women & Gender Studies.
Loretta Prater, Ph.D. retired in 2012 as Professor and Dean of the College of Health and Human Services at Southeast Missouri State University. The college included the Departments of Social Work, Criminal Justice and Sociology, Human Environmental Studies, Nursing, Speech Pathology... Read More →
Former NBA player Etan Thomas discusses the influence professional athletes have when they speak about race and civil rights. In his book, We Matter: Athletes and Activism, Thomas includes interviews and essays from over fifty high-profile activist athletes, executives, and media figures as they explore the intersection of sports and politics. The New York Times says, “Before Kaepernick, there was Etan Thomas.”
Etan Thomas, a former eleven-year NBA player, was born in Harlem and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has published three books: a collection of poems titled More Than an Athlete, the motivational book Fatherhood: Rising to the Ultimate Challenge, and Voices of the Future, a collection... Read More →
Governor Terry McAuliffe deconstructs the forces and events that resulted in terrible violence at the 2017 “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA. Governor McAuliffe and Wellstone explore the ways in which these tragic events could have been prevented, how the events have shaped who we are today, and the important changes that must still be implemented in order to prevent something similar from happening again. He'll be joined in discussion with Steve Kettman, bestselling author, co-director of the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods in California, and longtime McAuliffe collaborator.
In November 2013, Terry McAuliffe was elected the 72nd Governor of Virginia. As Governor, McAuliffe focused on equality for all Virginians, enhancing quality of life, and building a new diversified economy that made economic opportunity a right, not a privilege.To keep Virginia competitive... Read More →
Steve Kettmann is the author or co-author of ten books, including five New York Times best-sellers, and a contributor to NewYorker.com and The New York Times. A former staff reporter for New York Newsday and the San Francisco Chronicle, Kettmann was a Berlin-based foreign correspondent... Read More →
