What will Boston's historic mayoral election mean for Boston's Black and Brown communities? While the election of the first woman mayor is a watershed moment for Boston, will the next mayor deliver the equity and justice that Black and Brown communities have waited decades for?
Join the Ash Center, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Center for Public Leadership, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston for the second of two sessions focusing on the urgent issues - from education and housing to economic development and communal...
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee issued a major report last month claiming to show “the American people just how close we came to a constitutional crisis” during the events before and after the January 6 “capitol insurrection.” This crisis was prevented only by “a number of upstanding Americans in the Department of Justice.” “Donald Trump was unable to bend the department to his will. But it was not due to a lack of effort,” the report goes on. But, the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee responded that Trump “did not weaponize DOJ for his personal or campaign purposes” in their...
As part of the American Political Speakers Series, Professor Adriane Fresh of Duke University will present her recent scholarship examining how The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) sought to fundamentally change the distribution of electoral power in the U.S. South. She will examine the consequences of this mass enfranchisement of Black people for the use of the carceral state---police, the courts, and the...
The Ash Center and Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies invite you to a book talk with Manfred Elfstrom, author of Workers and Change in China: Resistance, Repression,& Responsiveness (2021, Cambridge University Press) and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. Elfstrom will be joined...
What would it be like to really rethink our Constitution? In this webinar, we will learn about participatory constitution building, a way of writing a new constitution with full public participation. Participatory constitution building is common around the world, but how it is designed and the process by which it is undertaken is critical to making it a success anywhere. We will learn with experts on participatory constitution building globally, in Chile at this moment, and among tribal governments. What are the practices we might think about as we reconsider the strengths and weaknesses...
Americans have deep-seated skepticism about presidential power. This skepticism is not always made explicit in the public’s day-to-day political expressions, but it is a latent force in American political culture forged at the founding of the nation and ingrained in grade school civics lessons. It is not a legalistic or intellectual understanding of the text of the US Constitution or Declaration of Independence. Rather, this skepticism reflects a belief that the separation of powers, especially in their protection from tyranny, is...
The annual Truth and Transformation Conference is convened by Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad and hosted by the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability (IARA) Project at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center.
During this free, virtual conference, we invite you to join fellow advocates, organizers, scholars, students, and community members in engaging, challenging, and thoughtful conversations centered around this year's theme “Reflecting On A Year of Promises.” Looking back at a year or promises to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion, at this year’s conference, we will ask: did organizations keep to their promises? What more work is there to be done?
The promulgation of the National Security Law by Beijing is a paradigm shift for Hong Kong's legal and political environment. The concept of 'national security' under the People's Republic of China (PRC) law is broad and overarching. In combination with this and other restrictions from Beijing, the National Security Law has created a new environment under which international businesses and NGOs need to understand the risks they face. During this discussion, Dennis Kwok, Senior Fellow at the Ash Center, and Elizabeth Donkervoort, Program...
The upcoming Boston Mayoral election promises to bring Boston into a new era of politics with the growing likelihood of electing the first non-white male Mayor in Boston’s history. However, with the litany of prevailing social issues impacting Black and Brown communities, will this election truly represent the change that so many have waited decades for?
Join the Ash Center, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Center for Public Leadership, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston for the first of two sessions in the "...
In the nearly one year since the November 2020 elections, the diverging directions state legislatures have taken on expanding or contracting voting rights have created a huge fault line in American democracy, described by some as ‘two Americas’. A Voting Rights Lab tracking report as of September 13th identifies 27 states representing 70 million voters that have passed laws to expand voting opportunities, and 13 states with 55 million people that have passed sharply restrictive legislation. And state legislatures are still at work. What’s causing this divergence?
