Westminster Town Hall Forum

After the June 2026 Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship, Kica Matos observed how fragile foundational constitutional guarantees have become, with the struggle for immigrant rights serving as a central pillar of the broader pro-democracy fight. Named one of Time magazine’s most influential people of 2026, Matos is president of the National Immigration Law Center and the Immigrant Justice...

The second Forum of our “Ethics Still Matter” spring season features former FBI Director and #1 New York Times Best-Selling Author James Comey. This Forum returns us to where we began in fall 1980 with Special Watergate Prosecutor Archibald Cox who also spoke on “Ethics and Government.” Do ethics matter in government? Is truth just a matter of perspective? What is asked of and from us if our democ...

Gerrymandering is expanding and making news from coast to coast. How will it affect our elections? Sam Wang – one of the nation’s leading experts on redistricting, representation, and election reform – will address gerrymandering and share his data-driven approach to building and repairing an American democracy that represents all. Wang is founder and director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Proje...

The Forum’s annual “Arc Toward Justice” Series is dedicated to honoring the legacy of George Floyd and the ongoing need for racial, social, and systemic change. On May 28, The Rev. Dr. Nikia Smith Robert, executive director of Abolitionist Sanctuary, will ask us to consider Martin Luther King’s arc in terms of incarceration and abolition. Is it bending? What is our work to do? What is the call to...

On November 17, 1983, Elie Wiesel—Holocaust survivor, author, and activist—began his Forum speech “Why Hate?” by saying, “The best thing one can do at noon on a Thursday is to tell stories.” Now, more than 42 years later, we gather anew to consider the power of stories and the role of music and memory by welcoming Violins of Hope, presented by the Minnesota JCC. Violins of Hope is a powerful colle...

Our Noon Forum: Special guest Justice Alan Page will join us to celebrate the Forum’s 45 years of affirming Ethics Matter. Justice Page was one of the Forum’s earliest presenters, sharing “The Student Athlete” in 1982. Now, in conversation with moderator The Rev. Dr. Jessica Patchett, Page will reflect on his career, education, athletics, and philanthropy from an ethical perspective. Minnesota’s f...

NPR’s Nina Totenberg joins us for the third Forum of our spring season, sharing observations about the U.S. Supreme Court and how it has changed since she presented “Perspectives on the Supreme Court” at the Forum in spring 1993. What is justice? Who decides the role of the courts as its arbiter? What is the Supreme Court’s place in upholding democracy and defending human rights? Totenberg is one...

The first Forum of our “Ethics Still Matter” spring season features Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, reflecting on an early Forum topic, “Critical Issues in Medical Ethics,” addressed by the University of Minnesota’s Dr. John Najarian in 1982. Throughout time, ethical questions and norms have been grounded in the obligation to care for our neighbors. Yet public health system norms are being dismantled...

As a follow-up to our Fall Season: "Ethics, Conscience, and the New Public Square," listen in to the conversation between AMPERS CEO Joel Glaser and our Executive Director Sara Wilhelm Garbers as they discuss community radio and public media in our time.

THE RIGHT REV. MARIANN EDGAR BUDDE, Episcopal Diocese of Washington Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde is the first woman elected spiritual leader for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, which includes the Washington National Cathedral and other congregations and Episcopal schools in the District of Columbia and four Maryland counties. Previously, Bishop Budde served as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Chu...

STEVE HAHN, Professor of History, New York University Pulitzer-prize winning historian Steve Hahn is renowned for his understanding of the political dynamics of the American South. He suggests that Donald Trump’s reliance on racial resentments and coercion is not new to America but familiar to its history. Join us as Professor Hahn discusses his latest book, Illiberal America, a reflection on Amer...

STEVE GROVE, CEO and Publisher, Minnesota Star Tribune We live in a time of dynamic change, when our most important institutions face unprecedented challenges. Public trust in the media, government, technology, and almost every other body in our civic lives is declining rapidly. Reinventing our institutions for a modern era is an essential task, but faces severe challenges at the national level, w...

DUCHESNE DREW, President, Minnesota Public Radio SYLVIA STROBEL, President and CEO, Twin Cities PBS (TPT) Duchesne Drew and Sylvia Strobel currently sit at the epicenter of preserving the future of public broadcast media in Minnesota. Following the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s loss of $1.1 billion in federal funding for NPR, PBS, and member stations over the next two years, hear what thes...

In this special episode of the Forum podcast, we talk with Paul Neimann, one of the originators of the Forum. He and his wife Diane moved to Minneapolis in the 1970s and believed their new home deserved a great speaker series. That idea became the nationally renowned Westminster Town Hall Forum. Diane passed away in 2019. But Forum director Tane Danger sat down with Paul to learn more about the or...

Dr. Keyu Jin speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis. Born in China and educated in the U.S., she is a world-renowned economist at the London School of Economics. Her most recent book is "The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism." In it and in this talk, she explains how China became the most successful economic story of our time as it has shifted from primarily s...

Legendary tech journalist Kara Swisher in conversation with Tane Danger at the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis. Swisher's newest work is "Burn Book; a Tech Love Story." It’s part memoir, part history and, most of all, a necessary recounting of tech’s power players and influence. In it she shares how tech came to be at the center of global commerce and power, and the risks that poses to...

Award-winning journalist Michele Norris speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis. She spoke about her best-selling book, "Our Hidden Conversation; What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity." For more than a decade, Norris asked people around the world to send in their stories. The prompt was simple: "Race. Your Story. Six Words. Please Send." She and the Race Card Team...

Transgender rights activist and author Raquel Willis speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum. Raquel Willis is an award-winning activist, author, and media strategist dedicated to Black transgender liberation. She is the co-founder of The Transgender Week of Visibility and Action. She spoke at the Forum about her work and her memoir, "The Risk it Takes to Bloom; On Life and Liberation." This t...

Nancy Giles speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis on November 9, 2023. Giles is a comedian, actress, and social commentator. Since 2002 she has been a regular contributor to the Peabody Award-winning program CBS News Sunday Morning. In that time, she has earned five Emmy Awards for her unique blend of common-sense wisdom, laugh-out-loud humor, commentary, and interviews. She’s...

Author and NPR host Steve Inskeep speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum. Inskeep's latest book is "Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America." It shares Lincoln’s lessons for bridging intense political divisions. He spoke at the Forum about what we can learn from Lincoln to help navigate our own divisive politics. Steve Inskeep is a cohost of NPR’s Morning Edition, the most...

Senior correspondent for APM Reports Emily Hanford speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum. For more than a generation, schools across the U.S. embraced a specific methodology of teaching kids to read. The problem? Cognitive scientists had proven decades before it didn’t actually work. In her award-winning podcast "Sold a Story," Emily Hanford investigated the influential authors who promoted...

Samuel G. Freedman, author of "Into the Bright Sunshine: A Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights." He spoke with Forum director Tane Danger at a special Westminster Town Hall Forum recorded at the Minnesota State Fair. They discussed the former Vice President's upbringing in South Dakota, what Minneapolis was like in the early 1900s, and why Humphrey's speech at the 1948 Democratic...

Former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch speaking on life as a diplomat, the Russian war in Ukraine, and the political smear campaign against her by then-President Trump and his allies. She is the author of the best-selling memoir, "Lessons from the Edge." Yovanovitch served for more than 30 years in the US State Department under both Republican and Democratic presidents. She did tours in...

Dr. Cornel West and Ms. Ifeoma Ike Esq. speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum's 2023 Arc Toward Justice program. Moderated by Angela Davis of Minnesota Public Radio News. The Arc Toward Justice series invites national racial justice leaders to reflect on a another year George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis and the international uprising that followed. We ask them to discuss where we have come...

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, M.D. speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum on May 2, 2023. She is a women's mental health specialist, a board-certified physician psychiatrist, and a Clinical Assistant Professor at George Washington University. She is the author of "Real Self-Care: Crystals, Cleanses and Bubble Baths Not Included." In it, she argues women are largely targeted by a wellness industry desig...