Sandra Day O'Connor Institute

At a time when many Americans struggle with economic insecurity, sociologist Jessica Calarco offers an exploration of how women have become America’s default social safety net. Calarco joined the O’Connor Institute to discuss her latest book, Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net . Drawing on extensive research and interviews, she argues that American society relies disproport...

As we transition from Black History Month into Women's History Month, we share "Heroes of Abolition and Suffrage" from our podcast library. This powerful conversation brings together descendants of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington. Coline Jenkins and Kenneth B. Morris, Jr. continue the work of their three significant ancestors, honoring their lega...

At a time when Americans seem more divided than ever, Yuval Levin offers a compelling argument for how we can rebuild a shared national identity. Levin, the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, joined the O’Connor Institute to discuss his latest book, American Covenant, which examines the Constitutional foundations of American unity. This p...

We are pleased to share this conversation with Dr. Carla Hayden of the Library of Congress led by moderator Chevy Humphrey, CEO of the Museum of Science and Industry, originally recorded in 2021. In it, she discusses the Library of Congress's significant history and the information available at the country's most extensive library. Specifically, she spotlights crucial pieces of African A...

The story is the same in many places: citizens aren't currently wild about their leaders. As John A. Burtka IV writes in the introduction to Gateway to Statesmanship , the "examples of elite failures are so ubiquitous that there is no reason to chronicle them all here." Better, Burtka argues, to turn to history to "rediscover the time-tested principles of leadership." Lear...

December 6 marks the anniversary of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in America in 1865. In this podcast, we look at the paradox of enslavement and our forefathers' emphasis on liberty and equality. In this unique conversation, hear from a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, who is now the Monticello Public Relations and Community Engagement Officer, speaking on &quot...

Ambassador Eizenstat joined the O'Connor Institute to discuss his latest book, The Art of Diplomacy , which in one readable volume covers every major contemporary international agreement, from the treaty to end the Vietnam War to the Kyoto Protocols and the Iranian Nuclear Accord, and has earned glowing reviews from people as different in outlook as Tony Blair and Henry Kissinger. Diplomacy i...

Today, we share a conversation that looks at the impact of stereotypes, how they affect us, and what we can do to limit their adverse effects. This discussion is led by Stanford Professor Dr. Claude M. Steele, an expert on social psychology, and initially took place as part of our Constitution Series Webcasts focusing on Equality and Justice for All. While this is a challenging topic, Dr. Steele l...

As students return to classrooms across the country this fall, we are resharing important conversations on landmark cases related to education. Today, we look at one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the 20th Century - Brown v. Board of Education. This detailed conversation with Cheryl Brown Henderson, daughter of the late Rev. Oliver L Brown, who brought the suit represented by NAA...

As preparations for the 2024 General Election approach, the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute for American Democracy sat down with the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) President Secretary Steve Simon (D-MN), President-elect Michael Watson (R-MS), and NASS Executive Director Leslie Reynolds to discuss important bipartisan aspects of election administration, including election securit...

We are pleased to take a new look at this conversation with Dr. Spencer Crew, in which he discusses the importance of making African American history accessible to the public. Art and documents in a museum can be an important way to experience and understand cultures in new ways.  Dr. Spencer Crew has worked in public history institutions for more than twenty-five years. He served as president of...

Empty office buildings. Workforce changes allow for more remote work. American downtowns are struggling. The pandemic-led changes in where and how we work and live have weakened and withered many urban cores. The office vacancy rate in Houston is some 26 percent; in Phoenix it is above 20 percent. This shift means fewer workers, fewer businesses to serve them, less tax revenue, and hollowed-out ne...

We are excited to revisit this fascinating discussion with Judge Douglas Ginsburg as he delves into past, present, and future struggles for liberty through the lens of the US Constitution - just in time for the 4th of July and the celebration of our Country’s independence. Judge Ginsburg is the author of Voices of Our Republic, the companion to the 2020 three-part PBS series, A More or Less Perfec...

The Sandra Day O’Connor Institute for American Democracy presents a conversation with author and historian Claire Rydell Arcenas and Liam Julian, director of Public Policy at the Sandra Day O'Connor Institute.  In her book America's Philosopher: John Locke in American Intellectual Life, Rydell Arcenas seeks to better understand and illuminate the crucial 17th century philosopher by showi...

There is broad scholarly agreement that our current political world owes much to what Thomas Paine was the first to call the "age of revolutions"—that is, the several late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century decades during which revolutions rocked the globe. But what gave rise to the age of revolutions? Why, suddenly, were era-spanning monarchies being toppled? Were revolutionaries...

Perhaps no extant product of the U.S. Constitution has received more bipartisan animus than the Electoral College. Since 1800 there have been more than 700 proposals introduced in Congress to amend or eliminate the way in which America chooses its presidents. Yet the Electoral College lives on. Why do we have this system? Why does it inspire such cross-party antipathy? Can it be changed -- should...

Some 40 million people in the American West rely on water from the Colorado River. But the river’s flow has diminished, and those decreases will likely continue. What does this mean for the American West in general and California and Arizona in particular? Will booming metro areas—Maricopa County, for example—have to halt their growth? Will vast expanses of agriculture disappear? Or is there reaso...

Episode three of the three-part series "The Economy: Inflation, the Fed, and You."  Inflation in America is happening for the first time in forty years, but different parts of the country are experiencing inflation differently. How do the ways in which we measure price increases, such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI), contribute to regional variances in inflation? What role do rising ho...

Episode two of the three-part series "The Economy: Inflation, the Fed, and You." Inflation in America is happening for the first time in forty years, and the Federal Reserve has committed to fighting it. What tools can and does the Fed use to battle inflation, and what are its other economic duties beyond keeping prices stable? Who at the Federal Reserve makes decisions, and how do they...

Episode one of the three-part series "The Economy: Inflation, the Fed, and You."  Inflation in America is happening for the first time in forty years. Why have prices gone up and when might they come down? What role do monetary policy, the Federal Reserve, and legislators play? And what is the fiscal theory of inflation? Hoover Institution economist John H. Cochrane joins Liam Julian, di...

In September 1981, Senator Dennis DeConcini, a Democrat from Arizona, supported President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor as the first woman to take a seat seat on the United States Supreme Court. Hear an eyewitness to history from that unprecedented time, Senator Dennis DeConcini himself, in a moderated conversation with his longtime friend Fred Duval, former U.S. deputy chief o...