About:

This event will feature two of today's leading thought leaders Dr. David Adler and Peter Wehner. Through moderated, thoughtful discussion about some of today's critical issues facing our democracy Adler and Wehner will share different perspectives on solutions.

Following this webinar, from 8:15-9 pm, we will host an HND member-only Q&A with the scholars. For more information on becoming a Humanities ND member visit humanitiesnd.org/donate.

Dr. David Adler

David Gray Adler is President of The Alturas Institute, a non-profit organization created to promote the Constitution, gender equality, and civic education.  A recipient of teaching, writing and civic awards, Adler has lectured nationally and internationally, and published widely, on the Constitution, presidential power and the Bill of Rights. He is the author of six books, including, most recently, The War Power in an Age of Terrorism, as well as more than 100 scholarly articles in the leading journals of his field.  He is currently writing a book on the landmark Supreme Court decision in Reed v. Reed, which had its origins in Idaho and transformed the law for American women.  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will write the foreword to the book, the research and  writing of which is supported by a research fellowship from the Idaho Humanities Council.

Adler’s scholarly writings have been quoted by the U.S. Supreme Court, lower federal courts, the U.S. Attorney General, the White House Counsel, the Legal Adviser to the State Department, by Republicans and Democrats in both houses of Congress, as well as political scientists, historians and law professors. He has consulted with members of  Congress from both parties on a variety of constitutional issues, including impeachment, the war power and the termination of treaties. He has delivered more than 700 public lectures throughout Idaho, and writes Op-Ed pieces that run regularly in six newspapers across our state, and in papers across the country.

Adler has taught courses on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court at all three universities in Idaho.  He has held the Andrus Professorship at Boise State University, where he served as Director of The Andrus Center for Public Policy, and the McClure Professorship at the University of Idaho, where he was Director of the James and Louise McClure Center for Public Policy Research, and held a joint appointment in the College of Law and the Department of Political Science. Previously, he was Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Constitutional Studies at Idaho State University.  He remains a Lecturer at the University of Idaho College of Law. In 2010, he was the recipient of the Idaho Humanities Council’s Distinguished Humanities Award.

A frequent commentator on state and national events, Adler’s lectures have aired on C-Span, and he has done interviews with reporters from the New York Times, Washington Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, National Review, The Nation Magazine, Mother Jones, Fox News, NPR, NBC, CNN and the BBC.  Adler has served as a member of the Board of Directors of various academic, corporate and civic organizations, and is a founding member of the City Club of Idaho Falls. He earned a B.A. from Michigan State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah.

Peter Wehner

Peter Wehner is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and a contributing editor for The Atlantic magazine. Mr. Wehner has written for numerous other publications—including Time magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times, The Weekly Standard, National Review, Commentary, National Affairs, and Christianity Today—and has appeared frequently as a commentator on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, CBS, PBS, and C-SPAN television. He was also the Pamela and Jack Egan Visiting Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy and the School of Arts and Sciences at Duke University in 2019–2020.

Mr. Wehner served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations prior to becoming deputy director of speechwriting for President George W. Bush. In 2002, he was asked to head the Office of Strategic Initiatives, where he generated policy ideas, reached out to public intellectuals, published op-eds and essays, and provided counsel on a range of domestic and international issues. He has also served as an adviser to several presidential campaigns.

Mr. Wehner’s book The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump (HarperCollins) was published in June 2019. He is also author of City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era (co-authored with Michael J. Gerson), Wealth and Justice: The Morality of Democratic Capitalism (co-authored with Arthur C. Brooks), and co-editor of books on foreign policy (The Latin American Policies of U.S. Allies) and national security (Promise or Peril: The Strategic Defense Initiative).

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Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this {article, book, exhibition, film, program, database, report, Web resource}, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or Humanities North Dakota.

However, in an increasingly polarized world, we at Humanities North Dakota believe that being open-minded is necessary to thinking critically and rationally.

Therefore, our programs and classes reflect our own open-mindedness in the inquiry, seeking, and acquiring of scholars to speak at our events and teach classes for our Public University.

To that end, we encourage our participants to join us in stepping outside our comfort zones and considering other perspectives and ideas by being open-minded while attending HND events featuring scholars who hold a variety of opinions, some being opposite of our own held beliefs.