HARRY TRUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS: MORAL COURAGE AND POLITICAL RISKS
Wednesday, February 28, 2018 | 4:30pm | MICHAEL (MICKEY) R. GARDNER AU THOR A ND C OMMUNIC AT IONS P OL IC Y E X PER T
Michael R. Gardner serves as the pro bono chair of the United States Telecommunications Training
Institute (USTTI), a non-profit international training initiative that he founded in 1982 while serving
as the U.S. Ambassador to the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Nairobi, Kenya. For four decades,
Mr. Gardner has practiced communications policy law before the FCC, the U.S Congress, and the
Executive branch of the federal government in Washington, D.C. In his book, Harry Truman and
Civil Rights, Gardner points out that when Truman assumed the presidency on April 12, 1945,
Washington, D.C. in many ways resembled Cape Town, South Africa, under apartheid rule circa
1985. Truman’s background notwithstanding, Gardner shows that it was Harry Truman — not
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower or John F. Kennedy — who energized the modern civil
rights movement, a movement that had stalled since Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. Gardner
recounts Truman’s public and private actions regarding black Americans. He analyzes speeches,
private conversations with colleagues, the executive orders that shattered federal segregation policies, and the appointments of like-minded
civil rights activists to important positions.
JAMES MADISON: A LIFE RECONSIDERED
Wednesday, March 21, 2018 | 4:30pm | LYNNE CHENEY SCHOL A R A ND NE W YORK T IMES BEST-SELL ING AU THOR
Lynne Cheney has spent much of her professional life writing and speaking about the importance
of knowing American history. She has reached out to children with illustrated books about America
— all of them bestsellers — and to adults, most recently with James Madison: A Life Reconsidered,
another New York Times bestseller. In this book she brings to life a man whose impact on our nation
is unparalleled. He was the intellectual force behind the U.S. Constitution, the chief author of the
Bill of Rights, and the first president to take the nation to war under the constitution. In a time in
which intellectual freedom was often regarded with suspicion, Madison and his great friend Thomas
Jefferson championed the idea that citizens should be free to express themselves, and thus they set
our republic on its turbulent and noisy way.
ROSEMARY BOWLER
AFTER THE FAT MAN:
WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THE ‘TROLLEY PROBLEM’
Tuesdays | January 9, 16, 23, 30 & February 6 & 13, 2018
10:00am | Woman’s Club Room | $150/series of six
A runaway trolley is racing toward five men who are tied to the
track. Unless the trolley is stopped, it will kill all five men. You
are on a footbridge overlooking the track. Near you on the bridge
is a chubby man. If you heave him over the side, he will fall on
the track and although he will die, his bulk will stop the trolley,
saving five lives. What do you do?
This is the thought experiment that has launched a thousand
discussions and doctoral dissertations. It is more than a
philosopher’s armchair problem and has many practical, legal,
and moral implications.
Would you push the Fat Man off the bridge?
Who’s in charge here — you or your neurons?
Should actions be judged by consequences or by intentions?
Is there — should there be — a universal moral code?
How necessary is evil for the existence of good?
Such questions baffle moral philosophers, neuroscientists,
psychologists, and other thinkers (like you!) and are just a few
that will be examined in this course. The answers to most are
likely to be, “It all depends” or “It’s more complicated than that.”
Join the discussion and exercise those neurons.
Although this course develops some topics presented last year
in The Fat Man and the Trolley: Moral Conundrums, it is a
stand-alone course and has no prerequisites, other than curiosity
and willingness to grapple with challenging ideas. Registration
is limited to 20 participants.
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