Program Overview

Each year, the LeFrak Forum devotes its public program to one or two issues facing modern democracies. The public program — free and open to all — consists of a lecture series and a year-end conference. The events, many of which have been broadcast by C-Span, are in the process of being archived on this website. Recent topics have included “The Supreme Court and the Idea of Constitutionalism,” “Biotechnology and Modern Democracy,”“Jefferson and 'American Empire',” and “Beyond Radical Islam?”

To date, the Forum has sponsored almost two hundred lectures at Michigan State University and more than a dozen international conferences in such venues as Prague, Budapest, Lisbon, and Munich. Participants — drawn from among the world’s most prominent and accomplished academics, journalists, policy analysts, and novelists — deliver original essays on our annual theme.