Authentically AU: News and Views from the President

In the midst of tributes to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I learned more about her distinctive view of the Constitution. She spoke frequently about our founding document as “embracive,” prone to inclusion. This is an interesting concept to consider as we move toward...

Emmett Till was a 14-year-old boy from Chicago who traveled to Mississippi in August of 1955 to visit relatives. He was accused of flirting with the white married daughter of a grocery store owner. A few days after the alleged incident, Till was abducted, tortured, lynched and thrown in the...

In the space of months, America has lost three giants, Elijah Cummings, C.T. Vivian and John Lewis. All are now “dancing with the angels,” to quote Cummings. Now the nation begins to celebrate the life and legacy of Congressman Lewis through a series of ceremonies and tributes. And,...

On 19 June 1865, Union troops reached the most remote corner of the Confederacy and read aloud the text of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The landmark pronouncement by the nation’s 16th president freed the slaves in all areas occupied by Union soldiers....

There is a plague in our land. Perhaps you assume that I am writing about the novel coronavirus. Actually, I am thinking of an older and even more virulent plague, the scourge of racism. Historians long have thought of this as America’s “original sin,” the terrible injustice...