Crisis Democracy: Conversations on Politics in America will encourage the university community to reflect on, interpret, and imagine the future of political participation, inclusion and expression. Conversations between academics and local organizers will explore topics including: legal developments that affect citizen democratic participation, debates over free speech and safe spaces, and the shifting configurations of social movements.

The Futures of Law and Political Inclusion panel features:

Jowei Chen, Associate Professor, Political Science, University of Michigan
Ellen D. Katz, Ralph W. Aigler Professor of Law, University of Michigan
Reuben Miller, Assistant Professor, School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago

Jowei Chen is an associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan. His research interests include distributive politics, executive agencies and legislatures. He has studied how legislators' pork-barreling strategies are shaped by the electoral geography of their districts, and he has examined how government spending influences voters. He is also interested in the political control of executive agencies.

Ellen D. Katz, the Ralph W. Aigler Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, writes and teaches about election law, civil rights and remedies, and equal protection. Her scholarship addresses questions of minority representation, political equality, and the role of institutions in crafting and implementing anti-discrimination laws. Professor Katz has published numerous articles, including an influential empirical study of litigation under the Voting Rights Act. Prior to joining the Michigan Law faculty, Professor Katz practiced as an attorney with the appellate sections of the US Department of Justice's Civil Division and its Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Reuben Jonathan Miller is an assistant pProfessor at the University of Chicago in the School of Social Service Administration (SSA) and a faculty affiliate at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture. His research examines life at the intersections of race, crime control, and social welfare policy. Miller has conducted fieldwork in Chicago, Detroit, and New York City, examining how law, policy and emergent practices of state and third-party supervision changed the contours of citizenship, activism, community, and family life for poor black Americans and the urban poor more broadly.

This LSA Bicentennial Theme Semester event is presented with support from the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and the University of Michigan Bicentennial Office. Additional support provided by the Department of History and the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies.