Hoover senior fellow Peter Berkowitz discusses religion in the United States on the John Batchelor Show. Topics include the discourse on freedom of religion in the United States, Islam in the United States, and John Rawls’s political theories.

Yesterday, the Heritage Foundation, in conjunction with the Hoover Institution, hosted an event with this blunt title: “Identity Politics Is a Threat to Society: Is There Anything We Can Do About It At This Point?” The panel consisted my friends John Fonte and Peter Berkowitz; my hero Heather Mac Donald; our long-time blog nemesis Andrew Sullivan; and Michael Lind, an original thinker whose book about the Vietnam War was the subject of the first post I ever wrote on Power Line, more than 16 years ago.

In her new book, “Unfinished Business: Women, Men, Work, Family,” Anne-Marie Slaughter, the president and CEO of the Washington-based think tank New America, argues that while we have made great progress, we must still knock down plenty of “obstacles and barriers to true equality.”

A new theory of Jewish nationalism promises to be more liberal than the old one. But it profoundly misunderstands Zionism—and liberalism.

Among their many aspirations for his presidency, Barack Obama’s admirers nurse a persistent hope that he might be able to end the culture wars...

A few years ago on a lazy Friday afternoon, my friend Ronit Vardi—a veteran journalist and longtime resident of this frenetic city perched between the Mediterranean and the Middle East—looked askance when I told her that I was headed to Jerusalem to teach a seminar on Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

The callous taking of George Floyd’s life has provoked both peaceful protests and violent rioting in American cities. The turmoil in our streets underscores the essential importance of a criminal justice system rooted in the rule of law and of a free press that reports accurately on the actions of citizens and government officials. The questions roiling the nation about police brutality, civic unrest, and America's commitment to human rights will linger. 

In recent years, a movement has been calling for the United States government to pay reparations for slavery in America. What does the federal government owe the descendants of slaves in this country? Should such reparations be viewed as a gesture of recognition for past wrongs or as an attempt to actually correct those past wrongs? Would payment of reparations erase the lingering economic problems in the African American community or would they do more harm than good? And if reparations are a good idea, who should receive them, all African Americans or just those descended from slaves?

In the United States, affirmative action policies, first implemented to address the historical grievances of black Americans, have long been controversial. But the debate over affirmative action has generally ignored such action as practiced by other countries around the world. Has affirmative action proven to be more or less effective in other countries? What common patterns do these programs share? How can the study of these programs help our understanding of affirmative action in America?