Yale Professor Akhil Reed Amar on ‘Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution’

Event Details

Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University and leading Constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar will be on hand to discuss his new book, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920. Prof. Amar will be in conversation with award-winning author Stephen G. Bowling of the Prometheum Foundation.

Copies of Born Equal will be available for sale and signing at the event.

About the Speakers

Akhil Reed Amar is the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale College summa cum laude in 1980, and from Yale Law School in 1984, and clerking for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 at the age of 26. He is Yale’s only living professor to have won the university’s unofficial triple crown — the Sterling Chair for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching, and the Lamar Award for alumni service.

Amar’s work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than four dozen cases — tops among non-emeritus scholars. He regularly testifies before Congress at the invitation of both parties; and in surveys of judicial citations and/or scholarly citations, he typically ranks among America’s five most-cited mid-career legal scholars. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has written widely for popular publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Atlantic. He was an informal consultant to the popular TV show The West Wing and his scholarship has been showcased on many broadcasts, including The Colbert Report, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Morning Joe, AC360, 11th Hour with Brian Williams, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fareed Zakaria GPS, Erin Burnett Outfront, and Constitution USA with Peter Sagal.

Amar is the author of more than 100 law review articles and several books, most notably The Bill of Rights (1998 — winner of the Yale University Press Governors’ Award), America’s Constitution (2005 — winner of the ABA’s Silver Gavel Award), America’s Unwritten Constitution (2012 — named one of the year’s 100 best nonfiction books by The Washington Post), and The Constitution Today (2016 — named one of the year’s top ten nonfiction books by Time magazine). His latest and most ambitious book, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. He has recently launched a weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution. A wide assortment of his articles and op-eds and video links to many of his public lectures and free online courses may be found at akhilamar.com.

Stephen G. Bowling is an award-winning author, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Much like Peter Pan, Steve never wanted to grow up. Or rather, while he didn’t mind getting older, he never wanted to lose the child-like enchantment of imagination and wonder. Creating colorful worlds and stories for children has allowed Steve to both preserve his own imagination while sharing the joy of learning with children worldwide.

Bowling has a BA in political science from Brandeis University. He is an entrepreneur who has worked on, and holds, several U.S. patents. He heads The Prometheum Foundation, a nonprofit philosophical organization that helps teach students critical and analytical thinking, freedom of thought, and entrance into the marketplace of ideas.

Bowling moderates discussions and debates of all types. He has been conducting the Franklin Forum high school programs for more than 20 years. This Forum places students in the arena of public debate in which they are obliged to think about issues and public policy. It allows them to test their opinions, hear opposing views, and debate current issues, all in a setting with a free and open exchange of ideas. The Forum teaches civility in civil discourse; the ability to disagree and still be agreeable even in a passionate exchange of views. Students develop self-confidence, self-esteem, respect for the opinion of others and the ability to effectively communicate their views.

He is a lifelong weightlifter, an avid student of history and philosophy, and has a fascination with astrophysics.

About Born Equal

In 1840, millions of Black Americans groaned in the chains of slavery. By 1920, millions of American men and women of every race had won the vote. In Born Equal, the prize-winning constitutional historian Akhil Reed Amar recounts the dramatic constitutional debates that unfolded across these eight decades, when four glorious amendments abolished slavery, secured Black and female citizenship, and extended suffrage regardless of race or gender.

At the heart of this era was the epic and ever-evolving idea that all Americans are created equal. The promise of birth equality sat at the base of the 1776 Declaration of Independence. But in the 19th century, remarkable American women and men — especially Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Abraham Lincoln — elaborated a new vision of what this ideal demanded. Their debates played out from Seneca Falls to the halls of Congress, from Bleeding Kansas to Gettysburg, from Ford’s Theater to the White House gates, ultimately transforming the nation and the world.

An ambitious narrative history and a penetrating work of legal and political analysis, Born Equal is a vital new portrait of America’s winding road toward equality.

Book description courtesy Hachette Book Group.