American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded by visionaries who foresaw that the nascent republic would benefit from the expertise of learned citizens to guide its development, health, and integrity through whatever challenges may arise.
Today, the clarity of that vision has never been more evident. The pandemic, the 2020 election and its aftermath, and the movement for justice and reform in the wake of repeated racial injustice have demonstrated the importance of shoring up our institutions and civil society on behalf of the public good. We find ourselves in a time of deepening divides across lines of politics, race, religion, income, and opportunity. The institutions we have long turned to for leadership and information are under fire, and doubt about the credibility of the media, government, commercial enterprise, and academia is cast from many directions. Strong and responsive institutions and a healthy civil society can carry us through crises and are vitally important in their aftermath.
From these challenges springs an ever-greater need for innovation and reinvestment in America’s founding values and its promise. As the Academy’s report Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century notes, we are experiencing an age of surging civic participation, “of communities working to build new connections across long-standing divides, and of citizens suddenly awakening to the potential of their democratic responsibilities.” It is in times like these that members of the Academy, through projects in the American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good program, combine their extraordinary and diverse expertise to strengthen the relationships between our national institutions, civil society, and the citizens they serve and represent.
PROJECT
Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship
The Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship is a multiyear project of the Academy. The Commission launched in 2018 to explore the factors that encourage and discourage people from becoming engaged in their communities. The Commission’s final report, Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century, seeks to improve democratic engagement in the United States with a set of recommendations that reach across political institutions, civic culture, and civil society to revitalize American democracy by increasing representation, empowering voters, making institutions more responsive, and revitalizing our civic culture.
The Academy has committed to make significant progress on all thirty-one recommendations by 2026, the nation’s 250th anniversary. In collaboration with champion organizations and leaders from across the nation, who are committed to the advancement of the recommendations, the Academy will host public events and targeted briefings; provide expert testimony and thought leadership; convene experts and practitioners for knowledge sharing and strategy development; create op-eds and other earned media; and in other ways stand up and support the ongoing implementation of Our Common Purpose.
Commission Chairs
Danielle Allen
Harvard University
Stephen Heintz
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Eric Liu
Citizen University
Commission Members
Sayu Bhojwani
Women’s Democracy Lab
danah boyd
Data & Society
Caroline Brettell
Southern Methodist University
David Brooks
The New York Times
David Campbell
University of Notre Dame
Alan Dachs
Fremont Group
Dee Davis
Center for Rural Strategies
Jonathan Fanton
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Lisa Garcia Bedolla
University of California, Berkeley
Sam Gill*
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
R. Marie Griffith*
John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics, University of Washington in St. Louis
Hahrie Han
Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute, Johns Hopkins University
Antonia Hernández*
California Community Foundation
Wallace Jefferson*
Alexander Dubose & Jefferson, LLP
Joseph Kahne
University of California, Riverside
Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg*
Tufts University
Yuval Levin*
American Enterprise Institute
Carolyn Lukensmeyer
formerly, National Institute for Civil Discourse
Martha McCoy
Everyday Democracy
Lynn Nottage
Playwright
Steven Olikara
Millennial Action Project
Norman Ornstein*
American Enterprise Institute
Robert Peck
FPR Partners
Pete Peterson*
School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University
Miles Rapoport*
Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard University
Michael Schudson
Columbia University
Sterling Speirn
formerly, National Conference on Citizenship
Marcelo Suárez-Orozco
University of Massachusetts Boston
Ben Vinson
Case Western Reserve University
Diane Wood
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Judy Woodruff
PBS
Ethan Zuckerman
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Project Staff
Jonathan D. Cohen
Joan and Irwin Jacobs Program Officer for American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good
Darshan Goux
Program Director for American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good
Morgan Jacobs
External Relations Officer
Jessica Lieberman
Program Officer for American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good
Tania Munz
Chief Program Officer
Abhishek Raman
Program Officer for American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good
Peter Robinson
Morton L. Mandel Director of Strategic Implementation
Elizabeth Youngling
Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Humanities Policy Fellow
Funders
S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Ford Foundation
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
The Suzanne Nora Johnson and David G. Johnson Foundation
The Clary Family Charitable Fund
Alan and Lauren Dachs
Sara Lee Schupf and the Lubin Family Foundation
Joan and Irwin Jacobs
Patti Saris
David M. Rubenstein
* Denotes member of the OCP Implementation Advisory Committee
Commission Publications
The Case for Enlarging the House of Representatives, Lee Drutman, Jonathan D. Cohen, Yuval Levin, and Norman J. Ornstein (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2021)
Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2020)
The Political and Civic Engagement of Immigrants, Caroline Brettell (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2020)
The Data Driving Democracy, Christina Couch (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2020)
The Internet and Engaged Citizenship, David Karpf (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2019)
Commission Meetings
Salons at Stowe
July 27, 2021; August 26, 2021; and January 27, 2022
Recommendation 6.2 in Our Common Purpose calls for a Telling Our Nation’s Story initiative: engaging communities across the country in direct, open-ended, and inclusive conversations about the complex American story. Across three events, the Harriet Beacher Stowe Center in Hartford, Connecticut, collaborated with the Academy to investigate divisive narratives of American history and pursue values that can unite rather than divide the nation. Each event began with an introduction to Our Common Purpose and the Telling Our Nation’s Story recommendation, followed by a panel conversation about a divisive historical topic. The first event focused on Uncle Tom’s Cabin and how the epithet “Uncle Tom” has shaped American racial policies; the second event centered on criminal justice reform and how the debates over police violence in the twenty-first century date back to the antebellum period; and the third event highlighted the barriers to political activism overcome by women and girls in Connecticut and across the nation, as well as the particular challenges women of color face in advocating for policies that support their vision of a more inclusive nation.
Speakers
July 27, 2021
Cheryl Thompson
Ryerson University
Maisa L. Tisdale
Mary and Eliza Freeman Center
August 26, 2021
Martha McCoy
Everyday Democracy
Daryl McGraw
Formerly Inc.; CT State Police Transparency and Accountability Task Force
Jonathan Daniel Wells
University of Michigan
January 27, 2022
Anna Malaika Tubbs
Author
Janée Woods Weber
Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund
Thought and Action: The Political Responsibility of Universities
October 14–15, 2021
The Academy cohosted a virtual symposium, “Thought and Action: The Political Responsibility of Universities,” with the Thomas Mann House, the German Research Foundation, and the German Rectors’ Conference. Members of the Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship had the chance to share Our Common Purpose with scholars and university administrators from the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Austria. Participants discussed the challenges facing democracy in their countries, in particular the role of higher education institutions in building healthier political cultures and stronger democratic institutions. The symposium offered an important reminder of the challenges facing democracies overseas and offered a unique opportunity to discuss the Our Common Purpose recommendations with a diverse cohort of international thought leaders.
Hosts
Peter-André Alt
German Rectors’ Conference
Julika Griem
German Research Foundation
Steven Lavine
Thomas Mann House
David W. Oxtoby
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
A Youth Agenda for American Democracy
November 12, 2021
The Academy hosted a summit of fifty young leaders, ages eighteen to twenty-nine, from across the United States to discuss the challenges they have experienced with American democracy through their own work. While summit participants expressed concern that unresponsive institutions and elected officials have led to a widespread sense of disengagement and disempowerment among their peers, they also articulated their own affirmative agenda for strengthening our constitutional democracy.
Speakers
R. Marie Griffith
Washington University in St. Louis
Justin Levitt
The White House
Alice Siu
Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University
How Higher Education Can Save American Democracy
December 1, 2021
The Academy invited leaders from its network of Affiliate institutions to an off-the-record conversation about the relationship between higher education and American democracy. At this virtual convening, the participants discussed the challenges that higher education institutions face and the opportunities they have to help reinvent American democracy for the twenty-first century.
Speakers
Melody Barnes
University of Virginia
Ronald Daniels
Johns Hopkins University
Lisa García Bedolla
University of California, Berkeley
Libraries as Bridges
December 3, 2021 and February 25, 2022
The Academy hosted over fifty library professionals from across the country at a virtual conversation of the Libraries as Bridges network to discuss the challenges and opportunities for libraries in the democracy space. This multi-part series of events engaged library professionals and other civic catalysts to advance the role of libraries in creating civic infrastructure and sustaining a healthy constitutional democracy.
Speakers
Daphna Blatt
New York Public Library
Shamichael Hallman
Memphis Public Library
Eric Liu
Citizen University
Meeting of the Commission
March 30, 2022
Members of the Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship convened virtually to reflect on the events that have occurred since the release of the Our Common Purpose report, to consider how the recommendations and strategies have fared, and to discuss how to mark the two-year anniversary of the report.
What Does it Mean to be an American? Reexamining the Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship
April 20, 2022
Amid extreme partisan polarization, trust in government institutions hovers near record lows and a large majority of Americans believe their values are under attack. In this context, what values hold the nation together, and what does it mean to be a “good citizen”? The Academy brought together a distinguished panel of experts to examine how the rights and responsibilities of American citizenship are connected and how they might be used to create a greater sense of common purpose.
Speakers
Danielle Allen, moderator
Harvard University
E.J. Dionne Jr.
Brookings Institution
María Teresa Kumar
Voto Latino
John Shattuck
Fletcher School, Tufts University
Talking about Democracy with Millennials and Gen Z
May 5, 2022
From climate change, to immigration, to education, to democracy reform, young Americans lead efforts on some of the most pressing issues facing the nation and the world. How do their life experiences and cultural context shape the language they use in their work? This event included a presentation of data from the Civic Language Perceptions Project by the Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement, a discussion on how perceptions differ across age groups, and a conversation with young civic leaders on how civic culture and language inform their work.
Speakers
Diana Aviv
Partnership for American Democracy
Nimisha Ganesh
GenUnity
Caroline Klibanoff
Made by Us
David McCullough
American Exchange Project
Amy McIsaac
Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement
Manu Meel
BridgeUSA
Strengthening American Democracy through Civic Investment
May 6–8, 2022
The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands partnered with the Academy to host a multiday retreat to bring attention to the chronic underinvestment in the civic health of our nation’s communities and to mobilize support for the development of local civic infrastructure. The convening was rooted in the Commission’s recommendation to create a Trust for Civic Infrastructure. Civil society practitioners, scholars, and philanthropic leaders joined with members of the Commission to discuss the need to invest substantial and sustainable resources in the nation’s civic infrastructure – the local spaces, programs, and people that encourage residents to interact, find common ground, and solve problems together.
Hosts
Stephen Heintz
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
David Lane
Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands
David W. Oxtoby
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Bridging Divides in America
May 17, 2022
America’s divisions pose a threat to our national security and make it more difficult to address critical challenges facing the nation. The Academy hosted a discussion on the importance of addressing these divisions and finding new forms of engagement that acknowledge our divides while finding productive ways to cross them. Republican and Democratic members of Congress, leaders in national security, and experts in bridging divides discussed what is at stake and shared promising solutions that could help bring Americans together to solve problems and strengthen our nation.
Speakers
Andy Barr
U.S. House of Representatives, Kentucky’s Sixth Congressional District
Kay Bailey Hutchison
formerly, U.S. Department of State
Derek Kilmer
U.S. House of Representatives, Washington’s Sixth Congressional District
Eric Liu
Citizen University
Farah Pandith
Council on Foreign Relations; formerly, U.S. Department of State
Laurie Patton
Middlebury College
Project
Making Justice Accessible
The two projects of the Making Justice Accessible initiative addressed the challenges of providing legal services to low-income Americans. The first project, Designing Legal Services for the 21st Century, gathered information about the national need for improved legal access and advanced a set of clear national recommendations for closing the “civil justice gap” between supply of and demand for legal services. In September 2020, the project released its final report, Civil Justice for All, calling for the legal profession, the courts, law schools, tech professionals, and partners from many other fields to join together to provide legal assistance to many more people in need. The report recommends targeted investments, simplified procedures, greater coordination and new partnerships among a range of fields and sectors, and new advocates who are trained and encouraged to provide more accessible legal assistance.
The second project, Data Collection and Legal Services for Low-Income Americans, issued its report Measuring Civil Justice for All in February 2021. The report identifies sources of existing data on legal services and unrepresented civil litigation nationwide. This project created a blueprint for future data collection efforts, including establishing a research agenda for scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers. Participants include representatives of the courts, legal aid providers, and foundations, as well as legal scholars and social scientists.
The related Winter 2019 issue of Dædalus on “Access to Justice” is a multidisciplinary study of the civil justice gap, examining new models for the delivery of legal aid.
This project launched a two-year implementation phase in February 2022.
Project Chairs
John Levi
Legal Services Corporation; Sidley Austin LLP
Martha Minow
Harvard Law School
Kenneth C. Frazier
formerly, Merck & Co.
Data Collection & Legal Services for Low-Income Americans
Project Chairs
Mark Hansen
University of Chicago
Rebecca Sandefur
Arizona State University
Advisory Committee
Kimberly S. Budd
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Colleen Cotter
Legal Aid Society of Cleveland
Ronald Flagg
Legal Services Corporation
Ivan Fong
Medtronic
Bethany Hamilton
National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership
Nathan L. Hecht
Texas Supreme Court
Wallace B. Jefferson
Alexander Dubose & Jefferson, LLP
Joe Kennedy, III
formerly, U.S. House of Representatives
Lance Liebman
Columbia Law School
Jonathan Lippman
Latham & Watkins, LLP
Lora J. Livingston
Texas 261st District Court (Travis County)
Judy Perry Martinez
Simon, Peragine, Smith & Redfearn
Bridget Mary McCormack
Michigan Supreme Court
Margaret Morrow
formerly, United States District Court for the Central District of California
Rohan Pavuluri
Upsolve
Andrew M. Perlman
Suffolk University School of Law
Daniel B. Rodriguez
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
Rebecca Sandefur
Arizona State University
William Treanor
Georgetown Law
Jo-Ann Wallace
National Legal Aid & Defender Association
Diane Wood
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
PROJECT STAFF
Eduardo Gonzalez
Program Officer for American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good
Darshan Goux
Program Director for American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good
Tania Munz
Chief Program Officer
FUNDER
David M. Rubenstein
Project Publications
Measuring Civil Justice for All (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, February 2021)
Civil Justice for All (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, September 2020)
“Access to Justice,” Dædalus, edited by Lincoln Caplan, Lance Liebman, and Rebecca Sandefur (Winter 2019)
Project
The Commission on Reimagining Our Economy
Economic uncertainty is a disruptive force in American life. In the United States today, too many families are unable to achieve the life they want despite their best efforts, too many communities have not benefited from economic growth, and too many Americans believe the economy does not work for people like them. These conditions not only harm lives and livelihoods, but they also sow distrust in our political, economic, and community institutions. The widespread belief that the economy does not give everyone a fair chance exacerbates tensions among Americans, threatening the nation’s social fabric and its democracy.
The Academy launched the Commission on Reimagining Our Economy (CORE) in October 2021 with the goal of rethinking the principles, metrics, narratives, and policies that shape the nation’s political economy. While policy-makers and journalists often track how the economy is doing, the Commission seeks to direct a focus onto how Americans are doing, elevating the human stakes of our economic and political systems. The Commission builds on the work of Our Common Purpose, which acknowledges that economic conditions shape the practice of democracy but does not offer recommendations specifically targeted at economic issues.
The interdisciplinary Commission comprises scholars, journalists, artists, and leaders from the faith, labor, business, education, and philanthropic communities. Through listening sessions, data collection, and a commitment to cross-partisan work, the Commission will develop bold, achievable recommendations to build an economy that works for all Americans. The Commission represents a vital endeavor to reimagine the nation’s political economy, to ease distrust, and to help the American people face the challenges of the twenty-first century.
Commission Chairs
Katherine J. Cramer
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Ann M. Fudge
formerly, Young & Rubicam Brands
Nicholas B. Lemann
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
COMMISSION MEMBERS
Daron Acemoglu
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Elizabeth Anderson
University of Michigan
Cornell William Brooks
Harvard Kennedy School
Whitney Kimball Coe
Center for Rural Strategies
Jane Delgado
National Alliance for Hispanic Health
James Fallows
Our Towns Civic Foundation; The Atlantic
Helene Gayle
Spelman College
Jacob Hacker
Yale University
Tom Hanks
Actor and Filmmaker
Mary Kay Henry
Service Employees International Union
Kelly Lytle Hernández
University of California, Los Angeles
Megan Minoka Hill
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Reid Hoffman
Greylock Partners
Serene Jones
Union Theological Seminary
Julius Krein
American Affairs
Goodwin Liu
California Supreme Court
Maya MacGuineas
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
James Manyika
Alphabet, Inc.
Katherine Newman
University of Massachusetts
Viet Thanh Nguyen
University of Southern California
Sarah Ruger
Stand Together
Ruth Simmons
Prairie View A&M University
Matthew Slaughter
Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College
Anna Deavere Smith
Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, New York University
Joseph Stiglitz
Columbia University
Michael Strain
American Enterprise Institute
Mark Trahant
Indian Country Today
PROJECT STAFF
Jonathan Cohen
Joan and Irwin Jacobs Program Officer for American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good
Darshan Goux
Program Director for American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good
Victor Lopez
Program Associate for American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good
Tania Munz
Chief Program Officer
Elizabeth Youngling
Carl & Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Fellow
FUNDERS
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The C&P Buttenwieser Foundation
Omidyar Network
Patti Saris
David M. Rubenstein
Commission Meetings
Meeting of the Commission
October 3–5, 2021
At the first meeting of the Commission, held virtually, members offered definitions of political economy and explained what they saw as the biggest issues facing the American political economy in the twenty-first century. The Commission reflected on its unique opportunity for impact as a diverse, interdisciplinary group, and expressed an eagerness to produce bold, achievable recommendations.
Meeting of the Commission
April 10–12, 2022
The second meeting of the Commission was held in person at the offices of the Chicago Community Trust in Chicago, Illinois, with some members participating virtually. Following its first meeting, the Commission formed three working groups: one to rethink the metrics used to measure the economy, one to analyze the narratives that explain how the economy works, and one to organize listening sessions. At the second meeting, members heard updates from the three working groups and discussed next steps to ensure the Commission has all the information it needs to begin discussing recommendations. The Commission also continued its discussion of impact, including the possibility of releasing mixed-media products over the course of the Commission’s work, in addition to a final report.