Constitutional Crossroads: Is the Constitution Broken?

Join us for a free public conversation.

The Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture and The Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University welcome you back to The Embrace for another season of public conversations on democracy, justice, memory, and values.

The series kicks off on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, at 5:15 p.m. and will be followed by a free public dinner and reception at 25 Winter Pl. Boston, MA 02108.

Distinguished legal scholars Aziz Rana and Noah Feldman will engage in a critical dialogue examining whether the Constitution can sustain democratic life amid today's challenges. They will explore how the document's promises contend with its historical compromises and limitations. This conversation confronts a fundamental question: does democratic renewal require reimagining our founding compact? Their contrasting perspectives offer important insights on the meaning of our constitution in our current crisis and beyond.

Brandon M. Terry, the John Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University will introduce the event.

Aziz Rana is the J. Donald Monan, S.J., University Professor of Law and Government. He joins Boston College from Cornell Law School, where he was the Richard and Lois Cole Professor of Law. His research and teaching center on American constitutional law and political development. In particular, Rana’s work focuses on how shifting notions of race, citizenship, and empire have shaped legal and political identity since the founding of the country.

His first book, The Two Faces of American Freedom (Harvard University Press) situates the American experience within the global history of colonialism, examining the intertwined relationship in American constitutional practice between internal accounts of freedom and external projects of power and expansion. His latest book, The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document that Fails Them (University of Chicago Press, 2024), explores the modern emergence of constitutional veneration in the twentieth century -- especially against the backdrop of growing American global authority -- and how veneration has influenced the boundaries of popular politics.

Noah Feldman is Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Chair of the Society of Fellows, and founding director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law, all at Harvard University. He specializes in constitutional studies, with particular emphasis on power and ethics, design of innovative governance solutions, law and religion, and the history of legal ideas.

A policy & public affairs columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, Feldman also writes for The New York Review of Books and was a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine for nearly a decade. He hosts the Deep Background podcast, an interview show that explores the historical, scientific, legal and cultural context behind the biggest stories in the news.

Through his consultancy, Ethical Compass, Feldman advises clients like Facebook & eBay on how to improve ethical decision-making by creating and implementing new governance solutions. In this capacity, he conceived and architected the Facebook Oversight Board, and continues to advise the company on ethics and governance issues.

Feldman is the author of 10 books, including his latest, The Broken Constitution. Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America.

Seating will be provided but please feel free to bring blankets in case the chairs fill