Citizens United. Hobby Lobby. Many Americans had not heard of the movement to expand constitutional rights for businesses before these landmark cases. But the struggle for corporate rights has a long, complicated history in the United States. The first Supreme Court case extending constitutional protections to corporations was decided in 1809, more than a half-century before the first comparable cases for racial minorities or women. In the years since, the nation’s most powerful corporations have gained our most fundamental rights, transforming the Constitution to serve the ends of capital.

Join Adam Winkler, law professor at UCLA and author of the new book We the Corporations, for a discussion about the American government’s relationship to big business and the 200-year effort to give corporations the same rights as people. He will be joined by Dahlia Lithwick — one of the country’s most prominent legal journalists — an editor at Slate and host of its Amicus podcast — who covers the Supreme Court and its decisions on corporate rights.

Adam Winkler, author, We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights; professor of law, UCLA

Dahlia Lithwick, Senior Editor and legal (Supreme Court) correspondent, Slate

In partnership with the American Constitution Society.

When can a democracy slide into autocracy? In his provocative new book, Trumpocracy, conservative writer David Frum examines the ways in which Trump and his administration continually undermine our most important public institutions. As Frum argues, Trump has steadily damaged many of the tenets and accepted practices of American democracy in just his first year of presidency, including media freedom, judicial independence, and the right to have one’s vote counted fairly.

David Frum is a Senior Editor at The Atlantic, the author of nine books, and served as a special assistant and speechwriter for President George W. Bush. In this special conversation with NYU School of Law Dean Trevor Morrison, a leading expert on the presidency and the Constitution, Frum will discuss what happens next under Trump, as well as how to prevent a push toward illiberalism.

David Frum, Senior Editor, The Atlantic; author, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic

Trevor Morrison, Dean and Eric M. and Laurie B. Roth Professor of Law, New York University School of Law

President Donald Trump’s decision to keep control of his business empire despite apparent conflicts of interest is but one of a number of ethical controversies that have made headlines since Inauguration Day one year ago. As informal guardrails that constrain self-dealing by those in power fall away, what can be done to shore up federal ethics laws to give the public confidence that their leaders will put the interests of the American people first?

The panel reviews the most significant gaps that exist in our system of federal ethics regulation, considers the special challenges that accompany any effort to regulate the president’s conduct in office, and debates the most promising ideas for reform.

Kimberly Atkins, Chief Washington Reporter/Columnist, Boston Herald

Kathleen Clark, Professor of Law, Washington University School of Law

Walter Shaub, Senior Director, Ethics, Campaign Legal Center and former Director of the Office of Government Ethics

Daniel I. Weiner, Senior Counsel, Democracy Program, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law

This program is produced by The Brennan Center for Justice in partnership with the NYU John Brademas Center and NYU Washington, DC.

Fact: More than 100,000 individuals in the US are held in private prisons and private immigration detention centers. These institutions are criticized for making money off mass incarceration―$5 billion every year―and have become a focus of the anti-mass incarceration movement. The Department of Justice under President Obama attempted to cut off private prisons, while DOJ under Trump has embraced these institutions.

Few journalists or scholars have seen these prisons firsthand―until now. Join Lauren-Brooke Eisen―senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice―for the launch of her new book, Inside Private Prisons, as she reflects on her unprecedented access to our nation’s private penal system and what she’s uncovered about these corporate prisons. She will be joined by Glenn Martin of JustLeadershipUSA and CNN's Laura Jarrett will moderate the discussion.

For 510 days, NBC News Correspondent Katy Tur reported on Republican Nominee Donald Trump. She visited forty states with the candidate and made over 3,800 live television reports. Over the course of the year and a half, Trump taunted Tur incessantly, transforming her into a prominent figure in the presidential campaign. As Tur was singled out, colleagues rallied around her and thousands tweeted their support with #ImWithTur.

Katy Tur—who recently received a Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence—joins the Brennan Center and Irin Carmon, co-author of Notorious R.B.G., to reflect on her unexpected time in the spotlight and the fascinating, highly controversial world of the 2016 Trump Campaign.

One year after the election of Donald Trump as president, this special program looks forward and asks: What can we do now? Trump has broken countless unwritten norms of democratic conduct meant to protect against corruption and abuse. In the past, reform often followed abuse, frequently in the form of new laws: the limit of presidential terms, anti-nepotism laws, the special prosecutor law, the War Powers Act, and many others. This panel asks what has been different about this presidency, and what should be the agendas going forward to check presidential power and curb oval office misconduct.

We mark the one year anniversary of Trump’s electoral victory with Emily Bazelon, staff writer for New York Times Magazine, Preet Bharara, former US Attorney, Southern District of NY, John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, and ABC's George Stephanopoulos for a public discussion of how to fortify our democracy in the Trump years and beyond.

Fact: More than 100,000 individuals in the US are held in private prisons and private immigration detention centers. These institutions are criticized for making money off mass incarceration―$5 billion every year―and have become a focus of the anti-mass incarceration movement. The Department of Justice under President Obama attempted to cut off private prisons, while DOJ under Trump has embraced these institutions.

Few journalists or scholars have seen these prisons firsthand―until now. Join Lauren-Brooke Eisen―senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice―for the launch of her new book, Inside Private Prisons, as she reflects on her unprecedented access to our nation’s private penal system and what she’s uncovered about these corporate prisons. She will be joined by criminal justice journalist Eli Hager from The Marshall Project, investigate journalist Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Khalil Cumberbatch from The Fortune Society, and NPR correspondent Ailsa Chang.

In an otherwise treacherous political era for women’s bodies and health, activists and lawmakers are advancing a new, affirmative agenda – for the very first time, one that meshes menstruation and public policy. From tax reform to public benefits to corrections policy, periods have become the surprising force fueling a high-profile, bipartisan movement.

Join Congresswoman Grace Meng, (NY-6), sponsor of the Menstrual Equity for All Act of 2017 (H.R. 972); the Brennan Center’s Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, author of Periods Gone Public, and Newsweek senior reporter Abigail Jones to learn more about how this campaign emerged, why the issue resonates across party lines, and what is next for “menstrual equity.”

Dive in to this lively dialogue about economics, history, philosophy, law, and politics with Ganesh Sitaraman, author of The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution. He makes a compelling case that inequality is more than just a moral or economic problem; it threatens the very core of our American constitutional system.