Justice

The unflinching humanity and morality that Martin Luther King, Jr. embodied is part of what makes his legacy so lasting. In addition to his preeminent civil rights work, he spoke out about worker protections, access to housing, and warmongering. Watch and listen as Aspen Ideas speakers, some of whom worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., explain how he indelibly shaped the w...

Americans seem more culturally and ideologically divided than at any point in most of our lifetimes, with no prospect of bridging those divides any time soon. The only thing we seem to agree upon is that our politics are broken and our leaders are unable to solve the nation’s most fundamental challenges. What can be done to save American democracy from itself? Can we still...

From the Supreme Court's ruling on abortion rights to public health's role in addressing gun violence to the devastating human toll of the war in Ukraine, this year's Aspen Ideas: Health sessions tackled some of the most pressing issues driving headlines nationally and globally. Explore the timely conversations with top government officials, business leaders, public health...

The highest court often seems distanced from our day-to-day lives, but the rulings that come out of the Supreme Court are woven into the fabric of the nation. Though it aims to be apolitical, the court regularly hears cases that involve some of the most contentious questions dividing the nation, and its decisions can change the course of our social, political, and economic...

Two weeks before the first woman of color became Vice President, an angry mob that included members of the white supremacist group Proud Boys, stormed the US Capitol. As Ibram X. Kendi puts it, “we’re engaged in this struggle between two forces: racial progress and racist process.” Watch recent conversations that offer ways to recognize, reckon with and repair societal rac...

Race has divided our country since colonization, with some calling slavery America's original sin. The history of the US, from the Civil War to Jim Crow and Black Lives Matter, is defined as conspicuously by racial strife as it is by great achievements. So what does racial progress actually mean in practice? How can political, business, and community leaders confront the t...

The American Criminal Justice system is flawed, to put it mildly. It’s oversized, inefficient, and unfair, and it often seems that we can’t even agree what it’s supposed to be doing. Until recently, there was a growing bipartisan consensus on the need for radical new approaches to sentencing and incarceration, but the current administration seems to have reversed course. W...