When the Supreme Court hears arguments in St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, Colorado will defend antidiscrimination laws for the fourth time in 10 years.
Institute for Humane Studies
How much can free peoples achieve?
That question has animated the Institute for Humane Studies since 1961. Founded by Dr. F. A. “Baldy” Harper, a former economics professor at Cornell University, IHS was formed against a backdrop of a world still recovering from two world wars, widespread physical and economic devastation, and the early years of the Cold War. Construction of the Berlin Wall began just a few months after our doors opened.
From the beginning, IHS has advanced the frontiers of political, economic, cultural, and intellectual freedom. That has meant gathering and supporting generations of the world’s leading minds within the liberal tradition. When, in the 1970s, Soviet communism deprived millions of their lives and livelihoods, the Nobel-winning economist Friedrich Hayek was elaborating alternatives from our offices.
Today, with surging illiberalism at home and abroad threatening these same liberties and the human progress they unleash, IHS provides the rare spaces where liberals of all stripes—left, classical, and conservative—can unite behind the principles of freedom and human flourishing.
Though the world has changed much since our founding, IHS’s commitment to the principles of the liberal tradition hasn’t wavered. Nearly 65 years later, we’re still welcoming the dreamers and radicals and scholars working toward a freer, more prosperous, and more peaceful world.
Links
Articles
Campaign spending is confusing, but there are basic rules to help you understand information about money in elections. They can help you determine what is corruption and what is just regular politics.
By setting up a fund supported by those who violate Canadian laws to assist groups that protect civil rights, Canada can invest in democracy’s strongest defence: robust, free and open speech.
First-year college women are particularly at risk for being sexually assaulted. Campus intervention programs can help decrease that risk.
After 9/11, suspicion of Islam hardened into an assumption in Texas that Muslim identity itself signals danger, writes a scholar of constitutional law.
In correspondence with their constituents, Democrats are talking about corruption six times as much as they did in 2022.
Class-war rhetoric from Democratic candidates jams working-class voters into a prefabricated progressive agenda, an expert on rural and working-class communities argues.
Graham Platner’s Senate campaign has imploded amid credible accusations of rape. A Maine political scientist looks at what happened and how the populist Platner resembles Donald Trump in key ways.
Philadelphia police revoked the carry licenses of five members of the Black Lion Party for International Solidarity, citing ‘good cause.’ Is that constitutional?
Si le parti démocrate ne fait plus autant recette qu’auparavant auprès des travailleurs, c’est en bonne partie du fait de son glissement vers la gauche sur un ensemble de questions.
Class-war rhetoric from Democratic candidates jams working-class voters into a prefabricated progressive agenda, an expert on rural and working-class communities argues.
Short-term humanitarian aid won’t go far in alleviating Cuba’s long-term energy crisis.
Encountering a website that seems like it was designed to frustrate might leave you saying ‘there oughta be a law,’ but to have a case you need to show that the site tried to swindle you.
Congress has refused to exercise oversight of the Iran war, with Republicans nixing Democrats’ attempts to exercise legislators’ power over military engagements. That’s nothing new.
Estimates of artificial intelligence’s impact on jobs and the economy range from the apocalyptic to the utopian, but the data tells a more nuanced story.
Companies that had sued for tariff refunds are taking different approaches to getting their money back – or quitting the effort.
The status change may result in students avoiding degrees in nursing and social work.
A 2025 study shows that an AI-based tutor improves learning when it prompts reasoning and is paired with peer discussion.
At the tail end of the Vietnam War, Congress engaged in a breathtaking act of legislative assertion, affirming that lawmakers held the power to declare war – not the president.
Officials and policymakers say direct-to-consumer drug advertising encourages patients to seek treatments they don’t need and raises heath care costs, but the true picture is more nuanced.
Authors
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Alejandro Hortal-Sánchez is a Friend of The Conversation.External collaborator, UNED - Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia; University of North Carolina – Greensboro; Institute for Humane Studies; Wake Forest University
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Assistant Professor of Law, Michigan State University; Institute for Humane Studies
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Associate Research Professor of Information Systems, Arizona State University; Institute for Humane Studies
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Professor of Law, University of Wyoming; Institute for Humane Studies
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Assistant Professor of Law, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Institute for Humane Studies
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Assistant Professor of Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy, Michigan State University; Institute for Humane Studies
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Assistant Professor of Public Policy, University of Denver; Institute for Humane Studies
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Professor of Social Work, Appalachian State University; Institute for Humane Studies
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Professor of Public Policy, Pepperdine University; Institute for Humane Studies
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Associate Professor of Philosophy and Law, Wayne State University; Institute for Humane Studies
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Associate Professor of Law and James S. Palmer Chair in Public Policy & Law, Dalhousie University; Institute for Humane Studies
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Goldfarb Family Distinguished Chair in American Government, Colby College; Institute for Humane Studies
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Professor of Finance and Economics, Northwest Nazarene University; Institute for Humane Studies
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Professor of Political Science, Clark University; Institute for Humane Studies
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Associate Professor of Political Science, Rochester Institute of Technology; Institute for Humane Studies