Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Lecture
The School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership hosts an annual lecture in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr., which provides an indispensable forum for the school to include historical and contemporary conversations about race in American society within the framework of civic discourse that inspires all of our public programs.
"Which Path Forward: The Two Options Facing the Black Community, and America, this MLK Day." Annual MLK Day Lecture with Wilfred Reilly
Wilfred Reilly genuinely believes that we are at a time of choosing for the United States. Since ~2015, the "woke" political left has argued - prominently, rather than inside our academic salons - that politics and indeed day-to-day life should be conceptualized in group-level terms, with individuals being defined as oppressors or oppressed persons based on their group membership. There are obvious problems with this idea - the range of income and power within each group is far far greater than the small gaps that we see between groups, and many of the most prominent people in the USA are Black, Jewish, Asian, etc. But, its prominence has contributed to the ascendance of mirror-image identarian movements (the "dissident right," the "man-o-sphere") that may well pose an even greater threat to national stability. Against both trends, as we honor Dr. King, Mr. Reilly proposes a return to the idea that citizens be judged by individual merit...for fun, he will define this...and the content of their character.
About the Speaker
Wilfred Reilly, a tenured professor of Political Science at The Kentucky State University, is the author of the books Hate Crime Hoax, Taboo: the Ten Facts You Can't Talk About, Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me, and the upcoming Confidently Wrong. He has published or contributed to more than 100 research and public intellectual articles. A methodologist, broadly defined, by training, a key focus of Reilly's work is examining the sacred cow theories of the U.S. political left and right - such as the existence of widespread univariate "white privilege" - and seeing whether or not these have a basis in fact.
Date: Thursday, January 15, 2026
Time: 5-7 p.m.
Location: Carson Ballroom, Old Main, 400 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ, 85281
Watch previous lectures
In the news
Annual Martin Luther King Day lecture at Arizona State University considers range of perspectives on activism
Scholars discuss intellectual, ideological diversity of civil rights movement at ASU.
Two of the nation’s most respected scholars of race and politics visited Arizona State University’s Tempe campus Wednesday to participate in the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership’s third annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day lecture, “Citizenship and the African American Experience.”