Individual Rights vs. the Common Good in the Age of COVID-19

Federal, states, and local governments are having to manage the trade-off between individual freedoms and the greater good as they manage an unprecedented public health and public safety crisis. In both countries there have been protests against certain measures. Additionally, questions are being raised about privacy issues as virus tracking apps are being considered. Join Caroline Fredrickson and Arnd Henze to discuss how to balance the two competing interests.

Moderator: Cordell Carter (Bosch Fellow 2007-08), Executive Director of the Socrates Program at the Aspen Institute and Member of the Cultural Vistas Alumni Council.

Caroline Fredrickson (Bosch Fellow 1993-94) is a Senior Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. She most recently served as the President of the American Constitution Society from 2009-2019. Before joining ACS, Fredrickson served as the Director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office and as General Counsel and Legal Director of NARAL Pro-Choice America. In addition, she served as the Chief of Staff to Senator Maria Cantwell, of Washington, and Deputy Chief of Staff to then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, of South Dakota. During the Clinton Administration, she served as Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. This fall, she will join Georgetown Law as a Visiting Professor.

Ms. Fredrickson has published works on many legal and constitutional issues and is a frequent guest on television and radio. In addition, she regularly contributes opinion pieces for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other news outlets. She is also the author of Under the Bus: How Working Women Are Being Run Over, The Democracy Fix: How to Win the Fight for Fair Rules, Fair Courts, and Fair Elections, and most recently, The AOC Way.

Arnd Henze (ACG Young Leader) is an editor and reporter at WDR with a focus on German domestic and international investigative reporting. From 2012 through June 2019, he was a Senior Correspondent at the ARD’s Berlin Studio, with a special focus on foreign and security policy. Before that he served as the Deputy Foreign Editor of WDR. His work has taken him to numerous conflict zones, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, and South Sudan. Mr. Henze has reported from Washington, DC and New York, NY on and off since 1993.

In addition, Mr. Henze is active in the Evangelical Church, and has studied the role of religion and theology during the Nazi period. In May 2019, his well-received book “Kann Kirche Demokratie?” (“Can the Church be Democratic?”) was published by Herder. In the book he studies the historic preconditions for authoritarian and nationalist thinking in the Protestant Church – and its relevance today.