News

Minnesota Public Radio aired the St. Olaf College Institute for Freedom and Community’s recent conversation with former Wall Street Journal and New York Times journalist Bari Weiss on Anti-Semitism and Liberal Freedom.

The “MPR News Presents” program broadcast the discussion on air Wednesday, April 7, at noon and 9 p.m. and has featured it on the broadcast web page.

The conversation, which was hosted by Morrison Family Director of the Institute for Freedom and Community Edmund Santurri, is part of the Institute’s spring 2021 series Diversity, Freedom, and Community.

Weiss is a journalist and the author of “How to Fight Anti-Semitism,” which won a 2019 National Jewish Book Award and a Natan Notable Book Award. From 2017 to 2020 Weiss was an opinion writer and editor at The New York Times. Before that, she was an op-ed and book review editor at The Wall Street Journal and a senior editor at Tablet Magazine.

This year Weiss won the inaugural Per Ahlmark award in recognition of her moral courage. She is also the winner of the Reason Foundation’s 2018 Bastiat Prize, which honors writing that “best demonstrates the importance of freedom with originality, wit, and eloquence.” In 2019 Vanity Fair called Weiss the Times’s “star opinion writer” and The Jerusalem Post named her the seventh most influential Jew in the world. 

Established at St. Olaf in 2014, the Institute for Freedom and Community encourages free inquiry and meaningful debate of important political and social issues. Through its range of programming for students, faculty, and the general public, the Institute offers a distinctive opportunity to cultivate civil discourse within the context of the liberal arts.

Sign up for the quarterly newsletter to receive regular updates and information about Institute programming.