Support First Things by turning your adblocker off or by making a  donation. Thanks!


On May 9th, First Things and the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York jointly hosted a panel on recent developments in Polish national politics.

Ryszard Antoni Legutko is Professor of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, specializing in ancient philosophy and political theory. In 2005 he was elected to a seat in the Polish Senate (representing the Law and Justice Party), where he became Deputy Speaker. In 2007 he was Poland’s Education Minister, and in 2007-2009 Secretary of State in the Chancellery of President Lech Kaczyński. He is currently a member of the European Parliament, where he sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and a Chairman of the Conservatives and Reformists parliamentary group.

Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor of Law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he teaches international law and foreign relations. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was, for over two decades, a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the Board of Directors of the U.S. Institute of Peace (to which he was originally appointed by President George W. Bush and then reappointed by Barack Obama). He is also on the Board of Directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C.

Adrian Vermeule is the Ralph S. Tyler, Jr. Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. Before coming to Harvard, he was the Bernard D. Meltzer Professor of Law at the University of Chicago. He is the author or co-author of nine books, most recently Law's Abnegation: From Law's Empire to the Administrative State (2017). He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012, and resigned in 2018 out of concern for the Academy’s politicization. His research focuses on executive power and the administrative state in constitutional law and theory.

The panel will be moderated by R. R. Reno, editor of First Things. He was formerly a professor of theology and ethics at Creighton University. He is the author of several books including Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society (2016). His work ranges widely in systematic and moral theology and biblical exegesis.


Access to this First Things content is free, but we encourage you to support our event and media work with a contribution of any amount by clicking on the donation button below.

Show 0 comments