Speakers to discuss race in America at Hauenstein Center event

Two nationally recognized journalists will discuss race in the United States at an event hosted by Grand Valley State University's Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies on January 17.

The event, "Race and the American Dream" will take place at 7 p.m. in the Eberhard Center on Grand Valley's Pew Grand Rapids Campus.

The discussion will include viewpoints from New York Times Magazine investigative reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones as well as Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley. The event will be moderated by Kyle Caldwell, executive director of the Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University.

Hannah-Jones, a Peabody Award and George R. Polk Award winner, will discuss ways in which residential and educational segregation occurs through government policy decisions. Riley will explain how using government policy to fix race problems often results in unintended consequences that make the root problem worse. 

Riley, who is also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is the author of "Please Stop Helping Us" which details efforts to help the black underclass. He is a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board and is a commentator on Fox News.

Hannah-Jones has written extensively about school resegregation across the country, and has spent years chronicling the government's failure to enforce the 1968 Fair Housing Act. Her forthcoming book "The Problem We All Live With" will focus on school segregation and policy.

The event is free and open to the public.

The event is presented in partnership with GVSU's Division of Inclusion and Equity as part of the university's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Week.

For more information, visit hauensteincenter.org