The Carl Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy will offer a webinar on “Pursuing Factual Consensus: The Role of Congress” Thursday, July 14, from noon to 1:30 p.m. via Zoom.
For the U.S. democratic system to work, the nation’s leaders, institutions (both public and private), and citizens need to value facts and truthfulness. In recent years, however, there have been mass disagreements over what is true and how to separate fact from fiction. The nation also learned the consequences can be deadly. The Levin Center is sponsoring a three-part series of panels to delve more deeply into how facts become established in the public mind and how truthfulness might be restored to public discourse.
The first panel, presented May 19 on “Pursuing Factual Consensus: What Does ’Truth’ Mean in the Public Square?,” heard from three academics discussing how political polarization, social media, and disinformation efforts have made it more difficult for Americans to determine what is true and what is false.
The second panel, coming up on July 14, will hear from three former senators who led oversight investigations. They will discuss the unique role played by Congress in resolving factual issues confronting the country, how committees conduct factual investigations, how committee members attempt to reach consensus on the facts, what happens when they can’t reach consensus, and how investigative hearings and reports affect public perceptions of what is true.
The third panel, later this year, will focus on the role of the media.
To register for the July 14 free online discussion, visit https://levin-center.org. Anyone with questions may email the Levin Center at Wayne Law at levincenter@wayne.edu.
