Experts in the News | Miller Center

The Rev. Billy Graham is having a memorial viewing at the U.S. Capitol. Is that appropriate for a religious leader?

Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the Miller Center for presidential and political history at the University of Virginia, said she thinks it violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution to honor someone in this way whose primary service was the conversion of people to a certain faith. Although Graham was an adviser to presidents, Perry noted, tapes came out later revealing Graham and President Richard Nixon sharing anti-Semitic views, and civil rights historians have noted that Graham urged the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others not to press too hard on the cause of racial equality.

Barbara Perry

Religion

'America's Pastor'

Ike and Billy Graham forged a partnership in the 1950s—but it came at a cost, writes the Miller Center's William Hitchcock.

Chris Lu on Trump ethics

Chris Lu is interviewed on MSNBC

Chris Lu

Business Is Politics

The pressure for corporations to modify — or maintain — their relationships with the controversial gun organization is only the latest political minefield businesses have had to face. Whether it's Chick-fil-A's opposition to gay rights, corporate support for nondiscrimination laws, Hobby Lobby's fight over the contraception mandate or the campaign to end advertising on Breitbart, companies have joined — some eagerly, some reluctantly — some of the most heated political fights of the past few years.

Nicole Hemmer

Security clearances downgraded for Kushner and other White House officials

William Antholis, a national security council official under former president Bill Clinton who now directs the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, said if Kushner’s role in negotiating Middle East peace is merely to be a “goodwill ambassador,” then his “secret” level clearance will be good enough. “But if it’s actually to carry forward narrow technical details about the negotiations, then he will be limited in his effectiveness,” Antholis said. “In the best cases, negotiations are informed by the most sophisticated intelligence capabilities we have. If you’re a negotiator, you want to know the motives, the must-haves and the can’t-do’s that your counterparts have.”

William Antholis

China Proposes Lifting Presidential Term Limit

"The question this makes very vivid is, is Xi Jinping's personal power overriding the power of institutions and the constitution?" says University of Virginia Political Scientist Brantly Womack.

Brantly Womack