James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions
The James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, often called simply the Madison Program, is a scholarly institute within the Department of Politics at Princeton University that is "dedicated to exploring enduring questions of American constitutional law and Western political thought." The Madison Program was founded in 2000 and is directed by Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University.
History
The Madison Program was founded in the summer of 2000 via a charter with the Department of Politics at Princeton University. Early funders included Steve Forbes, the John M. Olin Foundation, and the Bradley Foundation. Early speakers included liberal scholars such as James E. Fleming of Fordham University, Stanley N. Katz of Princeton University and more conservative ones, including Robert Bork, Christopher DeMuth, then-president of the American Enterprise Institute, Lynne Cheney, chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities in the first Bush administration, and William Kristol, then-editor of The Weekly Standard.The Program celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2010 with a lecture from columnist George Will. Summer 2020 will mark the 20th anniversary of the Program.
Academic Programs
Politics Departmental Track
The Program sponsors the track in "American Ideas and Institutions" for undergraduates concentrating in Politics at Princeton. The track includes courses from American politics, political theory, and public law to allow students to "further and demonstrate their understandings of the three branches of the federal government and the values, ideas, and theories that underlie them and are animated by their workings."Undergraduate Fellows Forum
The Program is host to the Undergraduate Fellows Forum, where Princeton undergraduates engage with fellow students interested in American constitutionalism and American political institutions. Undergraduate Fellows have founded such programs at Princeton as a podcast called "Woke Wednesdays" and the third undergraduate chapter of the Federalist Society.James Madison Society
The Madison Program is host to several Visiting and Postdoctoral Fellows at Princeton every year and past Visiting Fellows become part of the James Madison Society. The members of the Society are interested in intellectual dialogue across partisan lines and span the ideological spectrum.| Name | Institution | Reference |
| John Agresto | St. John's College | |
| William B. Allen | Michigan State University | |
| Hadley P. Arkes | Amherst College | |
| Stephen Balch | Texas Tech University | |
| Mark Bauerlein | Emory University | |
| Francis J. Beckwith | Baylor University | |
| Paul O. Carrese | Arizona State University | |
| Angelo Codevilla | Boston University | |
| David G. Dalin | Brandeis University | |
| Patrick Deneen | University of Notre Dame | |
| John J. DiIulio Jr. | University of Pennsylvania | |
| Donald L. Drakeman | University of Notre Dame | |
| Daniel Dreisbach | American University | |
| Jean Bethke Elshtain | University of Chicago | |
| John Finnis | University of Notre Dame; University of Oxford | |
| Michael Gerhardt | University of North Carolina | |
| Mary Ann Glendon | Harvard University | |
| Jack Goldsmith | Harvard University | |
| Christopher R. Green | University of Mississippi | |
| Allen C. Guelzo | Gettysburg College | |
| Philip Hamburger | Columbia University | |
| Anne Hendershott | Franciscan University of Steubenville | |
| Matthew S. Holland | Utah Valley University | |
| Leon Kass | University of Chicago; American Enterprise Institute | |
| Charles R. Kesler | Claremont McKenna College | |
| Harvey Klehr | Emory University | |
| Robert C. Koons | University of Texas at Austin | |
| Alan Charles Kors | University of Pennsylvania | |
| Michael I. Krauss | George Mason University | |
| Peter Lawler | Berry College | |
| Yuval Levin | Ethics and Public Policy Center; National Affairs | |
| Joyce Lee Malcolm | George Mason University | |
| Harvey Mansfield | Harvard University | |
| Wilfred M. McClay | University of Oklahoma | |
| Lawrence Mead | New York University | |
| Kenneth P. Miller | Claremont McKenna College | |
| Vincent Phillip Muñoz | University of Notre Dame | |
| Michael New | Catholic University of America | |
| David Novak | University of Toronto | |
| Marvin Olasky | Patrick Henry College | |
| Daniel N. Robinson | Georgetown University; University of Oxford | |
| Charles T. Rubin | Duquesne University | |
| Diana Schaub | Loyola University Maryland | |
| Gabriel Schoenfeld | Hudson Institute | |
| Roger Scruton | Oxford University; Ethics and Public Policy Center | |
| James Reist Stoner Jr. | Louisiana State University | |
| Carol M. Swain | Vanderbilt University | |
| Carl Trueman | Grove City College | |
| Michael Uhlmann | Claremont Graduate University | |
| Bradley C.S. Watson | Saint Vincent College | |
| Cornel West | Harvard University; Princeton University | |
| Thomas G. West | Hillsdale College | |
| W. Bradford Wilcox | University of Virginia | |
| James Q. Wilson | Harvard University; Princeton University | |
| Michael Zuckert | University of Notre Dame |
Public Initiatives
Statements
"Truth Seeking, Democracy, and Freedom of Thought and Expression"
On March 14, 2017, Robert P. George and Cornel West issued a joint statement via the Madison Program to encourage citizens to engage with people opposing views. The statement was opened to signatories from the public; as of March 2019, there were more than 4,000 signatories."Think for yourself"
On August 29, 2017, the Madison Program issued a joint statement entitled "Some Thoughts and Advice for Our Students and All Students" in which Princeton, Harvard, and Yale University professors encouraged students entering college to avoid becoming "trapped in an echo chamber" by "taking the trouble to learn and honestly consider the strongest arguments to be advanced on both or all sides of questions—including arguments for positions that others revile and want to stigmatize and against positions others seek to immunize from critical scrutiny."Reception
According to Jane Mayer, writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Madison Program was founded with funds from the conservative John M. Olin Foundation. Director Robert P. George claims the Program is not conservative, but rather "seeks to bring competing points of view together to lift the intellectual debate on campus."The Program has been used as a template for similar institutions at Georgetown, New York University, and Williams College. It has been praised for its ability to enable cooperation between Catholic and Evangelical Christians.