Baxter Lecture

Ambassador Frank E. Baxter Annual Lecture

The Ambassador Frank E. Baxter Annual Lecture is BLI’s flagship event. Since 2012, the Ambassador Frank E. Baxter Lecture has engaged high-profile intellectual leaders whose expertise and scholarship focus on the ideal of freedom in political and economic life. Visiting scholars are invited to UC Berkeley for a visit that includes public lectures, dialogue with a respondent, and discussions with students centered on the theme of liberty. Established with the support of the Honorable Frank E. Baxter, the Ambassador Frank E. Baxter Lecture is organized by the Berkeley Liberty Initiative, a...

How the Berkeley Liberty Initiative champions free speech in divided times

September 16, 2024
Jessica Ballardo

Over a decade ago, in the years leading up to UC Berkeley’s 50th anniversary commemoration of the Free Speech Movement, Frank E. Baxter led an effort to ensure that diversity of opinion remained a cornerstone of campus life.

Baxter, a Berkeley Social Sciences alum and former U.S. ambassador to Uruguay, wanted to create a space at Berkeley for dissenting voices to participate in the marketplace of ideas. To do so, he established what has since been named the Berkeley Liberty Initiative — a series of lectures and campus activities promoting freedom of thought and diversity of...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2024/09/16/how-the-berkeley-liberty-initiative-champio…

Baxter Lecture speaker Yuval Levin to discuss the Constitution and American unity

April 28, 2025
Jessica Ballardo

Political analyst Yuval Levin will discuss how a deeper understanding of the Constitution can help unite Americans in a free society during the Berkeley Liberty Initiative's (BLI) 2025 Ambassador Frank E. Baxter Lecture this week.

Levin is director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington, D.C.–based public policy think tank. He holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy and is the founder and editor-in-chief of the quarterly political magazine National...

https://ls.berkeley.edu/news/baxter-lecture-speaker-yuval-levin-discuss-constitu…

2015: Vitalizing Our Meritocracy (Dr. Caroline Hoxby)

Vitalizing Our Meritocracy: Expanding College Opportunities for Low-Income Students

2015 Baxter Lecturer: Dr. Caroline Hoxby
Scott and Donya Bommer Professor of Economics
Stanford University

Respondent: Dr. David Romer
Herman Royer Professor of Political Economy
UC Berkeley

2013: The Worldwide Boom in Higher Education (Dr. Gary S. Becker)

The Worldwide Boom in Higher Education:
Increased Gains from College, Rise in Women's Education, and Relative Decline in US Education

2013 Baxter Lecturer: Dr. Gary S. Becker
The 1992 Nobel Prize Winner in Economic Sciences
University Professor of Economics and Sociology
Professor at the Graduate School of Business
The University of Chicago

Respondent: Enrico Moretti
Michael Peevey and Donald Vial Professor of Economics
Department of Economics
UC Berkeley

2024: Freedom of Thought and the Struggle to End Slavery (Keith Whittington)

Freedom of Thought and the Struggle to End Slavery

2024 Baxter Lecturer: Keith Whittington

Whittington is the founding chair of the Academic Committee of the Academic Freedom Alliance and a Hoover Institution Visiting Fellow. He has been a John M. Olin Foundation Faculty Fellow, American Council of Learned Societies Junior Faculty Fellow, National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement Fellow, and a Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center. In the fall of 2020, he served as Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown...

2012: Classical Liberalism for the Modern Age (Dr. Richard A. Epstein)

Classical Liberalism for the Modern Age—In Good Times and Bad

Featured Speaker: Richard A. Epstein
Inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law
New York University Law School

Richard Epstein researches and writes on a broad range of constitutional, economic, historical, and philosophical subjects. His most recent book is Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration, and the Rule of Law.

Respondent: Robert Cooter
Herman F. Selvin Professor of Law,
University of California...

2014: Social Reality and Human Freedoms (Dr. John R. Searle)

Social Reality and Human Freedoms

2014 Baxter Lecturer: Dr. John R. Searle
Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Language
University of California, Berkeley

Respondent: Dr. Joshua Cohen
Martha Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society
Professor of Political Science, Philosophy, and Law
Stanford University

2012: The Moral Case for Economic Liberty (Dr. Arthur C. Brooks)

2012 Baxter Lecturer: Dr. Arthur C. Brooks
President, American Enterprise Institute

Arthur Brooks is the author of 10 books and hundreds of articles on topics ranging trom the economics of the arts to military operations research. His most recent book is the New York Times bestseller The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise.


Respondent: Dr. Kinch Hoekstra
Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

Kinch Hoekstra has written on ancient, renaissance, and early modern political...

Dr. Yuval Levin (AEI) delivers the 2025 Baxter Lecture

April 30, 2025
Berkeley Liberty Initiative

The 2025 Ambassador Frank E. Baxter Lecture was delivered by Dr. Yuval Levin, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. See here for details.