Equal Justice Society President Eva Paterson has accepted an invitation to speak this fall at the Oxford Union to speak on the motion “This House Would Impeach President Trump.”
The Oxford Union has hosted world leaders in every field, including Mother Teresa, Dalai Lama, Malala Yousafzai, Gloria Steinem, Stacey Abrams, Vera Wang, President Jimmy Carter, Sir Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, and Malcolm X.
The Oxford Union was founded by a group of students in 1823 to protest against the University’s restrictive rules surrounding the discussion of religion and politics. At a time when Catholics were still not allowed to graduate from Oxford and suffrage was restricted to a fraction of the overall population, the Union was one of the institutions at the centre of Liberal Reform, with the great modernizer Prime Minister W. E. Gladstone one of our its Presidents.
Brendan McGrath, President of the Oxford Union, in his letter to Eva shared more background on the motion before the members:
The Constitution of the United States prescribes that the President shall be removed from office for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours”. In the wake of chilling and credible allegations of illegal conduct, calls for President Trump’s impeachment have grown louder. With many viewing the Mueller report as an impeachment referral to Congress, the proponents of impeachment have gained considerable credibility. Yet with removal from office a practical impossibility in a Republican-controlled Senate, the question of principle may clash with that of tactics. Some Democratic Presidential candidates have joined demands for impeachment, but others in the party fear distraction from kitchen table issues, and a backlash from moderate independents. Is President Trump guilty of high crimes or misdemeanours, and can the American people endure the bitter partisanship which impeachment proceedings would generate?
Brendan added: “The Union offers a unique combination of tradition and prestige with our student members who always constitute an engaged and enthusiastic audience; our events last year attracted coverage from the BBC, Channel 4, CNN, Russia Today, and all major British national newspapers and international publications including the New York Times and the Economist. Furthermore, all debates are professionally filmed for our YouTube channel, which has attracted over 40 million views.”