On April 23rd at 11am US ET, I will present online on “A Culture of Justice: Should a University Have a Creed?” for the Hale Ethics Series at the Rochester Institute of Technology, in Rochester, NY. We have a Zoom link for those who would like to join remotely:
On April 23rd at 11am US ET, I will present online on “A Culture of Justice: Should a University Have a Creed?” for the Hale Ethics Series at the Rochester Institute of Technology, in Rochester, NY. We have a Zoom link for those who would like to join remotely:
On April 9th of 2026, I will meet with Dr. William Barbieri, his colleagues, and students, to talk about “A Culture of Justice: Should a University Have a Creed?” a talk about my latest book, A Culture of Justice. If you’d like to join the meeting via Zoom, you can us this link.
On April 9th of 2026, I will meet with Dr. William Barbieri, his colleagues, and students, to talk about “A Culture of Justice: Should a University Have a Creed?” a talk about my latest book, A Culture of Justice. If you’d like to join the meeting via Zoom, you can us this link.
Apparently context is scarce. Here’s some:
A variety of activists and special interests — collectively known as “The Groups” — can basically persuade Democratic staffers and politicians of their ideas in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms, well out of the public eye. Democrats’ focus on identitarianism allows the Groups to falsely present themselves as representatives of various “communities” — the Latino “community”, or the trans “community”, etc. And Democrats’ legacy of urban machine politics causes them to think that these “communities” can basically be bought off with targeted benefits, much as they would be in urban politics. Incidentally, this is probably a big part of why progressive cities are governed so badly. Anyway, when all of this finally has to make contact with the actual voting public on election day, it turns out that The Groups weren’t really representative of easily buy-able “communities”, and voters reject the Dems at the polls. That’s a very simplified model, of course. But it looks like in the aftermath of the 2024 election, a lot of people are zeroing in on a model like this to explain Democrats’ weakness.
When I say the work of politics has become diminished, part of how that happened is that talking about this creates this counterargument: Well, even to discuss it is to abandon.
In 2008, as you and I both know, Barack Obama ran as a public opponent of gay marriage.
He ran opposed to it. At a time when not only — I won’t speak for you — was I not opposed to it, but most of us did not think he was opposed to it. Like, at his heart, we did not think he was opposed to it.
But he was playing politics. That playing of politics allowed him to name Supreme Court justices, and that led to the decision that created a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
And I am saying that kind of playing politics is needed.
For a party that spends billions of dollars trying to find the perfect language to connect to voters, Democrats and their allies use an awful lot of words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying. The intent of this language is to include, broaden, empathize, accept, and embrace. The effect of this language is to sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory, enforcers of wokeness. To please the few, we have alienated the many—especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant.
Public safety must be a priority—in Memphis, DC, and the rest of the country—but sending militarized police to serve as additional local law enforcement is not the answer. As five mayors wrote in the Hill earlier this month, instead of weaponizing the National Guard, the federal government could help by bolstering the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to investigate firearms trafficking, support ballistics testing, and work in coordination with local law enforcement—not supplant them. “Real progress happens when Washington partners with local leaders,” they wrote, “not when it sidelines them.”
Argues that there is a shared public obligation to establish and maintain a culture of justice, with implications for education, poverty, free speech, and “PC” culture.
Description
In A Culture of Justice, Eric Thomas Weber shows how culture can enable or inhibit the pursuit of justice. Weber argues that there is a shared, public obligation to establish and maintain a culture of justice. Culture can be employed to threaten people’s self-respect, to diminish their sense of positive power to pursue meaningful life plans. Weber also addresses problems of poverty and stigmatization as well as of racism and threats conveyed by means of public speech and the cultivation of hatred. Advancing John Dewey’s idea that democracy is a way of life, not merely a set of political mechanisms, he draws implications for policies and practices related to poverty, education, free speech, and the inadequately named set of norms that we call “political correctness.” Written in an accessible style, A Culture of Justice offers numerous everyday examples and conflicts for the reader to consider.
Eric Thomas Weber is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation at the University of Kentucky and serves as Executive Director of the Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA). He is the author and editor of several books, including Uniting Mississippi: Democracy and Leadership in the South.
Endorsements
“A pleasure to read, A Culture of Justice will appeal to a wide audience of social and political philosophers, scholars and practitioners of education, and people thinking about racial justice. Weber makes clear the relevance of the great American pragmatists to addressing current social and political problems such as poverty, hate speech, and racism.”
— Nicholas Tampio, Fordham University
Argues that there is a shared public obligation to establish and maintain a culture of justice, with implications for education, poverty, free speech, and “PC” culture.
Description
In A Culture of Justice, Eric Thomas Weber shows how culture can enable or inhibit the pursuit of justice. Weber argues that there is a shared, public obligation to establish and maintain a culture of justice. Culture can be employed to threaten people’s self-respect, to diminish their sense of positive power to pursue meaningful life plans. Weber also addresses problems of poverty and stigmatization as well as of racism and threats conveyed by means of public speech and the cultivation of hatred. Advancing John Dewey’s idea that democracy is a way of life, not merely a set of political mechanisms, he draws implications for policies and practices related to poverty, education, free speech, and the inadequately named set of norms that we call “political correctness.” Written in an accessible style, A Culture of Justice offers numerous everyday examples and conflicts for the reader to consider.
Eric Thomas Weber is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation at the University of Kentucky and serves as Executive Director of the Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA). He is the author and editor of several books, including Uniting Mississippi: Democracy and Leadership in the South.
Endorsements
“A pleasure to read, A Culture of Justice will appeal to a wide audience of social and political philosophers, scholars and practitioners of education, and people thinking about racial justice. Weber makes clear the relevance of the great American pragmatists to addressing current social and political problems such as poverty, hate speech, and racism.”
— Nicholas Tampio, Fordham University
New article published in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Sortition. In The Limits of Representativeness in Citizens’ Assemblies: A Critical Analysis of Democratic Minipublics Paolo Spada and I explores key questions about representation in citizens’ assemblies, building on ideas from a blog post we publised two years ago. Refined through discussions with scholars and practitioners – particularly in the Deliberative Democracy Digest – it examines the challenges of representativeness and proposes constructive paths forward.
We explore ways to enhance these democratic innovations by:
By reframing these approaches, we hope to contribute to ongoing efforts to make citizens’ assemblies more inclusive, effective, and impactful for democratic governance.
Printed copies of this inaugural issue are available free upon request here.
Good afternoon friends. Next week is Civic Learning Week, and we wanted to take a few minutes and share with you some resources to support student civic learning and engagement.
Teachers Advacing Civic Learning
First of all, here at the Lou Frey Institute and our Florida Joint Center for Citizenship, we believe in the power of elevating the voices of educators in advocating for civic learning policy at the local, state, and federal levels. A new initiative, Teachers Advancing Civic Learning, has launched and it is a great opportunity to grow as a civics advocate and educator! You can learn more about the TACL initiative (Teachers Advancing Civic Learning) at its newly launched website.
Webinar With Congressman Dennis Ross
We would also like to remind you of our upcoming webinar featuring former Florida Congressman Dennis Ross! We will discuss student civic enagement, civil discourse, and other issues important to civic learning and life! You can sign up here, as registration is required. Please feel free to share the link and the flyer!
Civic Learning Week National Forum
This is a great opportunity, and we encourage you to attend in person if you can and virtually if you cannot!
U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Amy Coney Barrett will join the Civic Learning Week National Forum on March 12, 2024, livestreamed from Washington, D.C. Showcasing the Justices’ shared commitment to high-quality civic education, the featured conversation will be moderated by Eric Liu, Co-Founder and CEO of Citizen University, and address student questions about the judicial system and civic engagement, as well as the Justices’ legal career paths. The discussion will highlight the civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions gained through civic education, and why civics is essential to sustaining and strengthening constitutional democracy in the United States.
There will also be some other fantastic events during the forum, including talks on information literacy and bridging the divide brought about by political polarization, among others. Hope to ‘see’ you there! You can register for the livestream here! If you can get to DC, you can register to attend in person here!
Civic Learning Week Resources
While we are proud of our own materials, you can find many useful and different resources available from multiple organizations on the Civic Learning Week website. We encourage you to check them out to determine if they meet your needs!
A few months ago, Paolo Spada and I published a blog post about sortition and the representativeness of citizens’ assemblies. We were pleasantly surprised by the response to our post and the ensuing discussions.
In this new exchange at the Deliberative Democracy Digest, Kyle Redman, Paolo Spada, and I try to delve deeper, exploring further the challenges of achieving representativeness in deliberative mini-publics. We extend our gratitude to Nicole Curato and Lucy J. Parry from the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance for suggesting and facilitating this discussion.