Learning to Be Fair: A Conversation about Equity with Dr. Charles McNamara
Future of the Past LabIn the past 10 years, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as a social concept has risen to the highest levels of institutionalization under the Obama and Biden administrations, as well as in higher education and corporate settings. It has been seen as a crucial corrective to the long history of institutional racism that has plagued our country from even before its founding. DEI has also been raised up by political and cultural conservatives as the central target of their efforts to wage a culture war against liberal “wokeness” in order to preserve the traditional history and culture of the United States. Understanding what constitutes “Diversity” and “Inclusion” seems fairly straightforward, but what about “Equity”? In this episode of The Future of the Past Lab, we talk with Dr. Charles McNamara from the University of Minnesota whose new book, Learning to Be Fair explores the concept of “Equity” from classical philosophy to contemporary politics. We discover the surprising fluidity of this concept through the ages and how key figures in our country’s history grappled with the legal and cultural weight of Equity long before it became a buzzword in out contemporary culture wars.