The Distinguished Equality Lecture Series features leading academics whose work advances understanding of social inequality, social cohesion, inclusion/exclusion. The series is organised by the Social Policy Group in cooperation with the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Office.
At a time when disparities and social tensions are growing across many contexts, the series provides a forum for rigorous, evidence-based discussion about the conditions that enable more cohesive and inclusive communities. Bringing together researchers, students, and practitioners, it fosters dialogue across disciplines and perspectives on one of the most pressing challenges of our time.
The Distinguished Equality Lecture Series builds on the Hertie School’s Politics and Policies of Exclusion series.
Upcoming event
Distinguished Equality Lecture: If the state won't protect me, who will?
Thursday, 27.11.2025 | 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm (CET) | Hertie School
A presentation by Michael Hanchard (University of Pennsylvania).
The majority of pundits and specialists on the topic of democratic erosion often ignore an uncomfortable fact: some of the clues to democracy’s demise can be glimpsed in its beginnings, in the unequal circumstances certain people inhabit within democratic polities, or adjacent to them. Social class, caste, enslavement, patriarchy, ethnic chauvinism, xenophobia and racism are all factors that help determine who benefit the most from the workings of democracy, and for whom voting can often be a hollow act. Thus, Trumpism, Modi, Meloni and the Alternative for Germany are not the sources of the current democratic crisis, but symptomatic of a more fundamental desire present in both democratic and non-democratic polities, the attraction to a form of human homogeneity I am referring to as racial rule.
This event is organised in collaboration with the Centre for Fundamental Rights.
Learn more and register here.
Past events
From collective remembrance to collective forgetting: An empirical perspective on the current state of the German culture of memory
Monday, 04.03.2024 | 12:30 - 1:30 pm (CET) | Forum A, Hertie School
A presentation by Prof. Dr. Jonas Rees (University of Bielefeld)
The way Germany has confronted its horrendous past and come to terms with crimes committed during the time of National Socialism is sometimes described as exemplary. And while it is true that a majority of Germans still considers dealing with the past an important task even today, many fail to name concrete historical dates and facts. Drawing on a series of representative surveys across several years, the talk develops an empirical perspective on the state of German memory culture between remembrance and forgetting.