Does Meritocracy Undermine Democracy? A Conversation with Michael Sandel

Has the concept of meritocracy, despite its appeal, had the unintended consequence of deepening the divide between “winners” and “losers” and become corrosive of American democracy? Drawing on his book, The Tyranny of Merit: Can We Find the Common Good?, Michael Sandel presents a provocative argument and engages in conversation to explore these and other challenging, often highly politicized, questions connected with intellectual diversity, the diploma divide, and public perception of higher education.

This program is the inaugural lecture in Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s series of public events highlighting issues of Academic Freedom and Connecting Across Difference.

Harvard Radcliffe Institute gratefully acknowledges the Susan Fales-Hill and Aaron Hill Fund for Civil Discourse, which is supporting this event.

Speaker
Michael Sandel, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Discussants
David J. Deming, Danoff Dean of Harvard College; Isabelle and Scott Black Professor of Political Economy, Harvard Kennedy School; professor of economics, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Randall L. Kennedy, Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Moderator

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean, Harvard Radcliffe Institute; Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School; professor of history, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Biography
Michael Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard. His writings—on justice, ethics, democracy, meritocracy, and markets—have been translated into more than 30 languages. His legendary course “Justice” was the first Harvard course to be made freely available online and has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world.

Sandel’s books include The Tyranny of Merit: Can We Find the Common Good?; Democracy's Discontent: A New Edition for Our Perilous Times; What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets; Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?; and The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering.

Sandel has been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne and delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Oxford, the Reith Lectures of the BBC, and the Kellogg Lecture on Jurisprudence at the US Library of Congress. Winner of the 2025 Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture and a recipient of Spain's Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences, Sandel has shaped dialogue within and beyond the academy on the most vexing moral and civic questions of our time.

For information about Harvard Radcliffe Institute and its many public programs, visit https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/.

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