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Professors Debate Future of U.S. Progressivism

By Dan Rosenheck, Contributing Writer

For example, Director of the Harvard Seminar on Environmental Values Timothy Weiskel said, "[Clinton] is the best Republican Democrats ever elected."

Professor of Government Michael J. Sandel, who led the later portion of the discussion, said Gore had ignored the issue of poverty.

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"Gore was so frightened of approaching the word....'Poverty' has not figured in American political discourse since the 1960s," he said. "The Democrats don't want to be seen as the party of the poor."

Sandel argued that this problem was still extremely relevant to the country's political future.

"Given the tendency of the affluent to secede...to buy their way out [of societal institutions], there's less mixing of classes and people," he said. "And when there's not enough of a common life that people think they're in a common project, democracy falls apart."

Professor of Law Randall Kennedy, meanwhile, said he saw some hypocrisy in the group's statements.

"I send my kids to private schools," he said. "Do I buy out of public problems? The answer is yes."

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