Author and scholar Naomi Zack to discuss inequity during the pandemic during Vickery Lecture in Ethics and Leadership

Dr. Naomi Zack, professor of philosophy at Lehman College, CUNY and author of the newly released “The American Tragedy of COVID-19: Social and Political Crises of 2020,” will discuss marginalization and inequity during the COVID-19 pandemic as she delivers the Vickery Lecture in Ethics and Leadership online on April 23 at 3:30 p.m.

The lecture, titled “Inequality and Marginalization During COVID-19: Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Age” is hosted by The College of Saint Rose and will be delivered via Zoom. The 90-minute event, which will include Q&A with the audience, is free and open to the public.

“COVID-19 has been a tragedy in the United States, in the ordinary meaning of a bad, sad, and unwanted sequences of events,” Zack writes in “The American Tragedy of COVID-19: Social and Political Crises of 2020″ (Rowman & Littlefield, March 2021). “COVID-19 in the United States is also a classic tragedy according to Aristotle’s definition, whereby protagonists are responsible for the bad, sad, and unwanted events that befall them. The strongest lesson learned from COVID-19 is that this pandemic has revealed where we, collectively, were already vulnerable and short of virtue. Preexisting physical debilities are newly revealed, social inequities freshly matter, and good and bad character and values are on full display. Injustice becomes evident to many more besides its victims.”

Zack holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University and has taught at University at Albany and the University of Oregon. Her most recent books are “Progressive Anonymity: From Identity Politics to Evidence-Based Government” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020) and “Reviving the Social Compact: Inclusive Citizenship in an Age of Extreme Politics” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).

Other titles include her edited 51-essay “Oxford Handbook on Philosophy and Race” (2017) and “Philosophy of Race, An Introduction” (2018), in addition to her earlier books “The Theory of Applicative Justice: An Empirical Pragmatic Approach to Correcting Racial Injustice” (2016), “White Privilege and Black Rights: The Injustice of US Police Racial Profiling and Homicide” (April 2015), “The Ethics and Mores of Race: Equality after the History of Philosophy” (2011/2015), “Ethics for Disaster” (2009, 2010-11), “Inclusive Feminism: A Third Wave Theory of Women’s Commonality” (2005), “Philosophy of Science and Race” (2002), and “Race and Mixed Race” (1992). In progress is “Democracy a VSI” (Very Short Introduction in the Oxford University Press series).

Zack has been teaching an online course called “Disaster and Corona” at Lehman College, CUNY and will be giving the John Dewey Lecture at the Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Society this month.

Before the lecture begins, a moment of silence will be held for Keith Sherman, an adjunct faculty member at Saint Rose who passed away in January.

In brief

What: Vickery Lecture in Ethics and Leadership “Inequality and Marginalization During COVID-19: Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Age” with Dr. Naomi Zack, professor of philosophy at Lehman College, CUNY

When: April 23, 3:30 to 5 p.m., via Zoom