Brandeis Stories

April 30, 2024

Danielle Allen, a nationally recognized public policy leader and expert on democracy, has been selected as the winner of the Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize by Brandeis University.

Allen is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center, where she also directs the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation. Allen co-chaired the the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, which was formed to explore responses to societal and institutional vulnerabilities in political and civic life.

Released in June 2020, the bipartisan report, Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century, includes six strategies and 31 recommendations to help the nation emerge as a more resilient democracy by 2026.

“Danielle Allen’s profoundly important work in support of democracy and greater participation in American democracy by those who have been marginalized in democratic processes will create much excitement on campus, while reinforcing campus democracy and voting initiatives in the lead up to the November elections,” said Brandeis President Ron Liebowitz.

Allen was nominated for the Gittler Prize by David Weinstein, Assistant Director of ENACT: The Educational Network for Active Civic Transformation. Her residency will be hosted by Amber Spry, Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies.

"Dr. Allen represents an important example of blending scholarship and practice," said Spry. "Her residency is a chance to honor public-facing scholarship. Brandeis students have a legacy of civic engagement, and I believe many of them will be motivated in their own career journeys when they hear Dr. Allen's path of socially impactful scholarship."

A prodigious scholar and writer, Allen is the author of several books on politics, policy, and American life. She received the 2020 John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, an award administered by the Library of Congress that recognizes work in disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prizes, as well as a MacArthur Fellowship, and honorary degrees from multiple colleges and universities.

Allen’s 2015 work, “Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality” explores the arguments and contradictions contained in the Declaration of Independence. The book is partly based on insights she gathered while holding readings of the Declaration with adult night students and undergraduates at the University of Chicago. It received the Heartland Prize, the Zócalo Book Prize, and the Society of American Historians’ Francis Parkman Prize.

Written at the height of COVID, her book “Democracy in the Time of Coronavirus” offers a plan for creating a more resilient democratic polity, particularly in the face of future crises like pandemics.

In “Justice by Means of Democracy,” published in 2023, Allen offers a new political philosophy known as power-sharing liberalism. She explores civic engagement and empowerment, reveals the universal benefits of an effective government, and discusses the ways in which people can participate on equal terms in service of a justice society.

Created in 2007 by the late Professor Joseph B. Gittler, this prize recognizes outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic and/or religious relations.  Past winners of the Gittler Prize include Tressie McMillan Cottom, Carol Anderson, Howard C. Stevenson, John Paul Lederach, Beverly Daniel Tatum, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Martha Minow, and Gustavo Gutiérrez. The annual award includes a $25,000 prize and a medal. 

The Gittler prize is administered by the Vic ’63 and Bobbi Samuels ’63 Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation (COMPACT) on behalf of the Office of the President and Office of the Provost of Brandeis University.  COMPACT will be using funding from The Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Endowed Fund at Brandeis University to make Dr. Allen’s work more equitably accessible by providing students who attend her keynote lecture on Oct. 8 with copies of her book, “Justice by Means of Democracy.”

Allen will be in residence at Brandeis on Oct. 8-9, 2024. An award ceremony followed by a keynote lecture will be held Tuesday, Oct. 8.