*Postponed due to Public Health Emergency* Social Justice, Culture, and Law
*Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this event will be postponed to a later date in 2021. Please check back for updated information and for the new lecture date.*
The H.L.A. Hart Memorial Lecture

The Lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in the Fellows’ Garden of University College.
Social Justice, Culture, and Law
One important way to promote social justice is to change the laws to distribute rights, primary goods, and other benefits and burdens more fairly. But justice isn't only about distribution, and law is not always the best way to promote social change. As Lawrence Lessig has argued, law can serve as a way to change social norms; but legal changes that are insensitive to entrenched cultural norms are often unhelpful. This paper sketches an account of social structure as a complex of social meanings, material conditions, and normative constraints, and points to multiple levers for social change, with special attention to the importance of community activism and social movements.