Social inequality scholar Joan C. Williams, author of “Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class – and How to Win Them Back,” sees class-competent messaging as the key to engaging working-class Americans and overcoming culture wars. On Jan. 13 at 4 p.m. ET, Joan will draw from her acclaimed book to share actionable steps to meaningfully connect with people who do not have college degrees — bridging what she calls the “diploma divide.”
This SpitfireU session is part presentation and part interactive workshop. It’s an opportunity to reimagine how to forge or expand multiracial cross-class coalitions that change the nation for the better. Join us in this critical moment as you decide on your 2026 messaging strategy or prepare to launch your nonpartisan advocacy campaign.
Spitfire’s Briahnna Brown, a former journalist and writer for leading Black media outlets who works on campaigns that advance racial and social justice, will moderate. As we devise messages to inform, inspire and motivate communities across the country, this session will equip you with the guidance to rebuild trust, restore credibility and reconnect with the working class. RSVP here.
About the author from Bookshop:
Described as “legendary” by The New Yorker and as having “something approaching rock star status” by The New York Times Magazine, Joan C. Williams is an award-winning scholar of social inequality. She is the author of White Working Class, and has published on class dynamics in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New Republic and more. She is Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Equality Action Center at University of California College of the Law San Francisco.
From the book cover:
[Outclassed is an] eye-opening, urgent call to mend the broken relationship between college and non-college grads of all races that is driving politics to the far right in the US.
She offers college-educated Americans insights into how their values reflect their lives and their lives reflect their privilege. With illuminating stories — from the Portuguese admiral who led that country’s COVID response to the lawyer who led the ACLU’s gay marriage response (and more) — Williams demonstrates how working-class values reflect working-class lives. Then she explains how the far right connects culturally with the working-class, deftly manipulating racism and masculine anxieties to deflect attention from the ways far-right policies produce the economic conditions disadvantaging the working-class. Whether you are a concerned citizen committed to saving democracy or a politician or social justice warrior in need of messaging advice, Outclassed offers concrete guidance on how liberals can forge a multi-racial cross-class coalition capable of delivering on progressive goals.