GUTMANN, AMY

GUTMANN, AMY (1949– ), political philosopher and educator. Gutmann was born in Brooklyn, New York, and earned her bachelor's degree from Harvard University (Radcliffe College, 1971), her master's degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science (1972), and her doctorate from Harvard (1976). She taught at Princeton University from 1976, entering as an assistant professor; she became an associate professor in 1981 and professor of politics in 1987. She was the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values from 1990 to 2004, and she was provost at Princeton from 2001 until 2004. Her appointment as provost under Princeton president Shirley Tilghman marked the second time in the history of the Ivy League that two women had served simultaneously as president and provost. Gutmann was the founding director of the University Center for Human Values at Princeton, and she chaired the executive committee of Princeton University Press. In 2004 she was named president of the University of Pennsylvania. Gutmann's scholarly work centers on moral and political philosophy, practical ethics, liberalism, and the moral challenges of democracy. Her widely cited Democratic Education (1987) discusses the potential incompatibilities of the principles of democracy with a belief in the rights of the individual. Her other works include Liberal Equality (1980), Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race (with Anthony Appiahand, 1996), Democracy and Disagreement (with Dennis Thompson, 1996), and Identity in Democracy: A Humanist View (2003). Color Conscious, which explores ethnic and cultural pluralism, was praised as a significant contribution to social philosophy. In Democracy and Disagreement, Gutmann and Thompson present the concept of "deliberative democracy" as a moral alternative to discord. Her books have been translated into numerous languages, including French, Italian, Japanese, Swedish, and Hebrew. Her many essays have appeared in such journals as Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, and Political Theory. Gutmann served as president of the American Society of Political and Legal Philosophy from 2001 to 2004. She was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the W.E.B. DuBois Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and a fellow of the National Academy of Education. In 2000 she received the President's Distinguished Teaching Award from Princeton University, and in 2003 she was awarded Harvard's Centennial Medal for "exceptional contributions to society." Her numerous awards and honors also include the Ralph J. Bunche Award and the North American Society for Social Philosophy Book Award (both in 1997, for Color Conscious), the Gustavus Myers Human Rights Award (1997), and the Bertram Mott Award from the American Association of University Professors (1998). (Dorothy Bauhoff (2nd ed.)