Human Rights Theory as a Means for Incorporating Social Equity into the Public Administration Curriculum

Abstract

Advancing social equity is, or should be, a primary focus of public administrators. Yet it is not an integral part of the curriculum of public administration programs, nor is it a prominent feature of the NASPAA standards. Almost 40 years ago, the Minnowbrook I scholars proposed an activist role for public administrators in achieving social equity, which came to be known as the New Public Administration (NPA). Despite the efforts of George Frederickson and others at that conference, the NPA has progressed slowly and haltingly. Through advocating privatization and market models, the NPA—such as it is today—has come to substantially deemphasize the significance of social equity.How can social equity be made a central part of the public administration curriculum? What is needed, in our view, is a theoretical base that goes beyond Rawls’ Theory of Justice or Kant’s Deontology. Philosophy alone cannot provide the tools that public administrators need for this task, nor is it sufficient to examine social equity simply within the confines of a given level of government policymaking, whether it concerns local or national policy. Public policy decisions today have global implications, and social equity must take an international perspective as well. This article proposes that a complex of research and advocacy literatures that we will characterize as human rights theory offers a unique opportunity to the public affairs curriculum by providing a basis for education in social equity, incorporating a global perspective and coherent ethical decision-making models.