The Last Class with Robert Reich screening

Join us for a special screening of The Last Class, a nuanced and deeply personal portrait of master educator Robert Reich teaching his final course and reflecting on a period of immense transformation, personally and globally. This intimate film is a love letter to education. Though the former Secretary of Labor is widely known for his public service, best-selling books, and viral social media posts, he has always considered teaching his true calling. Now, after over 40 years and an extraordinary 40,000 students, Reich prepares for his last class.

Over the course of the film, Reich confronts this impending finality—and his own aging—with increasing candor, introspection, and, ultimately, emotion, sharing a rawness of feeling he has never revealed publicly before. Drawing on his lifetime in politics, he uses his course, “Wealth and Poverty,” to offer a deeper look at why inequalities of income and wealth have widened significantly since the late 1970s, and why this poses dangerous risks to our society.

One thousand students fill the biggest lecture hall on the UC Berkeley campus, the last class to receive Reich’s wisdom and his exhortation not to accept that the world has to stay the way it is. His belief in the next generation’s ability to take on the fight is inspiring.

Following the screening, stay for a post-screening discussion with two special guests (info to come).