How Robert Reich Teaches — and Why Inequality Is Still the Lesson

Robert Reich’s 4’11” frame once made him the target of bullies; today, it belies the scale of his impact. The Last Class, directed by Elliot Kirschner and produced by Heather Kinlaw Lofthouse, chronicles Reich’s final semester of teaching after 40-plus years. It’s a moving paean to a professor whose influence reaches far beyond the lecture hall — and a powerful meditation on aging, legacy and the unfinished fight for a fairer future.

A former U.S. secretary of labor under President Clinton, Reich helped pass landmark reforms like the Family and Medical Leave Act and the first minimum wage increase in years, and he led crackdowns on child labor and sweatshops. But before and after Washington, he has spent decades in classrooms — at Harvard, Brandeis and now UC Berkeley — teaching over 40,000 students and building a legacy not just as a policymaker, but as a singular voice for economic justice.

We spoke with director Kirschner and producer Lofthouse about Reich the teacher, Reich the fighter and Reich the human being, reckoning with meaning and purpose in a time of deep inequality and moral urgency. (Disclosure: Reich is a member of Capital & Main’s advisory board.)

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Capital & Main: What makes Robert Reich unique?

Elliot Kirschner: Well, first of all, he’s just unlike anybody else on the public stage, right? He looks different. His career has been different, his trajectory, his ability to remake himself. Few former cabinet members have had a career like his. 

And I think at a time when so many people are wishy-washy or sort of, you know, following different trends, he held on to a core truth that really strikes people across the political spectrum, really, which is sort of the unfairness of the system. His message made sense 40 years ago, and it makes sense now. And I just think that the strength of that message, the consistency of the message and its ability to deliver it, is just very unusual.

But while he has been talking about income inequality for decades, it’s not getting better — it’s getting worse. How does he remain hopeful and not feel like he’s fighting windmills?

Heather Kinlaw Lofthouse: I would say that it does feel sometimes like we’re fighting windmills, but I think the larger drive is to stay hopeful. And he looks at the long-term view on a daily basis.

I think it’s always been an uphill battle for Bob. He truly believes that with it being as bad as it is, it can only get better. So maybe this is revealing cracks in a way that will cause a reckoning that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, because it wasn’t so blatant and egregious.

Kirschner: He feels if we can focus the attention on income inequality — which is really one of the defining issues of our time — it explains a lot of the problems with who has the power in this country right now. He feels that a corrective around this fundamental injustice — it can really happen if the people rise up.

And you can see that passion and optimism when he’s teaching. What do you think makes him such a dynamic teacher? 

Lofthouse: He’s so in tune with where the students are in terms of their learning arc and adjusting his tack. He doesn’t take up all the air, and he sees where people are and he’s constantly navigating. And he can do that with a 750-person audience as well.

He really has a sense of not spoon-feeding the students and encouraging critical thinking. It’s amazing to watch the different levels on which he’s operating — at the front of a classroom, and then behind the scenes, in between the classes.

And what is he going to do now that he’s not teaching?

Kirschner: He’s still working and teaching. He’s teaching in a different way. He’s teaching through videos and he’s teaching through an amazing podcast with Heather on his Substack. So, as long as he’s here, he’s going to have a voice, and he is going to use that voice to try to make a difference.

Lofthouse: When I was his student in graduate school in 2005, I took a leadership course with him, which was exceptional. I’m trying to get him to teach an online version. I’m also trying to get him to write a children’s book.

He was bullied as a kid because of his size. Do you think his height and those early experiences affected how he sees the world?

Kirschner: It immediately marked him from a very early age as different … and really created a level of empathy with others. 

And in Washington, where power is often related to stature — literally, we talk about the “stature” of someone — I just think that that sense of not fitting that definition, yet really believing in this country, I think that tension really defines a lot of how he sees [the world]. He sees himself as very patriotic about what this country can be, but it has to be something that makes accommodations and really serves all of the people.

What do you think he wants his legacy to be?

Lofthouse: I don’t think he thinks about his legacy. … But I imagine that he’ll be known for caring about the working class, focusing on workers and really zeroing in on inequality when it wasn’t popular to talk about it. And breaking through and tethering [events in] the news to the [analytical] frameworks that really matter.

I think he’ll be known as someone who constantly reframed the conversation and public discourse to focus on  what really mattered, which was the level of inequality of wealth and income in the United States of America.

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