February 4, 1920 – March 13, 2017

Morton Deutsch was E.L. Thorndike Professor Emeritus and Director Emeritus of the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (MD-ICCCR) at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City, U.S.A.

Our dear Mort was lovingly remembered by his colleagues and family at Teachers College on April 14, 2017.
"Morton Deutsch, Expert on Conflict Resolution, Dies at 97," by Sam Roberts, New York Times, March 21, 2017.
We hold you dear in our hearts, dear Mort, and express our deep loving appreciation and gratitude!

On December 3, 2014, Morton Deutsch accepted "with delight" our invitation to be our Honorary Lifetime Member of the HumanDHS Board of Directors. Morton Deutsch is also the first recipient of the HumanDHS Lifetime Commitment Award, which he received at the 2009 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict. He convened the first workshop at the MD-ICCCR on July 7, 2003, and remained the honorary convener of this series of workshops since. Morton Deutsch is also a Founding Member of the World Dignity University initiative. He wrote the Foreword to Evelin Lindner's 2006 book on humiliation and her 2009 book on emotion and conflict.


Morton Deutsch, Linda Hartling, Evelin Lindner,
December 3, 2014

Morton Deutsch was one of the world's most respected scholars of Conflict Resolution and the founder of the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (ICCCR), renamed in 2013 to The Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (MD-ICCCR), at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City. Professor Deutsch has been widely honored for his scientific contributions involving research on cooperation and competition, social justice, group dynamics, and conflict resolution. He has published extensively and is well known for his pioneering studies in intergroup relations, social conformity, and the social psychology of justice.

Please see the Morton Deutsch Library, as well as the Interrupting Oppression and Sustaining Justice Site. See also Morton Deutsch interviewed by Judy Kurianski in 2008 for the Peace Division of APA.

Please read more about Morton Deutsch's life in a chapter that he wrote in 1999: A Personal Perspective on the Development of Social Psychology in the Twentieth Century. In Rodriguez, A. and Levine, R. V. (Eds.), Reflections on 100 Years of Experimental Social Psychology, (pp. 1-34) New York, NY: Basic Books.

See also his biography by Erica Frydenberg, 2005, Morton Deutsch: A Life and Legacy of Mediation and Conflict Resolution by Erica Frydenberg, 2005.

See furthermore some pictures taken in December 2004, and more pictures from 2006!

His books include:
•  Interracial Housing (1951)
•  Theories in Social Psychology (1965)
•  The Resolution of Conflict (1973);
•  Distributive Justice (1985); and
•  The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice (2000, 2nd edition 2006, 3rd edition 2014).

See also:

•  To Morton Deutsch's 95th birthday: Morton Deutsch: A Pioneer in Developing Peace Psychology, SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice (PSP), edited by Hans Günter Brauch, 2015.

•  Deutsch, Morton (2013).
Imagine a Global Human Community (video, December 11, 2013 | transcript)
Pledge brought to the 2013 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 5-6, 2013:
Imagine a global human community in which you, your children, and grandchildren as well as all the others in our shared planet and their children and grandchildren:
…Are able to live in dignity and are treated fairly.
…Have freedom from the fear of violence and war and can live in peace.
…Have freedom from want so that you do not ever have to live in such impoverished circumstances you and your loved ones can not have adequate care, food, water, shelter, health services, education, and other necessities for physical and emotional well-being as well as a dignified life.
…Have freedom of information, publication, speech, beliefs, and assembly so that you can be free to be different and free to express open criticism of those in authority individually or collectively.
…Have the responsibility to promote, protect, and defend such freedoms as those described above for yourself as well as for others when they are denied or under threat.
…Will work together cooperatively to make the world that their grandchildren will inherit free of such problems as war, injustice, climate change, and economic disruption.
Are you willing to be a member of such a global human community? If “yes”, please make the following pledge:
I pledge to promote these rights and responsibilities in my own life, in my community, and in the global community as best I can through nonviolent personal actions and working together with others. I also pledge to seek a constructive resolution of conflict about implementation of the foregoing values, when it arises, by working cooperatively to resolve the conflict with those who I am in conflict.

•  Deutsch, Morton (1994). Constructive Conflict Management for the World Today. In The International Journal of Conflict Management, 5 (2, April), pp. 111-129.

•  Destructive Conflict and Oppression (as short version for the Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, 2004), and as long paper presented at the Interrupting Oppression and Sustaining Justice Working Conference at ICCCR, NY, February 27-29, 2004.

•  Deutsch, Morton, Coleman, Peter T. & Eric C. Marcus (Eds.), The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice. (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2006.

•  See also the Foreword written by Morton Deutsch to Making Enemies: Humiliation and International Conflict by Evelin Lindner in Westport, CT, London: Greenwood Press and Praeger Publishers, 2006.

•  See also the Foreword written by Morton Deutsch to Emotion and Conflict: How Human Rights Can Dignify Emotion and Help Us Wage Good Conflict by Evelin Lindner in Westport, CT, London: Greenwood Press and Praeger Publishers, 2009.

•  See also an interview together with Betty Reardon, in spring 2009, at http://blip.tv/file/2070774. It was part of a special issue on international aspects of Teachers College, and ICCCR and peace education were parts of that.

•  His paper for our 2004 workshop, Oppression and Conflict, was first presented at the Interrupting Oppression and Sustaining Justice Working Conference at ICCCR, NY, February 27-29, 2004.