Taking Seriously Campus Debates Surrounding Invited Speakers: Open-Mindedness and the Ethics of Inquiry in Higher Education

Abstract

College campuses in the United States are currently engaged in public and ongoing negotiation of the value and limits of free speech in educational contexts. Responses to invited campus speakers from students, faculty, and campus leaders point to diverging perspectives on the roles and responsibilities of higher education institutions and their members as communities of inquiry. Considering these perspectives raises questions about the epistemic aims of colleges and universities. The purpose of this article is to investigate perspectives on the ethics of inquiry and on the value and demands of open-mindedness in higher education. Specifically, I examined one case of an invited campus speaker who sparked considerable debate—Charles Murray’s invited talk at Middlebury College in 2017. This study employs the methods of empirically engaged philosophy, a philosophical approach to inquiry that engages with empirical evidence in considering educational aims and implications for institutional structures and policies. I apply conceptual tools stemming from the philosophical theories of knowledge and justice to a thematic content analysis of public statements made by faculty, administrators, and students in the Middlebury case. Through analysis of this campus speaker case, I observed two alternative perspectives on the ethics of inquiry—rational individualism and just collectivism. These two perspectives shared a number of common commitments, including the importance of cultivation of the mind as a primary aim in higher education; the value of open-mindedness, debate, and protest in the pursuit of truth; and the importance of justice, equality, and inclusion. They diverged in their epistemic orientations (individual vs. collective responsibility), their views on the proper bounds of open debate within an institution oriented toward truth-seeking, and what virtuous open-mindedness requires of individuals and collectives. This study contributes to a contemporary understanding of the unique ethical responsibilities of colleges and universities as inquiring organizations, whose members may hold divergent epistemological orientations. By investigating the relationship between open-mindedness, inquiry, and justice in contemporary public discourse in higher education, this study addresses a need for deeper engagement with the philosophical foundations of higher education.