Speech and inquiry in public institutions of higher education: Navigating ethical and epistemological challenges

Abstract

How should those who value reasonable pluralism navigate ethical and epistemological challenges related to speech and inquiry in higher education? We propose the ethical pursuit of public knowledge as a guiding vision for public colleges and universities with the understanding that other institutions will serve different purposes. The ethical criterion of mutuality calls for engagement across difference and reciprocal recognition of others’ basic equality and liberty. To maintain epistemic legitimacy, knowledge-production processes in these institutions should elevate ideas warranted by public reasons that have withstood rigorous critical scrutiny above those that have not. Some forms of speech—including the expression of extremist views on both the Right and the Left—will prove unreasonable and incompatible with the guiding vision and should therefore be marginalized (but not necessarily suppressed) within these institutions.

Keywords:

• Reasonable pluralism
• public knowledge
• mutuality
• free speech
• higher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Here, Ben-Porath is merely framing the debate about free speech on campus and is not endorsing this view.

2 In the West, rightwing religious fundamentalists primarily include dogmatic believers in the Judeo-Christian traditions, whereas other fundamentalists, including Islamist extremists, often ally with the far-Left (Walzer 2015).

3 See, e.g., Phillips (2012) for a critical review of several influential examples from this body of literature.

4 See Burbules and Berk (1999) for a clearly articulated distinction between these two uses of ‘critical’.

5 See links to videos in Heying and Weinstein (2017).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Benjamin Bindewald

Benjamin Bindewald is former secondary social studies teacher who completed his Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with a focus in social foundations of education at Clemson University. He is now an assistant professor of social foundations at Oklahoma State University. His primary scholarly interests include tolerance and its limits in pluralist, democratic societies and the epistemological and ethical challenges such considerations present for public schools and universities.

Joshua Hawkins

Joshua Hawkins is a former K-12 teacher and administrator who earned a Ph.D. in educational psychology from Oklahoma State University. He is now an assistant professor of special education at Northwestern Oklahoma State University. His primary scholarly interests include retention, resilience, and relationships in special education, and philosophical and psychological foundations of education.