Panelists:
- Andrew Spear Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences, GVSU
- Alisha Davis, Ph.D., Assistant Vice
President for the Social Justice Centers and Director of the Office of
Multicultural Affairs, GVSU
- Dwayne Tunstall, Ph.D., Associate
Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, GVSU
Moderator: Michael DeWilde, Director, Koeze Business
Ethics Initiative and Professor of Management, Seidman College of
Business, GVSU
NYU professor Jonathan Haidt, author of The Coddling of the
American Mind, among other works, gave a talk at Duke
University in 2016 arguing that a university can have only "one
telos," or purpose, and that we find ourselves in an age where
the traditional purpose of a university - the pursuit of truth - is
being eclipsed by another "sacred value," that of social
justice. While of course not opposed to social justice, Haidt does
conclude that in the end making it the central value of a university
is harmful to all involved. He implicates that pursuit in a number of
ills, among them plummeting trust in universities and the erosion of
academic freedom.
On March 30, 2023, three GVSU professors and administrators joined
Michael DeWilde, the director of the Koeze Business Ethics Initiative
(the KBEI) at the Seidman College of Business, to discuss Haidt’s points.
Nathan Goetting, JD, Abigail DeHart, JD, and John Uglietta, PhD, JD,
debate the state of free speech in light of calls to limit it from
both the right and the left. Prof. Goetting, former editor of The
National Lawyers Guild Review, has recently published what he
calls a "radical defense" of free speech in Discourse
Magazine. Professor Uglietta, Chair of Grand Valley's philosophy
dept., and Abigail DeHart, former clerk for the Ninth Circuit and
currently with a prominent DC law firm, will take up Goetting's
arguments and add their own.