Competing Perspectives on Open-Mindedness and the Ethics of Inquiry in Higher Education

• In Event: Current Issues in Higher Education

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate alternative perspectives on ethics of inquiry in higher education and the value of open-mindedness through analysis of one case of an invited campus speaker which sparked considerable debate—Charles Murray’s invited talk at Middlebury College in 2017. This case, while representative in many ways of recent phenomena of campus activism across the country, is unique in the wealth of documentation surrounding it, including multiple statements from various stakeholders on the norms that should guide inquiry on campus. Analysis of these documents points to important questions that extend beyond the most apparent First Amendment debates to questions about how colleges and universities, and the students, faculty, and staff who comprise them, should engage in knowledge-seeking.

Author

• Rebecca M Taylor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign