I am currently working on editing the lectures delivered by my dear Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) in 1950. In passing, he addresses the question of the philosophical and political conception that one can have of the individual. It inspires me the reflections which follow on certain aspects in my opinion disturbing of the topicality of university education.
Individual, justice, community
In the ideals of political liberalism and of the Age of Enlightenment, individuals have equal rights and are treated as such: this is an ideal of justice aimed at the universal. But we also admit that, depending on the contexts and circumstances, we can modulate this ideal.
Excellence is one such possible case.
Picasso or Einstein are not treated like other artists or other scholars by and in these places (museums, universities) where the values they embody with excellence, values that are also presumed universal, have been recognized and are taken into account. account.
But Russell also warns his audience against extending this idea too broadly. We then end up, he warns, with the cult of the hero of which Nazism had just (we are in 1950) to provide the example.
One can also disregard the differences and reduce the individual to a cog in a machine similar to the others in this whole. This, of course, can be justified in a democracy, for a time, in a place: say in the army, or in the factory.
But here too, another warning from Russell, beware of extending this idea too broadly. We can then end up treating the individual as we do then under the communist regime. The danger is then to deny the individual in the name of the collectivity, or of the group to which he belongs.
Again, depending on the contexts and circumstances, this may be justified. Positive discrimination practices in education, adopted by liberal democracies and intended to correct serious past injustices, are of this order. But we must then justify their prudent and provisional implementation, take care not to commit serious injustices to correct others, and put an end to them when the time comes.
That said, let’s get to the news.
Equity, diversity, inclusion
The existence of these programs (EDI) can no doubt be justified by arguments invoking an ideal of justice, the context, the circumstances.
But their imposition by the State should arouse doubts and concerns, especially when they are applied in a place, the university, which should be as much as possible sheltered from the ideologies of the moment and governed essentially by excellence. This seems to me even more true in these hours when academic freedom is threatened. But the universities, for too long already, alas, sometimes betray what they should be for basely mercantile reasons.
Right now, when many voices are being raised against preventing able-bodied white students from applying for a Canada research chair, or a chair in history reserved for non-whites (we have had many other examples over the years), we are faced with cases where we can reasonably fear that the individual, and the excellence he must embody, could be relegated to the background.
Academic freedom
If excellence (and the truth, which it presupposes in the field of knowledge), in the world of ideas as in that of art, is sometimes clearly established (Einstein and Picasso are geniuses…), it is also , in other cases, more difficult to identify, especially on new questions, issues and problems. The university is a place created to discuss it and seek to find it.
At McGill University, we have just seriously denied this duty of the institution by allowing the cancellation of a conference by British lawyer Robert Wintemute, deemed transphobic.
At Harvard University, Kenneth Roth, who was president for nearly 30 years of Human Rights Watch, was denied a position because of his anti-Israel positions. Excellence gives way to some of the political ideas of an individual, who is reduced to it.
These are cases where the claim to fairness leads to injustice, even to what smacks, if not of racism, at least of reduction of the individual to his group to which he belongs. That should alert us.
But, inspired by Russell, I also worry about what happens to true diversity (and the search for truth it can foster) in these cases.
Take this recent story from Hamline University (Saint Paul, Minnesota) that involves someone teaching Islamic art. On a 14th century Persian canvase century, we see Muhammad. After having warned her students of what she was going to do, to allow whoever wishes not to see it, the person in question shows this work in an online course. Complaints are made to management… who relieve this person of his duties.
But what idea do we have of the plaintiffs then? They are considered representative of their group. But this is to deny the individual (many Muslims don’t think so) and even of the sub-groups of this collectivity: all those who are not offended to see these images.
Among them, precisely… the Muslims who painted these images.