Embracing Pluralism in Higher Education

In Episode 27 of the EdUp Provost podcast, host Gregor Thuswaldner interviewed Eboo Patel, who leads Interfaith America as its founder and president. Their conversation explored Patel's current engagement with pluralism. Here is an excerpt of the episode:

EdUp Provost: Your current work focuses on pluralism. And you've recently written very thought-provoking essays on the importance of pluralism in the context of higher education. One essay published in Persuasion is entitled 'How I Learned to Stop Criticizing Everything.' Another one that appeared in Inside Higher Ed has the intriguing title, 'Pluralism U.' So why the turn towards pluralism and what role should provosts play in advocating for pluralism at the executive level?

Eboo Patel:
First of all, I think pluralism should be the defining paradigm of a university. And there's a large conversation over whether we should be having what John Haig calls social justice university or free speech university or truth-seeking university. I actually think that a pluralism university covers most of the important territory that a university would want to be engaged in.

The first area of that territory has to do with learning and truth-seeking. And what I think pluralism is all about, beginning with William James and through John Dewey and all the way up to Danielle Allen and Kwame Anthony Appiah and Jeff Stout, is the idea that the universe is many. We explore the nature of the universe through a variety of modes and methods. This is what a university does. You have different academic departments, from astronomy to zoology. You engage in exploring the universe through a variety of ways. You gather data and then discuss different explanatory frameworks or paradigms to see which ones best match the data. That is pluralism when it comes to truth-seeking. I think that that is maybe the most important function of a university, but it's not the only function of a university.

Universities are also involved in identity pluralism. They are one of the only institutions in our society that regularly brings together people of diverse identities and divergent ideologies to cooperate in everything from biology labs to intramural soccer. And I think we should take that part of a university's mission very seriously. Again, it comes under the canopy of pluralism.

A third area of pluralism that a university engages in is value pluralism. This, of course, is associated with the great British philosopher Isaiah Berlin, and what Berlin says is that a society or a community is always engaged in a conversation about how to align its various values. For instance, things like equality and freedom are not perfectly aligned all the time. If you have high taxes, it might infringe upon the freedom of wealthy people. But if you turn around and use those taxes for government programs for poor and working-class people, you might have more equality in the society. So what's the right balance there? A university should be a place that is encouraging a conversation about those things.

Finally, there's agonistic pluralism, which is associated most with the Belgian theorist Chantal Mouffe. And what Mouffe says is that society is going to have people with deep disagreements, pro-life and pro-choice, more on the side of Israel or more on the side of the Palestinians. You need those people with deep disagreements on profound matters to still be able to live together. That is called agonistic pluralism. The main goal there is to make sure that you are turning enemies into adversaries. I think universities are the place to do all of this well.


 Here are recent pieces Eboo Patel wrote about the importance of pluralism in the college context:  Why campuses need centers for pluralism (opinion)

Listen here to the entire conversation on EdUp Provost, the podcast of the Association of Chief Academic Officers in collaboration with The EdUp Experience. EdUp Provost is available on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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