University Governance: The Ethics of Answering to Two Bosses

• Pages: 793-801
• Date: 01 April 2024
• Published date: 01 April 2024
• Author: Sigal Ben-Porath
• Subject Matter: Derecho Público y Administrativo

University Governance: The Ethics of

Answering to Two Bosses

SIGAL BEN-PORATH*

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. YES, HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERS SHOULD PROTECT STUDENTS

FROM HARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 795

II. NO, HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERS SHOULD NOT PROTECT

STUDENTS FROM HARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 797

III. HARM AND WRONG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 799

IV. HARM, WRONG, AND COMPASSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800

University leaders sit at the helm of institutions that serve important public

roles: preparing citizens, workers, and leaders who are able to join and transform

existing social and economic structures. They are guided in fulf‌illing these roles

by public off‌icials, including Boards and elected off‌icials, who fund and regulate

the operation of their colleges and universities. At the same time, university lead-

ers are charged with educating young people, whom they serve as the top off‌icers

of the institutions where they learn (and often live), and who sometimes have

competing views about the best ways for their institutions to serve them. How

should university leaders prioritize the competing interests and demands of their

two bosses?

1

In this short essay, I focus on one key question on which the ‘two bosses’ clash,

namely, whether universities should protect students from emotional and discur-

sive harm. While this is a pressing matter, as I will illustrate, it is important to

remember that it is an outlier: the expectations of these two bosses commonly

align. The public (trustees, alums, boards, and sometimes the public discourse),

and the students (including their families), are broadly interested in attending,

* Sigal Ben-Porath is the MRMJJ Presidential Professor of Education at the University of

Pennsylvania, where she is also a member of the philosophy and the political science departments, and

the faculty director of the SNF Paideia Program for civic dialogue. I am grateful to John Hasnas,

Michael Douma, Hollis Robbins, and the 2023 attendees at GISME for their thoughtful engagement

with this paper. Ariana Zetlin provided excellent research assistance. © 2024, Sigal Ben-Porath.

1. I acknowledge that some would add the faculty to the list of legitimate stakeholders. I do not

include them here, because (1) in the simple employer-employee relations, the ethical discussion is not

necessarily unique to universities; (2) in their capacity as teachers and separately in their capacity as

researchers their relevant interests are ref‌lected in the public and students’ demands, and (3) the different

tracks of faculty, those who are more and less protected in their job security as well as their academic

freedom, make their interests too diverse to discuss in this short essay.

793