Overview
Does affirmative action advance or hinder the pursuit of social justice? Does it promote or undermine meritocracy? Should it be seen as a way of righting past wrongs or of building a better future? What is the future of affirmative action in the wake of recent Supreme Court decisions?
This colloquium is part of CEHV's Civil Discourse for Citizenship initiative, which provides opportunities for students to engage in vigorous and respectful discussion anchored by "the 4Cs": Be Curious, Be Charitable, Be Conscientious, Be Constructive.
The panel discussion will be moderated by two of our undergraduate Civil Discourse Fellows.
Please contact CEHV Associate Director Aaron Yarmel (yarmel.2@osu.edu) if you require any accommodations to participate in this event.
Panelists
Thomas Mulligan
Thomas Mulligan, a philosopher by training, is a Visiting Scholar at the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets & Ethics, and was a faculty fellow at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business for two academic years, from 2016 to 2018. He previously taught at Tulane University and Brown University, and has published in a range of journals including the Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture, Ethics, Philosophical Studies, The Philosophical Quarterly, and Social Choice and Welfare. He has written a book defending meritocracy, Justice and the Meritocratic State (Routledge, 2018), which is available Open Access.
Mulligan's primary research specialties are economic justice and the formal theory of decision-making in groups. He also has an enduring interest in meritocracy — its history (Eastern and Western), justifiability, and application.
He has also worked outside of academia in a variety of roles — as a Navy officer; a Central Intelligence Agency case officer; a management consultant, and, most recently, Director of Code Enforcement for the City of New Orleans.
Winston C. Thompson
Winston C. Thompson is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Education and Associate Professor of Philosophy (by courtesy) at Ohio State. His scholarship focuses on normative ethical and social/political questions of justice, education, and the public good, with recent efforts analyzing dilemmas of educational policy.
At CEHV, he leads CEHV's COMPAS program and is a member of the CEHV steering committee. Thompson received his PhD in Philosophy and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and has been a faculty member in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of New Hampshire. He was also a Fellow-in-Residence at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.
Moderators:
Julia Rizzo
Julia is a third-year majoring in Public Management, Leadership, and Policy and minoring in Science and Engineering in the Public Interest through the John Glenn College of Public Affairs. She is an International Affairs Scholar, Vice President of the Collegiate Council on World Affairs, and an OSU Votes Ambassador. She also works as an RA on-campus and as a Senate Page at the Ohio Statehouse.
Adi is a sophomore at OSU. Currently, he is studying data analytics with a minor in economics in the College of Arts and Sciences. In his short time at OSU so far, he has been involved in the Big Data Analytics Association where he serves as a Special Project Coordinator. He is also part of the Eminence Fellows Program.
