Difficult Conversations: The University's Role in Restoring Civic Dialogue with Dr. Robert George and Dr. Cornel West

WATCH CONVERSATION RECORDING

On January 22nd, Dr. Robert George and Dr. Cornel West joined us at OSU for a conversation focused on the role of higher education in restoring civic dialogue. This timely discussion addressed the urgent need for universities to lead the way in reviving the art of civil discourse in a society increasingly characterized by division and confrontation. As bastions of diverse ideas and critical thinking, universities have a unique responsibility to model and facilitate conversations that not only respect differences but also bridge them. George and West, who celebrate their dynamic partnership despite contrasting ideologies, shared insights on how higher education can cultivate a culture where challenging discussions are conducted with empathy, respect, and a shared pursuit of truth, thereby reinforcing the foundations of a vibrant democratic society. The conversation was moderated by Inara Scott, senior associate dean in the College of Business.

Dr. Robert George

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He has frequently been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, teaching philosophy of law and related subjects.

In addition to his academic service, Professor George has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He has also served on the President’s Council on Bioethics, as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Science and Technology. He is a former Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award.

He serves on the boards of the Templeton Foundation Religion Trust, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Heritage Foundation, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, and the Center for Individual Rights, among others.

Professor George is author of many books including, Making Men Moral:  Civil Liberties and Public Morality (Oxford University Press, 1993), In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford University Press, 1999), The Clash of Orthodoxies (ISI, 2001) and Conscience and Its Enemies (ISI, 2013). He is editor of several volumes, including Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays (Oxford University Press, 1992), Great Cases in Constitutional Law (Princeton University Press, 2000), and co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to Natural Law (Cambridge University Press, 2017)

Professor George’s articles and review essays have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Review of Politics, the Review of Metaphysics, the American Journal of Jurisprudence, and Law and Philosophy.  He has also written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, First Things, the Boston Review, and the Times Literary Supplement.

A graduate of Swarthmore College, Professor George holds MTS and JD degrees from Harvard University and the degrees of DPhil, BCL, DCL, and DLitt from Oxford University. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Swarthmore and received a Frank Knox Fellowship from Harvard for graduate study in law and philosophy at Oxford.  He holds twenty-two honorary degrees, including doctorates of law, letters, ethics, science, divinity, humane letters, civil law, law and moral values, humanities, and juridical science.

He is a recipient of many awards including the United States Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Bradley Prize for Intellectual and Civic Achievement, the Philip Merrill Award of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, and the Paul Bator Award of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy. Together with his friend and teaching partner Cornel West, he received the inaugural Leadership Award of Heterodox Academy.

Dr. Cornel West

Dr. Cornel West, affectionately known to many as Brother West, is the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary. Dr. West teaches on the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as courses in Philosophy of Religion, African American Critical Thought, and a wide range of subjects -- including but by no means limited to, the classics, philosophy, politics, cultural theory, literature, and music. He has a passion to communicate to a vast variety of publics in order to keep alive the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. – a legacy of telling the truth and bearing witness to love and justice.

Dr. West is the former Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. Cornel West graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton.

He has written 20 books and has edited 13. He is best known for his classics, Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and for his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. His most recent book, Black Prophetic Fire, offers an unflinching look at nineteenth and twentieth-century African American leaders and their visionary legacies.

Dr. West has partnered with MasterClass.com to provide teachings on several influential courses including a class with Pharrell Williams on Empathy, MasterClass’s first-ever multi-instructor class on Black History, Black Freedom & Black Love, as well as Dr. West’s standalone class on Philosophy. Visit www.cornelwest.com and click the MasterClass banner to learn more.

West is running for president in 2024. He is appearing in his personal capacity at this event and not on behalf of any federal campaign committee.