A Message from the Political Science Department (Sent to the Middlebury Campus newspaper this week.) We are divided. Over the past weekend, the political science department has debated over email about our department’s co-sponsorship of the Charles Murray visit to campus this Thursday. (Many have asked whether the department played any role in initiating or funding the visit. We did not.) In response to calls from members of the community for clarification of our decision, we have chosen to make public this summary of the department’s internal debate. Arguments in favor of continuing our co-sponsorship begin with the position that the department chair, Bert Johnson, articulated in an email to majors last Friday. To qualify for co-sponsorship, a speaker must be related to political science in some way, and of interest to a significant portion of the community. Charles Murray would appear to meet both criteria. A political scientist by training, he has written books that are the subject of much debate, and is a fellow at the policy-oriented American Enterprise Institute. The student group that approached us about the co-sponsorship seems to constitute sufficient student interest. Further, colleagues have pointed out that Mr. Murray is influential in conservative circles, and has spoken widely at colleges and universities around the country. These events were often hosted or co-sponsored by academic units, including Harvard’s Institute of Politics, the Goldman School of Public Policy at Berkeley, and the Pamplin School of Business at Virginia Tech. As for Mr. Murray’s arguments, some see important, if provocative and perhaps unconvincing, claims about class divides in his newest book Coming Apart. Although Murray himself is an opponent of Donald Trump, the book concerns the isolation of working class voters from other voters, a subject that may have played a role in Trump’s victory. To withdraw co-sponsorship would be to claim that Murray is an utter charlatan, a claim that has not been established. Even Nobel Prize winner James Heckman, author of a largely critical review of Murray’s co-authored The Bell Curve, said in a 2005 interview that he is “a bigger fan of it than you might think” because of its importance to the broader debate. Others in the department see Mr. Murray’s work as largely discredited, but important to contend with. As one colleague put it, “Whether or not you think he is a quack, Murray is undoubtedly influential and his views are part of the political debate. … [S]hoddy as his work may be, it is part of the political landscape that is relevant to students of political science.” Another writes, “It would have been incredibly valuable for me, as a young person raised in a conservative setting, to see smart people engage with and challenge those claims.” A key argument against co-sponsorship is that co-sponsorship confers legitimacy to Murray’s most inflammatory views, which constitute pseudo-science and racism. “Ideological diversity is good,” writes one member of the department, articulating an important departmental value, “but we all agree that there is a line that should not be crossed.” If we co-sponsor a speaker, it sends a signal that we believe that the speaker does not cross the line. This perception may be damaging to the community, considering what many colleagues consider to be Murray’s deeply evident biases. These biases may be evident in Murray’s erroneous interpretations of genetics research, his overgeneralizing based on flimsy evidence, and his conclusions that are far out of proportion from anything his data show. The whole edifice of his scholarship crumbles at the slightest challenge. As one colleague puts it, “We will do ourselves no favors by trying to defend his indefensible claims.”

Withdrawing our co-sponsorship would not cause the talk to be cancelled. It might also repair some damage that has been done to the department’s reputation, especially among students and faculty of color and their allies, who, as one colleague put it, “feel aghast” at the department’s decision. At the worst, co-sponsorship could be seen as playing a part in normalizing a worldview of racial hierarchy, something to which none of us wants to be an accessory. If we were to withdraw co-sponsorship, most agree that the department should bring one or more alternative conservative speakers, who might stimulate debate and advance the goal of ideological diversity without simply being provocative. As one colleague puts it, “I believe we owe it to our students to be a nonpartisan department. Doing otherwise undermines the reasoned deliberation on which democracy itself relies, not to mention the very idea of social science.” We remain divided on the issue of co-sponsorship. Nevertheless, we are united in our respect for each other, which has only grown as we have faced this challenging matter. None of us has questioned each other’s integrity, honesty, or sincerity in making our arguments. Finally, we are unanimous in wishing to reiterate our commitment to the principles that make us a community that is welcoming to all. We reject discrimination based on a person's religious, gender, sexual, disability, class, ethnic, or racial identity. Our diversity makes us stronger, no matter what any speaker – co-sponsored or not – might say. The Political Science Department