As the concept of justice has grown increasingly relevant on a global scale, Colgate University (and American universities in general) must take prompt measures to ensure that students are educated on its importance in the shaping of our society.

2020: a catalyst for change

As the final month of this unprecedented year approaches, there finally exists a much-needed sense of things coming to an end, coupled with an imminent feeling of a new beginning.  We have collectively endured a tremendous amount of suffering over the past few months, including the unfortunate loss of many societal heroes, the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of several innocent black people by police, the devastating bushfires in Australia, and much more.

The brutal events we have experienced throughout 2020 have led Americans to a breaking point, and the idea of justice is relevant now more than ever.  As a result, it seems almost necessary that American universities take quick measures to address the lack of focus on justice within their required curriculums, and Colgate University’s most recent core revision proposal could be the fix.

Colgate University’s “Questions of Justice”

In recent years, most American universities have completely done away with their western civilization courses; however, Colgate University is one of few institutions in the United States that continues to require such a course.  Even as far back as 2011, the university was one of only two “top 50” colleges in America that still mandated the teaching of classical western ideals.

According to a recent web post by Colgate student Pedro Martinez, this sort of course implicitly emphasizes the idea of eurocentrism and embraces a “racially inept” history, and therefore must be adjusted.   I fully agree with the demands of Martinez, and personally wonder if a new course could be framed around the idea of justice.  Colgate University’s most recent proposal, suggesting the implementation of a new course called “CORE Questions of Justice,” argues that this theme can, in fact, be an organizing principle of a successful course, stating,

“Because of its multivalence, and because so many different cultures have overlapping yet non-identical conceptions of justice, this theme offers a powerful means by which to achieve the primary pedagogical goal of this course: to think critically and analytically about important texts from a variety of historical periods and cultural traditions.”

On the surface, the argument made seems to check out, but only the application of this idea in a classroom setting could truly judge its feasibility.

Sort by: justice?

This semester, I had the opportunity to take CORE 151 under Professor Marlowe, a current member of Colgate University’s Core Revision Committee.  While our coursework was centered around the required western texts, Professor Marlowe also added some culturally diverse works to our syllabus to conduct a preliminary test on justice as an organizing principle.  Based on my experience, the theme of justice can be the entity that ties together a course, and here’s why.  

Over many very diverse texts, we were able to consider how impactful the idea of justice was on ancient peoples from various backgrounds, and how the concept of justice differed across cultures.  For example, we were able to compare the justice brought to humans by God’s great flood in Genesis to the justice brought to the suitors in The Odyssey.  Also, the overall theme of justice allowed us to consider the differences between Socrates’ criticisms of democracy and Livy’s of monarchy in their respective works. The concept of justice was often the dominant theme of our in-class discussions and allowed for constant connections to be made between different texts.

However, it was obvious through my experiences that justice alone could not be the sole topic of conversation of a literary course, as it would take away from the complexity of the texts and limit the overall scope of the class. For example, while justice was one of the most important themes of The Odyssey, we would miss out on several other important ideas presented by the text, including the role of women, the evolving maturity of Telemachus, and many others, if we were to focus only on the idea of justice. Overall, while many of our seminars included discussions regarding justice, alone it would limit the creativity allowed in class. So, while it seems justice can be the organizing principle of a successful course, it is important not to limit the depth of the analyzed texts.

“Questions of Justice” as a core curriculum requirement?

A “Questions of Justice” course which successfully interlocks classical western texts with more culturally diverse texts through the scope of justice would provide students with an intellectual experience that would be ever so useful in today’s world.  According to Dr. Benjamin Y. Fong, however, we as a society need to understand that this education, learning about justice in many diverse ancient backgrounds, can be used as a basis for future change, but is not change in itself.  This revised course should be meant to provide motivation to students, show them that social justice is fundamental to our ever-changing society, and should allow them to connect their studies to our current social landscape.

Matt Sgueglia is a sophomore at Colgate University. He is from West Islip, New York, and is a Computer Science major and Mathematics minor.