Speech Acts, which kicks off this week, will bring together high-profile speakers such as George Stephanopoulos and Nikole Hannah-Jones for eight panels and lectures to address an issue that has become increasingly fraught over the last few years.

“We’ve had a long-standing ferment in society, in the culture, and perhaps most intensely, on American campuses, about freedom of speech—what you can do, what you can say, and what can be discussed and in what form,” said David Gibson, the director of Fordham’s Center on Religion and Culture.

The center addressed the topic in March when it held a discussion on cancel culture, and over the summer, Fordham Provost Dennis Jacobs, Ph.D., asked faculty to propose their own ways to talk about what Gibson called “the lifeblood of university life”—the free and open exchange of ideas.

The first panel, “Political Discourse in a Polarized Age,” will take place Thursday, Oct. 7, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. at the Lincoln Center campus. It will feature Stephanopoulos; Kristen Soltis Anderson, a pollster and author of The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up) (Broadside Books, 2015); Robert Talisse, Ph.D., professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University; and Roshni Nedungadi, a partner at HIT Strategies. Monika McDermott, Ph.D., professor of political science, will moderate.

Hannah-Jones will speak on Feb. 1. Jones, the creator of the New York Times’ “1619 Project” on American slavery and its consequences, was denied tenure at the University of North Carolina in June, and subsequently joined the faculty of Howard University. Her story generated enormous debates about academic freedom, and lawmakers in Arkansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, and South Dakota introduced bills to ban teaching the “1619 Project” in schools. She will be interviewed by Janai Nelson, associate director and counsel at the NAACP.

Catherine Powell, a professor at Fordham’s School of Law who was instrumental in inviting Hannah-Jones, said her work is key to understanding how the United States is undergoing a backlash similar to the one that happened in the 1960s in reaction to the civil rights movement.

“As a society, we’re currently having a debate about who gets to speak, who gets heard, and whose ideas are valid,” she said.

Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project has been a major force in this debate, she said.

“That was a way to make visible certain ideas and certain histories that many Americans have been unaware of, that the history of Black Americans goes back 400 years, not just to the country’s founding,” she said.

Powell said it’s crucial that the educators are committed to the truth and shun “alternative facts” and disinformation.

“At the same time, it’s important that the university is a place where all ideas are welcome, even unpopular ones and unpopular speech, that we learn to be agreeable to being disagreed with, and that we learn from each other,” she said.

“Being open to the possibility that our ideas may evolve, and hearing others in a place where we can each speak freely and respect each other is critical to learning.”

The lectures represent the depth and breadth of the expertise of Fordham faculty. Miguel Alzola, a professor from the Gabelli School of Business, will moderate a panel on Oct. 15 titled “Is Free Expression at Risk in U.S. Organizations?” Abner Greene, a professor at the School of Law, will moderate “The Promise and Limits of Our First Amendment,” on Jan. 26. And associate professor of communications Jesse Baldwin-Phillippi, Ph.D., will moderate “Speech Impacts: ‘Cancel Culture’ and the Consequences of Our Words” on Nov. 4.

The Center on Religion and Culture is contributing with “The Quality of Mercy: Justice, Forgiveness, and Public Discourse,” a panel in the spring on a date to be determined. Gibson said the plan is to explore whether American culture is inflicted with a puritanical streak that leads people to be intolerant and unmerciful toward others, as well as incapable of forgiveness.

“My biggest concern is that that we only attempt to approach this through the lens of rights, or policies, or grievance, and I think we need to approach this from a spiritual and social perspective. This is about our relationships with each other,” he said.

As for the series, Gibson said he’s optimistic that there will be healthy disagreement among participants and audience members.

“More than any particular topic, speaker, or event, I hope the fact of holding this series will contribute to a solution because you’re going to bring people together in a space to discuss these things,” he said.

“What we’re trying to do is to model what good speech looks like, what a constructive environment for education looks like.”

In-person attendance for the series is limited to the Fordham community, but the series will be live-streamed. Register here.

In situations like this, Miguel Alzola, Ph.D., associate professor of ethics at the Gabelli School of Business, said the decision-maker’s choices aren’t necessarily a matter of right or wrong.

“There can be conflicts between right and right, from conflicts in time management to conflicting shareholder values,” he said.

“The answers are not that clear, and that is what creates opportunity for students to engage in a conversation.”

A ‘Win-Win’ Mindset

Alzola teaches courses in corporate social responsibility and business ethics. “Our best students have a win-win mindset,” he said. “They recognize that it’s in the best interest of the shareholders to protect employees and treat customers well.”

His research focuses on character-based ethical theories in business. Alzola found that people make distinctions between the virtues that they attach to being a good human being, and the character traits that they need be successful in their professional roles.

One key question that he is exploring is whether one’s character can be corrupted by participating in improper business practices.

“It’s undeniable that you have a social role that you play in every group in which you belong,” he said. “These groups can have an impact on the way you perceive whether your actions are a problem or not.”

Examining the Underlying Principles

Prior to joining Fordham in 2008, Alzola worked in the oil industry during the ‘90s in his home country of Argentina. Corruption, bribery, and favoritism were widespread in the industry at the time. The experience inspired his interest in virtue ethics and moral psychology.

Alzola reviewed case studies in leadership and business in which individuals strayed from their values. He also explored the different ways people frame a problem, in order to choose an alternative course of action in tricky business dealings.

In many of these situations, the decision-maker is faced with disparate interests: Employees want higher salaries. The shareholders of a company demand hire revenue. Meanwhile, customers want better service.

“We try to provide a platform to initiate a conversation among the students, which is not only connected with the case studies, but also with their own values,” said Alzola. “It allows them to look at their convictions critically. “

Mainstream business ethics tend to evaluate different choices based on the consequences of the decision-maker’s actions or the means they use to achieve their desired outcome.

Since there is a greater emphasis on whether the decision-maker’s action is permitted or prohibited, Alzola said the character of the decision-maker is often overlooked.

“Ethics is not only about what you do, but how what you do reflects on who you are, and who you will be as a result of performing the action,” he said.

Making a Better Choice

In his courses, Alzola has advocated an integration of business, legal, and ethical outlooks to help students effectively dissect contemporary business dilemmas, from pay equity and privacy protection to conflicts of interests and corporate espionage.

“Psychology has found that the more sophisticated you get in framing a problem, the more likely you’re going to behave ethically,” said Alzola. “Framing is a key part of good decision-making.”

“It’s about finding long-term solutions to short-term conflicts,” said Alzola. “You have to think about the company, 10, 20, and 30 years from now.”

He said the onus is also on business leaders to develop organizational structures and systems that help people to choose better.

“Part of it is recruitment, and the other part is internal development,” he said. “Leaders have a responsibility to create systems that are aligned with what people want to do and what they ought to do in order to be better at what they do.”

The Jesuit has singled out society’s relentless chase of possessions as a “the great danger in today’s world” and encouraged political leaders to consider financial reforms that stress ethics.

“Money must serve, not rule!” Francis wrote in his Evangelii Gaudiam (Joy of the Gospel), an exhortation published in the year his papacy began.

In some circles, this plea has led to the pope being labeled a socialist and dangerously naïve about financial matters.

But a group of panelists in a Fordham University discussion this week, “None of His Business? Pope Francis on Capitalism,” agreed that the resistance Francis is facing is nothing new, nor is the pope’s belief that people of faith can do better.

Pope Leo XIII took on economic issues in the 19th century in his encyclical, Rerum Novarum, said C. Colt Anderson, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education.

Leo argued that “some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class.”

Francis is doing something similar, Anderson told an audience of more than 50 Fordham faculty, administrators and students at Hughes Hall.

This pope knew that when he said this, that he was [going to face]a lot of opposition,” Anderson said of Francis’ exhortation.

That opposition was often pointed.

“Thank God, so to speak, that his teaching authority is limited to faith and morals, because in matters of economics, he is wide of the mark,” wrote Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano.

The criticism was part of the pope’s strategy, said Christine Firer Hinze, Ph.D., a professor of theology. Francis has succeeded in getting everyone’s attention.

Anderson said the pope tried to address his critics in his exhortation, and panelists argued that a stand against capitalism without an ethical underpinning is not the same as socialism or even a denunciation of capitalism.

Adam Smith, the 18th-century political economist often cited by capitalists, believed that empathy and capitalism can coexist, said Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., dean of the schools of business. That coexistence, she said, is stressed in her school.

“You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘conscious capitalism,’” Rapaccioli said. “Think about companies like Whole Foods, Costco, Patagonia, Chipotle, Southwest Airlines. Even Walgreens has advance inclusion and opportunity. These are successful operations, and they have been able to succeed while respecting people.”

Michael Pirson, Ph.D., an associate professor of management systems for the schools of business and the organizer of the event, agreed. Empathy is the driver of successful human relationships, and businesses that center on the common good have proven to be profitable, he said.

Empathy and business not only can coexist, they must, Francis has said.

“(T)he goal of economics and politics is to serve humanity,” Francis wrote in a 2013 letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron, “beginning with the poorest and most vulnerable wherever they may be, even in their mothers’ wombs.”

Click here to read the story on Gabelli Connect.

Story by John Schoonejongen
Top photo by Joanna Mercuri