To the Brown Faculty,
I write to you today as a concerned student. I am aware of the petitions and letters swirling around before the Feb 1 faculty meeting on the creation of a PPE center at Brown. I’ll keep this short. The PTP has been a much needed institution at Brown. It brought viewpoint diversity and a classical liberal spirit to Brown. There are plenty of Brown faculty members (including some of you) who are progressives and oppose classical liberal economics, and put ‘fairness’ over ‘freedom,’ as you might think (correctly or not, I’m not exactly sure myself) many members of the PTP do not. The fact is, the PTP essentially exists to promote diversity of thought and free speech, and the Janus Forum brought different views to campus. If you take the Marcusean approach — that Brown should be a place where we limit ‘harmful views’ — I urge you to reconsider. Brown cannot stop the promulgation of harmful views in the world and should prepare its students accordingly to make positive change in whatever ways they can. Furthermore, the PTP is not comprised of Trump supporters. I know you all most likely despise ex-President Trump, and I can’t say I disagree with you, but the fact is, the free market is not without merit and many libertarians and conservatives have merit to their arguments. If you read John Tomasi’s work, you’ll realize he cares about fairness and social justice as much as you all do. Daniel D’Amico is libertarian, and wants to end the ‘prison industrial complex.' And the other members of the PTP are demonstrably liberal or left-of-center in their work — their support of diversity of thought doesn’t automatically make them conservative. Diversity of thought is a liberal value. Just because David and Emily Skarbek, along with the aforementioned Daniel D’Amico, attended George Mason University doesn’t mean they’re conservatives, and even if it did, it wouldn’t mean they’re evil. Do you really think conservative and libertarian views have no place at Brown? Please judge these original scholars and thinkers by their work, rather than by their associations.
The bottom line is this: just because they have accepted Koch funding (and the new center won’t, I should note) doesn’t mean they support everything the Koch brothers do. That’s a smear by association, and I know you all eschew such tactics. I urge you to embrace the spirit of diversity of thought and free inquiry that the university has always tried to promote, and the inclusion that spirit brings: People, however marginalized, have a voice, as we create a place where all views can be heard. The PPE center can do that, while providing different points of view with which students at this great university can engage. None of us wants to live in an ideological bubble. I urge you to support the PPE center if you want students to get a balanced education in political theory and economics, and diversity of thought and open inquiry — along with much-needed civility in dialogue — to flourish even more at Brown.
Yours most sincerely,
David J. Sacks
Brown University Class of 2022
Honors Candidate for the A.B. in Classics (Greek and Latin)
Teaching Assistant for ECON 0400: Free Inquiry and the Modern World
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