On the website of the Heterodox Academy, Jonathan Haidt writes, “it is clear that no university can have Truth and Social Justice as dual teloses [goals]. Each university must pick one.”

He undermines his own case in the previous paragraph by distinguishing between “finding and eradicating disparate treatment” and “finding and eradicating disparate outcomes.” The former is “always a good thing to do, and … never conflicts with truth,” whereas the latter “causes all of the problems, all of the conflicts with truth.”

This is a view of social justice. It is perfectly respectable. It sounds like classical liberalism. It also echoes Karl Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program. (Marx demands equal treatment–in the form of shared ownership of industry–as opposed to equal outcomes.) However, this view conflicts with Catholic social justice doctrines, the classical republican idea that citizenship requires rough equality, and many people’s sense that some levels of suffering are simply unacceptable. In short, it is a substantive and contested political view that Haidt is sure is always right.

We could delete this passage and try to envision a university devoted to truth, not to any form of (social) justice–Haidt’s or otherwise. I would ask whether such an institution can employ thousands of workers, confer valuable degrees and professional licenses, own extensive real estate, conduct research with military and medical applications, field quasi-professional sports teams, and invest in the stock market.

One answer, to be taken seriously, is: no. Socrates believed that he had to be completely independent–financially and otherwise–to be a gadfly. Unlike his Sophist rivals, he wouldn’t charge a drachma for teaching. There is a long tradition of creating spiritual or intellectual communities (monasteries, sanghas, communes, wikis) that have minimal social obligations so that they can focus on truth. But those are not like modern American universities.

Another answer is yes: the university can operate as a billion-dollar enterprise without views of social justice. I don’t see how that is possible. If you employ people, they must be employees or contractors, unionized or not, with or without various benefits and mandates. If you build a new building, it must either raise or lower rents in the neighborhood and consume fossil fuels or renewables. You can start a business school or an education school (or both, or neither). There are no neutral answers. You should welcome alternative opinions and arguments by students and faculty, but your actions reflect positions.

The University of Chicago’s famous Kalven Report mischaracterized that university. It said, “The mission of the university is the discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge … It is … a community of scholars…. It is not a club, it is not a trade association, it is not a lobby.”

But the University of Chicago was a very powerful lobby, especially in its own city. In 1955, a report produced by UC employees lamented “the accelerated immigration of lower-income families, including lower-income Negro families settling in concentrated groups.” The university advocated “demolishing and rebuilding entire blocks of Hyde Park,” which then happened.

Like other universities, UC was definitely a club, and membership conferred substantial benefits. During the Vietnam War, Dow Chemical, the manufacturer of Napalm, recruited on the UC campus because students with Chicago degrees would be well-qualified executives. Dow’s recruitment became a specific target of student protest.

The first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in history had taken place under the Hyde Park campus as part of the development of the atom bomb. In that sense, this “community of scholars” had helped to destroy two Japanese cities.

UC also ran and still runs a hospital, which has made controversial decisions, such as shutting down its trauma center in 1988 and starting a new one in 2015. UC even has its own police department, which can arrest and charge anyone in its jurisdiction.

Universities do not have one telos. They are “multiversities,” in Clark Kerr’s 1963 phrase. The Kalven Report makes me think of a seminar room in a liberal arts department. That is where the pursuit of truth is most prominent, and we must be vigilant against challenges to freedom there. But the people mowing the lawn outside are employees or contractors, the building had a wealthy donor whose gift was invested in stocks, the lab across the street may be creating AI tools that could wipe out jobs, and the students in the seminar may use their degrees to enter monopoly professions like law and medicine.

It is better to do all those things justly rather than unjustly. Everyone in the community must be free and welcome to contest what justice demands, but the corporate body will act one way or another. A good university strives for both truth (a topic of debate) and justice (a criterion for assessing action).

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See also: primer on free speech and academic freedom; academic freedom for individuals and for groups; Holding two ideas at once: the attack on universities is authoritarian, and viewpoint diversity is important