Case Description
Camden County College plans a weeklong festival celebrating its diverse student body, featuring cultural showcases. Camden’s Most Righteous (CMR), a controversial religious group, has requested to participate. Some CCC students support this, but others object, fearing it would create discomfort and imply college endorsement of extremist views.
Case Analysis
Festivals reflect the current mood of the college and represent the different groups that make up the institution’s core. Representation of cultures is necessary to show diversity and demonstrate ethical behavior. Not all cultural groups meet the criterion of being safe and have rather radical views. Although their representation is also important and necessary to show emotions and evidence of freedom of opinion, I do not think including Camden’s Most Righteous (CMR) in the festival program would be helpful.
Camden’s Most Righteous (CMR) is known to have radical views that sponsor or support violence against others or each other. In addition, CMR has provocative behavioral tactics that can lead to conflict and unrest and make those around them uncomfortable. While it can be assured that CMR’s behavior will not lead to confrontations within the festival, their behavior will still be provocative.
If Camden County College positions the festival as a showcase for students and seeks to demonstrate that everyone can find comfort in the venue, CMR’s participation will not accomplish this. College students not part of CMR will still be aware that this group may be dangerous and will view its activities with suspicion. From their perspective, including a group with unhealthy or radical views would be unethical because it would bring discomfort to the program.
Personal Opinion
I believe that including any group in the festival program is justified as long as that group does not bring potential danger to others because of its worldview. In this case, CMR’s views cannot be called ethical because they involve radical interaction with the public. Those around them will be embarrassed and likely be exposed to ideas associated with brutality and violence.
Moreover, it is known that CMR will engage in loud behavior even though there will be no conflict. CMR will not abide by the festival rules regarding respecting each other as their views differ somewhat. This leads to the fact that most people will not want to be at a festival where their views and cultures will not be respected. If a festival positions itself as an open platform for interest in different cultural and ethnic groups, radicals will not be interested. There is a risk that CMR will be offended and unhappy with bans, but as long as the majority of other cultures oppose their participation, removing them is a democratic decision.
Regarding deontological ethics, evaluating the action (including CMR) in the festival program and determining the output/consequences is necessary. The CMR grouping will not comply with the festival rules about respecting each other, and other cultures will tend to avoid interactions. Most people’s values will differ from those of CMR, and the group itself will not follow the rules accepted by the aggregate society of Camden College (Biagetti et al. 4). Consequently, the consequences of including CMR in the festival program would be a pronounced clash of views with a solid destructive effect. Based on this, I would not include CMR in the college’s program.
Thus, I believe that Camden’s Participation in the festival would be an unfavorable action. First, it would bring tangible discomfort to festival attendees and students who disagree with CMR’s views. Secondly, CMR is unlikely to respect others’ views and follow a respectful policy. Finally, including CMR will not be beneficial because of the adverse effects identified and the lack of compliance with Camden College rules.
Work Cited
Biagetti, Maria Teresa et al. “Ethical Theories in Research Evaluation: An Exploratory Approach”. Scholarly Assessment Reports, vol. 2, no. 1, 2020. Web.