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Canceling Plato

6/19/202640 min

Who gets to decide what’s taught in college classrooms? And should the answer be different at private colleges than at public universities?

In today’s episode, guest host Avishay Artsy speaks to philosophy professor Martin Peterson about why Texas A&M University asked him to stop teaching part of Plato’s “Symposium.” The two discuss academic freedom, who gets to decide what’s taught in university classrooms, and the value of Plato’s writing. The episode explores what happens when politics and educational values collide on campus.

Host: Avishay Artsy, Vox Supervising Producer

Guest: Martin Peterson, Professor of Philosophy at Texas A&M University

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Clips

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds
  1. Speaker 10:00

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  2. Avishay Artsy· Host1:16

    [instrumental music] Welcome to The Gray Area. I'm Vox supervising producer Avishay Artsy, filling in for Sean Illing. My guest today is Martin

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