Campus Speech Code

EXERCISE 48 Campus Speech Code

You are the president of a state-funded college and are strongly opposed to the college’s current policy of disciplining students and faculty for insensitive speech. In the wake of several controversial, widely publicized incidents in which both students and faculty members at the college were disciplined for insensitive speech, you are considering whether to abolish or continue the college’s speech code. You are mainly concerned about three things:

1. Whether your decision will prompt public demonstrations and other disruptions of campus activities (2 in the supplied prompt; the worked analysis below uses a different notation).

Three outcomes: no disruptions, peaceful disruptions, and violent disruptions. The probability for each outcome, if the code is abolished, is .1, .7, and .2, respectively. The probability, if the code is continued, is .8, .2, and 0, respectively. 2. How the state legislature will react to the decision; that is, how state funding (which covers two-thirds of the college’s annual budget) might be affected (.5).

Three outcomes: fewer funds, same funds, more funds. The probability for each outcome, if the code is abolished is .1, .6, and .3; if continued, .3, .5, and .2. 3. How the decision will affect student enrollment (.3).

Three outcomes: smaller enrollment, same enrollment, greater enrollment. If the code is abolished, the probabilities are .1, .3, and .6; if continued, .3, .5, and .2.

Using utility analysis with multiple classes of outcomes, analyze the problem and determine which option is preferable. Assign utility values as you see fit.

I analyzed the problem as follows. In Step 1, I identified three classes of outcomes (campus disruption, state funding, and student enrollment) and weighted them .2, .5, and .3, respectively. In Step 2, I constructed an identical utility matrix for each outcome class (Figure 16-16), identifying the perspective in each matrix as the college president and listing the two options. I then performed Steps 3 through 6 with each matrix (Figure 16-17), assigning utilities and probabilities, computing expected values, and entering the totals in the “Total EV” columns. In Steps 7 through 11, I constructed a merged matrix (Figure 16-18), entered the total expected values from the three classes-of-outcomes matrices, multiplied these values by their respective class weights, entered the products in the “Total Weighted EV” column, and determined from the ranking that abolishing the campus speech code was the strongly favored option. In Step 14, I asked myself whether the results made sense intuitively, which I deemed they did.

The referenced matrices and assigned utilities are not included in this excerpt. The author’s ranking therefore cannot be reproduced from the probabilities alone; your ranking will depend on the utilities you assign.