As undergraduate education becomes a key formative experience for a larger percentage of the population, it is imperative that political philosophers consider the role of universities in bringing about a more just society. In this paper, we contribute to this task by assessing which university admissions policies are compatible with justice and conducive to the epistemic and civic missions of the university. Scholars agree that universities require a tolerant campus culture, but concrete proposals have focused on interventions at the level of faculty and administrators. The empirical literature, however, shows that students are more influenced by reputational consequences among their peers. We therefore argue that universities should also attend to the selection of the student body. We consider and reject a popular proposal that colleges should select students with underrepresented moral and political beliefs to increase viewpoint diversity. Instead, we propose directly weighing students’ tolerance and open-mindedness in the admission process.

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