Reparations involve governments, individuals, or corporations paying a group (or individuals) for some historical wrong. Despite growing calls for reparations, the scholarly legal debate appears to be at a standstill due to two challenges: Why are individuals innocent of past wrongs responsible for shouldering the costs of reparations? Why are individuals who weren’t themselves victims of the past wrongs entitled to reparations? 

In this Center for Business Ethics Research Colloquium, guest speaker Suneal Bedi first diagnoses the conceptual source of the impasse elicited by these challenges: reparations have been construed unduly narrowly in two ways. First, the grounds for reparations are typically limited to wrongs that cause bodily or property harm (e.g. slavery, the Holocaust, Japanese internment). Second, the modes of reparations are typically limited to economic payments and apologies, making reparations appear either utopian or impotent, respectively. Building on this diagnosis, he introduces a novel concept—heritage reparations—that has the resources to circumvent the two limits encumbering traditional reparations.

Suneal Bedi is an Associate Professor of Business Law and Ethics and a Jerome Bess Faculty Fellow at the Kelley School of Business where his research focuses on intellectual property, marketing law and ethics, and brand strategy. Professor Bedi is also an affiliated faculty member with the Center for Law, Culture, and Society at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. He teaches classes in business ethics and corporate law. His work has been published in the Harvard Journal of law & Technology, the Journal of Business Ethics, and the Indiana Law Journal in addition to writing for popular outlets such as The New York Times and Forbes. He holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. in Business Ethics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

This event has lunch available at 11:45 a.m.; presentation begins at 12:15. Registration is required.

Established in 2011, the Center for Business Ethics (CBE) partners with business leaders, scholars, faculty, students, and alumni to critically examine ethical issues in business and the role business can play in advancing the common good.