Much of the controversy surrounding the Trump administration’s Compact on Academic Excellence in Higher Education has focused on its push for diversity of perspectives and claims that open inquiry does not exist in our classrooms. The push builds on long-standing conservative criticism that has materialized now that the vast majority of faculty at U.S. colleges and universities lean left.
Recent data supports this claim. Surveys show that at elite universities such as Duke University and Harvard University, more than 60% of teachers are liberal. These percentages vary not only by institution type but also by discipline, with the humanities and social sciences leaning more liberal than STEM. Some even claim that political bias corrodes academic discipline.
Liberal faculty and higher education commentators sometimes take the bait and react defensively to attacks that are often politically motivated. in an op-ed The GuardianLauren Lassabe Shepherd believes the goal of conservative criticism is to “delegitimize the academy… [and] Returning the university to a carefully constructed environment is not about educating everyone but about reproducing hierarchy. “
Whether she’s right or not, you don’t have to look hard to see that higher education institutions are feeling increasing pressure to correct their mistakes—to create campuses and classrooms where open inquiry thrives and where students can freely express their ideas and challenge ideas with which they disagree. Universities have responded by scrambling to incorporate more ideological diversity into course offerings, implementing new course offerings and recruiting guest speakers who challenge progressive thinking.
All of this misses the point and distracts from the work we need to do to further improve the quality of education students receive at American colleges and universities. To put it simply, don’t be obsessed with WHO In the classroom, whether they are liberal or conservative, we should pay attention to how We are in the room.
The greatest challenge to achieving open inquiry in higher education is not diversity of ideology or viewpoints, but a challenge of character. The 2024 report of Harvard University’s Task Force on Public Inquiries points in this direction, but does not specify.
If we are to truly commit to open inquiry, we need to step back, stop and reflect, not just on our ideas, but on how we acquire knowledge, how we think, whether we are interested in knowing more, or whether we are content with what we already know.
You can decorate campuses with all the colors of the political rainbow, but it doesn’t make them better places to learn.
The problem is how we relate to others. Data shows that when students in our classrooms disagree, they are reluctant to contradict each other or their professors. They engage in what psychologists Forest Romm and Kevin Waldman call “performative virtue signaling.”
When talking to Amherst College students, we heard that they not only limit their expression in academic settings, but also in social settings. It seems we are both afraid of each other.
This is not surprising. Academia and the public sphere have not proven themselves particularly kind or generous recently. We only have to look at the vitriolic response to Charlie Kirk’s murder and the equally vitriolic response to his murder. When we do this, we can see that the rush for justice exists across the ideological spectrum.
The job of a college education is to eliminate the instinct to judge and replace it with a commitment to rigorous listening. The job of college faculty is to shape a worldview that puts empathy before criticism.
What if instead of just talking about the right to speak, we emphasized the right to listen? But we don’t just mean any form of listening; We mean to listen in a certain way. Listen deeply. This kind of listening takes in ideas slowly and in big gulps, allowing them to sink in deeply, sometimes even to the point of being uncomfortable.
Listening is about catching ideas in flight and taking them further. It’s disciplined listening that resists defensiveness and instead taps into curiosity.
In order to cultivate this curiosity, we must cultivate curiosity in ourselves and in our students. Why would anyone think this way? What experiences, places, relationships, institutions, and social forces shape their thinking? How did they arrive at this argument? How do they get this feeling? How could they come to a different point of view than mine?
This is the core of open inquiry, and is much more difficult to achieve than getting more conservatives onto campus. Without curiosity, doing so will create enclaves, not engagement, even on the most ideologically diverse campuses.
This open inquiry requires us to eliminate moral certainty and positions of justice from our thinking and practices. This is the kind of work that really needs to energize our colleges and universities.
It’s hard and slow work. There is no magic bullet. Teachers and students, both liberal and conservative, must commit to this.
While open inquiry is a social tendency, it’s also about how we adjust our thinking when we’re alone. We need to challenge our students to care not only for others, but also for themselves.
What would happen if we all made a habit of asking ourselves: When was the last time we changed our minds about something? When was the last time we ended a conversation or finished a text and truly addressed where we positioned ourselves on a topic?
We long for our students to be practicing open-ended inquiry not only in the classroom, but also in the library or dormitory when they have books to read, equations to solve, and drawings to complete.
The promise of this type of inquiry is exciting and liberating. It opens up huge possibilities for seeing the world in a different or more complex way.
Ultimately, literary scholar Peter Brooks is right when he says: “The call to respect, even in name only, ‘diversity of viewpoints’ is to succumb to a logic that is inherently hostile to the academic enterprise.” At the heart of that enterprise is the idea that diversity of viewpoints is not the same as open inquiry. This belief requires a change in the learning culture on our campuses.
Perhaps this shift does not seem to be responsive to the current political hubbub. Maybe it sounds like it’s too demanding and difficult to evaluate.
But regardless, this is revolutionary for us.
