I showed the class a three-minute clip of Ben Shapiro. Things went as you’d expect. I’m an assistant professor of higher education teaching an undergraduate course called “Embracing Diversity.” I taught this course for four consecutive semesters, during which time the ideas we studied (diversity, inequality, critical race theory, and systemic racism) had been publicly demonized, politicized, and in some states explicitly banned.
On a recent afternoon, after introducing students to the principles of critical race theory, I played a short video of conservative commentator and podcast host Shapiro explaining his critique of critical race theory and whether the theory should be taught in schools. Before the clip ends, the room is filled with laughter. Students laughed at his rhythm and tone. Some compared him to a cartoon character. Students joked about his voice and speech. Some say he sounds like south park Features. Another compared him to a podcast host who speaks 1.5 times faster. Laughter rose naturally, drowning out any serious engagement with what he was actually saying.
I stopped the video.
What happened next struck me not because it was unprecedented, but because it exposed something we rarely talk about in spaces like this. Not because the moment was particularly surprising (at least not to me), but because a class committed to dialogue, equity, and inclusion quickly descended into dismissal, caricature, and hurt. We are not engaging with Shapiro’s argument at all.
While the moment is light-hearted on the surface, it reveals something deeper: how quickly humor can replace thinking. I also understand why some readers may have been uncomfortable with my decision to bring Shapiro into a diverse classroom. His name itself has political overtones. For some, deplatforming him is irresponsible.
I myself felt nervous before even pressing the play button. But I did it anyway.
Why bring contradictory voices into this space?
In courses on diversity, power, and inequality, we often expose students to marginalized voices that have historically been excluded from dominant narratives. This work is important. But if we stop there—if we never ask students to think hard about ideas they find disturbing, reactionary, or even offensive—we risk teaching a form of moral comfort rather than intellectual rigor.
Shapiro is not a fringe figure. His views on race, merit, and education circulated widely in public discourse and influenced the understanding of these issues by many, including parents, community members, donors, and policymakers. Pretending these arguments don’t exist won’t make them go away. It simply ensures that students encounter them elsewhere, without guidance, context, or responsibility.
My goal is not to persuade. This is a practice, especially at a time when many educators teach under intense scrutiny and wonder which examples might cause backlash or misunderstanding. Can we listen carefully to viewpoints we dislike without reducing the speaker to a meme? Can we distinguish between criticizing an argument and refuting a person? Can we say what we disagree with and why without falling into ridicule?
Judging from initial reactions, the answer is no. This failure was not specific to my students; This is about the quiet assumptions that many of us (myself included) have when teaching these courses.
rewind
After stopping the video, I told what I saw. We respond to tone, reputation and identity, not substance. I asked the class to sit down and feel the discomfort of this realization. I then played the clip again, this time with a different assignment: to summarize his argument as accurately as possible, as if his remarks were the readings assigned to the discussion.
The room changed.
Students shift in their seats. Some looked depressed. Others looked uneasy. Some people were visibly annoyed that I asked them to slow down and listen. But they did it. They identify his core claims, his assumptions about race and individualism, and the evidence he used (and did not use). Only after that did we turn to criticism.
The criticism was more pointed the second time around. They are also more precise. Instead of saying “he’s ridiculous,” students say “this argument ignores structural inequality,” or “he thinks race doesn’t matter but doesn’t explain why inequality persists.” The divide hasn’t gone away. It deepened.
What discomfort reveals
During student reflection weeks later, many spontaneously returned to that class. It strikes me how often they treat it not as a debate about Shapiro but as a mirror to their own habits as listeners, learners, and consumers of information. Some describe it as a turning point, not because they suddenly respected Shapiro’s views but because they recognized how easily they could substitute ridicule for analysis. Some people wrote that they were upset at how quickly they joined.
This discomfort is important—not because it creates a dramatic shift, but because it undermines a shared sense of moral and intellectual ease.
Higher education often talks about preparing students for pluralistic democracy, but we sometimes underestimate how difficult this actually is. Listening across differences is not intuitive. It requires restraint, humility, and a willingness to be uncomfortable—especially when another voice is loud, confident, and has been labeled the “enemy.”
If we don’t create structured opportunities to practice this skill, students will default to the best that social media teaches: exclusion and dehumanization. In this sense, this moment is less a student’s mistake than a teaching mirror.
A note about risks and instructions for educators
Some would argue that there are limits to how loud we can be in our classrooms. They are right. Not every perspective deserves equal time, and harm must always be pointed out and addressed. But avoiding contradiction altogether comes with its own risks. It can produce students who know what they are against, but don’t know how to engage.
Bringing controversial figures into a diverse classroom is not a neutral act. It requires careful framing, clear boundaries, and a willingness to intervene when things go wrong (as they did for me). It also requires accepting that the course may not go well and that you may feel exposed, criticized, or unsure.
Even in that moment, I realized that sharing this experience, especially now, could bring attention to me, my class, or my courses. The risk is real and not evenly distributed among teachers.
That day, I felt it.
But if our goal is to help students think critically instead of reflexively, argue instead of mocking, and stand up for their values with confidence instead of vulnerability, then leaning into this discomfort may be necessary.
Not because Shapiro needs to be heard, but because our students need to learn how to listen.
