The Republican Party embodies intolerance. Conservative policies are inhospitable to gays, to people of color, to women, and so are the people who promote those policies. Isn’t that a core argument progressives make?
After all, inclusiveness is considered one of the most important defining characteristics of being a liberal.
But what if liberals are intolerant too?
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof explored one area where liberals dominate and intolerance is pervasive: academia.
Pervasive intolerance on a college campus? Well, yes. It is tempting to think of universities as the opposite of intolerance with the emphasis on safe spaces and trigger warnings, but conservatives often find themselves ostracized, maligned and more importantly, scarce.
Kristoff cites compelling evidence. Republican humanities professors make up between 6 and 11 percent. Only 7 to 9 percent of social scientists identify as Republican.
The website HeterodoxyAcademy.org outlines the dangers such a lack of diverse political perspectives creates:
- Students cherished beliefs are not challenged. Unjustified dogmas or insufficiently justified claims go unchallenged.
- Students aren’t taught the most important skill — how to think. Shielding from strong counter-arguments on issues they care most about leaves them unprepared to deal with people who think differently.
- By failing to contest inadequately justified dogmas, solutions are advanced that have no effect.
- Promoters of these orthodoxies often create an environment of intolerance for diversity of ideas and dissent in the very institution in which free exchange of ideas is its raison d’etre. Free speech and the exploration of unsettling ideas is threatened on many campuses.
During his commencement address to Howard University last week, President Obama also lamented how intimidation is used on college campuses to stifle differences of opinions.
“There’s been a trend around the country of trying to get colleges to disinvite speakers with a different point of view, or disrupt a politician’s rally. Don’t do that — no matter how ridiculous or offensive you might find the things that come out of their mouths.”
Jonathan Haidt, creator of Heterodox Academy is committed to making sure campuses are inclusive for all political ideologies.
“Universities are unlike other institutions in that they absolutely require that people challenge each other so that the truth can emerge from limited, biased, flawed individuals,” he says. “If they lose intellectual diversity, or if they develop norms of ‘safety’ that trump challenge, they die. And this is what has been happening since the 1990s.”
Kristof wants liberals to look inward.
“So maybe we progressives could take a brief break from attacking the other side and more broadly incorporate values that we supposedly cherish — like diversity — in our own dominions.”
Featured image by Brian Turner on Flickr and reused here with Creative Commons license.
