The past election has only further invigorated a national discussion on the ways in which higher education shapes civil and political discourse writ large. At a superficial level, reporters and writers have noted a supposed "college-degree divide" or "diploma divide." The predominance of liberal thinking on campuses — one that is also documented at Duke — has also been criticized. Given increasing conversations surrounding the disconnect between liberal elites and ordinary Americans, certain commentators — like David Brooks and David Blight — have interpreted this election result as an indication that something needs to change within so-called "elite" institutions of higher education.
In some ways, Duke was ahead of the curve in addressing these issues. In light of a supposed decline in civil discourse and worsening political polarization, Duke made several pointed, marked efforts to promote civil dialogue last year. The Office of the Provost has spearheaded several initiatives, and other on-campus projects are occurring both within and outside the classroom. These efforts, along with other similar programs at different universities across the country, are valuable investments in academic curricula and campus life.
However, I would like to illustrate one crucial pitfall that Duke — and potentially other universities like it — can easily fall into when approaching the issue of civil dialogue. Namely, facilitating effective civil discourse is ultimately very different from facilitating knowledge production — a distinction that universities like Duke may overlook.
Before delving into this issue, I’d like to point out a few points of context. Firstly, Duke (as well as other universities) are first and foremost institutions of knowledge production — which is performed in a "scholarly, critical and impartial way." As a field, academia is deeply hierarchical — to produce knowledge, some people must be the experts of the experts who serve as arbiters for the discipline.
Secondly, Duke (and other universities like it) are not governed as democratic institutions. Sure, some bodies, like the Academic Council, are composed of faculty members who vote on policy proposals in meetings. But 24 of the 36 seats on the Board of Trustees are elected by the existing Board of Trustees themselves, with only the remaining 12 elected by the graduates of the University. The bureaucratic juggernaut that is the "college administration" is largely a highly hierarchical institution with a top-down chain of command.
Therefore, Duke (as an institution of higher education) and civil dialogue (as a democratic enterprise) are arguably placed in contradictory, not complementary, positions. Sure, universities can certainly serve as a platform for ideas to be openly exchanged, and studies have also demonstrated the democratizing effect of education. Yet, when institutions of higher education themselves are largely composed of non-democratic structures, a lot could potentially go sideways.
To reconcile that tension, I’ve observed that Duke has developed a tendency to approach civil dialogue the same way it approaches knowledge production. The Provost’s Initiative on the Middle East, for instance, "strive[s] to model thoughtful and civil engagement, [to] provide a forum for different perspectives on the conflict, [to] enhance understanding based on expertise and evidence-based scholarship, and [to support] others at Duke who are striving to do the same through their own activities." There’s nothing inherently wrong with this type of engagement — scholarly, critical and impartial examination of these issues is arguably necessary. But there’s a deeper emotional component to civil dialogue that this intellectualized form of engagement lacks and sometimes even overshadows.
Intentionally or not, many of Duke’s events promoting civil dialogue often present it in what I think of as a form of "armchair" discourse. By "armchair," I’m not suggesting that the scholars participating don’t know what they’re talking about. Rather, under this image, civil dialogue is often conceived to be a mostly (if not purely) intellectual enterprise. Quite literally, what we see in many university-sponsored events — convened in the name of civil dialogue — involve an invited expert and a facilitator speaking to one another while sitting in armchairs. Sometimes this conversation comes in the form of a keynote lecture. In those events, students commonly sit as passive participants, listening quietly to experts talking — and, if they’re lucky, their only chance to speak is to ask a question during the Q&A section.
This is not to say that more direct engagement from students doesn’t exist on campus. Even so, thinking of civil dialogue primarily under the terms of knowledge production predisposes us to focus on purging "bad" or "messy" elements from what is perceived to be “good” discourse. Just like isolating an independent variable from confounding factors, this approach tries to keep discourse clean, poised and streamlined. Extra attention begins to fall onto what is an appropriate mode of communication, and how to control the environment of which speech is expressed — a surface-level conception of "civility" that centers behavioral components of speech just as much as its contents.
One type of "bad" element, for example, can be disruption. As the University Faculty Handbook states, "A determination to discourage conduct that is disruptive and disorderly does not threaten academic freedom; it is, rather, a necessary condition of its very existence." One can make a reasonable argument that disruptive and disorderly conduct can certainly constrain academic freedom. However, though I’m not a historian, it only takes a couple of Google searches to find numerous examples of how disruptive forms of protest have driven numerous social movements. And, many of those forms of disruption were practiced on college campuses. Yes, disruptive forms of protest are not inherently justified — but it’s hard to make the case that they should not, under any circumstances, be understood as valid forms of expression.
"Constructive conversation" should not be simply conceived as two people sitting in armchairs talking to one another. When it comes to the most divisive issues of our lifetimes, we need to confront deeply emotional, and sometimes traumatic, things. The way those experiences are unpacked and expressed as free speech, especially in the public sphere, is not always going to be polite or calm, nor similar to how we would conduct a typical classroom. Believe it or not, it is not easy to simply "respect differing viewpoints" if you feel that the different "viewpoint" in question has real implications for your life (or others).
Ultimately, civil discourse and dialogue is not, in its essence, about knowledge production. Knowledge production is about being right, which usually involves putting personal biases aside to pursue objectivity. Civil dialogue is about being understood, which requires putting our personal experiences at the forefront of the conversation. No matter how "right" experts end up being, it’s an entirely different project to make people feel that they are understood. As David Brooks cited in his essay, "69 percent [of Americans] believe that the 'political and economic elite don’t care about hard-working people,' [and] 63 percent think experts don’t understand their lives."
It is important to emphasize a set of additive, rather than subtractive, questions. Instead of asking how we can get rid of "nasty" elements of civil discourse today, we should ask, how can we facilitate sustainable, campus-wide forms of relationship- and community-building among individuals from divergent backgrounds? How do we do so in an increasingly unequal, socially siloed and structurally segregated American society — issues that persist across and within higher education institutions?
Crucially, can Duke come to accept that this will forever remain a messy, complicated process that they can never fully tame?
Rather than focusing on how to restrict, arbitrate and constrain spaces of discourse in the name of civility, we need to put more of our effort into bridging, building and creating them — while centering students. This should be the Duke way.
Alice Qin is a Trinity senior. She is the opinion editor of The Chronicle’s 120th volume.
Note: Alice Qin was formerly a contributing writer for the News Department.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.
Alice Qin is a Trinity senior and opinion editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.