Like the rest of America, Duke is starved of common ground. At first glance, Duke appears to be a university deeply committed to civility, bridging divides and fostering meaningful dialogue across political and ideological spectrums. One might assume that these commitments have translated into a campus culture where students and faculty engage openly and productively across partisan lines. Indeed, the university has taken admirable steps in this direction. Within the past year alone, Duke has launched the Provost’s Initiative on Free Inquiry, Pluralism, and Belonging, reviving the once-defunct Civil Discourse Project and invited figures like former Republican Senator Richard Burr to discuss “Bridging Divides.”
Yet, for all these commendable initiatives, has the campus political climate truly shifted? Apart from a few isolated developments like the recent Polis Election Roundtable, have students really started embracing civil discourse? Has there been an “aha!” moment where we link together, conservative and liberal, and look forward to a brighter, more prosperous America? The answer to these questions remains a resounding no for many of us.
This breakdown in discourse is not unique to Duke — it is a broader symptom of a society that has lost touch with its shared traditions. Political debates often turn into clashes of competing realities, where neither side recognizes the legitimacy of the other’s worldview. Consider debates on American history, where one group references “The 1619 Project,” emphasizing the nation’s origins in slavery — asserting, as Nikole Hannah-Jones writes, that “anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country” — while another cites “The 1776 Report,” which counters that “the Declaration’s unqualified proclamation of human equality flatly contradicted the existence of human bondage.” These irreconcilable starting points hinder meaningful conversation as students engage in debates armed with fundamentally different perceptions of reality.
This challenge is not new. Edmund Burke, the 18th-century statesman and philosopher, warned of the dangers of severing ourselves from tradition. His insights offer a crucial lesson for our present moment. For Burke, tradition was not mere nostalgia for the past but the accumulated wisdom of generations — an inheritance that enabled societies to evolve without descending into chaos. As he put it, “we procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age and on account of those from whom they are descended.”
In other words, societies ought to defer to their traditions and institutions because they embody the organic development of norms, values and wisdom that have withstood the test of time. This does not mean we must blindly accept tradition for tradition’s sake. Rather, we must ask G.K. Chesterton’s famous question: Why was it put there in the first place?
Burke’s insight is particularly relevant to Duke. Without a shared civic tradition, we lack the common historical and political reference points necessary for meaningful engagement. Instead, our political conversations often devolve into battlegrounds of conflicting narratives, each side rejecting the legitimacy of the other’s worldview before retreating to the safety of affirmation hubs. A baseline of ideas must be established so that students can understand the values that inform both the systems they seek to reform and their peers’ most deeply held beliefs.
This baseline must apply universally, not selectively, based on one’s perceived social power, class status or historical discrimination. True dialogue is impossible if some students are exempted from engaging with opposing worldviews while others are not.
If Duke’s administration is serious about fostering civil discourse, it must recognize — or at the very least, entertain — the enduring wisdom of Burke’s message: A common tradition is the key to social cohesion. As Burke argued, “We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; we suspect that this stock in each man is small.”
Without shared intellectual traditions, individuals risk being guided primarily by abstract notions of ideal moral conduct rather than the concrete, historical and philosophical traditions forged through the generations. True civil discourse is not accomplished through sporadic speaker events or abstract commitments to pluralism, but through a structured and shared civic education that provides all students with a common intellectual foundation from which to engage in meaningful debate.
Establishing a mandatory American civics curriculum could provide the intellectual foundation necessary for informed democratic participation. Students would develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the nation’s complexities by engaging directly with foundational texts of political philosophy and grappling with competing historiographical narratives. Civic education should not be an exercise in passive absorption or ideological reinforcement but a rigorous exploration of the tensions, contradictions and aspirations that have shaped — and continue to shape — the American experiment.
To ensure this, the curriculum must embrace the full breadth of America’s intellectual and political traditions, both historical and contemporary. If students are to read something like “The 1619 Project,” they should also engage with “The 1776 Report” — not to present a false equivalence, but to critically examine how historical narratives are constructed and contested. But the course must not stop at modern debates. Students should be required to wrestle with defining, and often contradictory, works in American history, including “The Federalist Papers,” Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” David Walker’s “Appeal,” and John C. Calhoun’s “Slavery: A Positive Good.” These texts provide a raw, unvarnished view of the debates that have shaped American foreign and domestic policy for centuries, challenging students to engage with them on their own terms.
Of course, implementing such a curriculum is not without controversy. Some may argue that including texts like John C. Calhoun’s “Slavery: A Positive Good” risks legitimizing morally indefensible positions. But education is not about sheltering students from harmful ideas — it is about exposing those ideas, dismantling them with reason and evidence and ensuring that students understand why they were defeated in history’s great moral struggles. The best antidote to bad arguments is not silence but a well-trained mind that can dismantle them at their very roots. Far from stifling discourse, this approach cultivates the habits of rigorous analysis and informed debate, ensuring that students are not just inheritors of democracy but active participants in its ongoing project.
To that end, civic education must be more than just reading texts — it must be an active, dynamic process. Structured debates, faculty-moderated workshops and peer-led discussions would ensure that no perspective is presented as absolute but rather tested through intellectual rigor. Assignments could require students to defend positions they disagree with, forcing them to engage seriously with opposing viewpoints rather than dismissing them outright. This is not about imposing a singular patriotic vision — it is about ensuring that every Duke graduate leaves with the intellectual tools to navigate civic life thoughtfully.
Critics may argue that mandating such a course infringes on academic freedom, imposes an artificial consensus or raises concerns about who controls the curriculum. However, Duke already requires students to take courses in “Interpreting Institutions, Justice, & Power.” The key difference is that this proposed civics requirement would guide students through the American story and its competing narratives together, giving everyone a common foundation for debate rather than allowing them to fulfill this requirement through courses that may reinforce existing ideological silos. If we truly value understanding how power and justice shape our institutions, we should provide students with the shared intellectual framework needed to analyze these forces meaningfully.
Admittedly, trust in civic education can be fragile, especially in a polarized society where Americans increasingly inhabit separate realities. But the solution to these ills is not to sidestep them — it is to confront them directly. Too often, students fear that engaging with opposing perspectives will lead to personal invalidation as if even acknowledging a different worldview is a concession of defeat. But what, truly, is the danger in discourse? What harm comes from sitting across from your political opposite and testing your convictions against theirs?
And if, in your eyes, justice demands change, how can you create meaningful progress without first understanding those who stand in your way?
The real threat, therefore, is not discussion — it is disengagement. When we refuse to engage, we don’t just avoid discomfort, but we surrender the very possibility of persuasion, understanding and finding common ground.
This is not just an abstract ideal — it is already being tested at other institutions. Just down the road, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has recently implemented a course — “Foundations of Civic Life and Leadership” — as part of its IDEAs in Action General Education curriculum. Though not mandatory, this course introduces students to the big questions surrounding civic life through classic politics, philosophy and literature texts. It examines the role of the state in society, the balance between individual freedom and government authority, the founding principles of American democracy, and contemporary civic controversies. By blending theoretical foundations with historical case studies and modern debates, UNC has created a model that Duke would be wise to follow.
If UNC can take this first step, there is no reason Duke cannot lead this endeavor into the future. True civil discourse demands more than intermittent “fireside chats” featuring heterodox speakers — it requires reviving the shared intellectual and historical foundations that once anchored higher education. In today’s culture of repudiation, the question is not whether Duke can do this, but whether it has the courage to begin.
Sherman Criner is a Trinity junior. He is the co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of The Lemur, as well as a student fellow with Duke’s Civil Discourse Project.
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