Are Colleges Supressing Diversity of Thought?

Imagine a graduating high school student is trying to figure out which college to attend after graduation. . What factors should be considered when making this decision? Are graduation rates important? Perhaps average salary of alumni is an important factor. Is it important to have professors and a campus atmosphere that will challenge students academically and expand minds and the ability to reason and think critically about the world? Frequently, many of today’s students seem to be answering “no” to the majority of these questions. Instead, more students are interested in amenities, and the presence of clubs and professors who will reinforce what they already believe about the world. Colgate college dean and associate professor Adam Weinberg highlights this problem when he states “Too many colleges have become obsessed with providing the newest and most-lavish services and amenities to keep up with the competition, diverting resources away from other, more valuable educational programs.” Open up a campus brochure and you will see pictures of stadiums, state of the art gyms, luxurious eating facilities, comfortable and spacious dorm rooms, and maybe a couple random pictures of a professor speaking to a smiling student. These portray the college experience as fun, comfortable and easy going. Rarely will you see anything that will show you how you will be challenged by difficult courses and demanding professors. Instead your brochure looks like an advertisement for a fun filled getaway on a cruise ship, rather than at an institution dedicated to shaping and expanding the minds of the nations’ most promising future leaders.

When the choice is made and its time to arrive on campus, virtually all of the professors have the same viewpoints on life, politics and society, and it seems few speak up to contradict these professors. The majority of the clubs on campus share the same views, and if any ideas are just too offensive, a retreat to a safe space is possible, where all are protected from scary thoughts that don’t fit into the mold of the world that students have created in their own minds. If the college schedules a speaker whose viewpoints offend sensibilities, complaining loudly enough so that the event is cancelled seems to be the protocol. Weinberg summarizes this problem succinctly when he states “We have encouraged a sense of entitlement among them, so that they increasingly view themselves as clients that our institutions are obliged to serve -- isolated individuals with problems to be fixed -- rather than members of a community who work together to develop solutions..” In an era where amenities seem to come before education and where discourse and disagreements are discouraged on college campuses, today’s college campuses are failing when it comes to giving students the skills to formulate their own opinions and become successful in the outside world.

Upon choosing a college, many are finding themselves not exposed to different viewpoints that challenge students to expand thought and re-analyze previously held beliefs. At CU Boulder, the “first visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy” Steven Hayward explained this isn’t happening on many college campuses. He states “A lack of conservative leaders on college campuses is having a negative impact on learning institutions.” Without presenting alternative viewpoints on topics like economics, democracy, social values and political views, students are being sheltered and are not prepared to enter the real world, where differences in viewpoints are far more common. The bias goes even further than that it would seem, as “Data Hayward presented showed liberal students are unfairly receiving higher grades than their conservative counterparts. Furthermore, he suggested the two groups are being led to different majors.” If Hayward is to be believed, not only are all students being robbed of critical thinking skills from being exposed to differing viewpoints, but some students are even being punished because they do not ascribe to the same beliefs as their mostly left-leaning professors. If the professors’ views were proportionally representative of society, this would be a more understandable phenomenon. However, assistant dean of Hamilton college Gordon Hewitt shows data that suggests this is not the case. “Over the course of 15 years, self-described liberals grew from a slight plurality to a 5 to 1 majority on college faculties. By comparison, among the general population in 1999, 18 percent viewed themselves as liberal, and 37 percent conservative.” Clearly the viewpoints represented on college campuses are in no way proportional to that of society at large. If the faculty at universities all seem to agree on most issues and their makeup does not represent the populace in any way that would resemble balance, can we really expect our students to be presented with diversity of thought?

One way colleges can promote critical thinking and diversity of thought is through guest speakers. Academic institutions have a long tradition of bringing in controversial guest speakers to promote debate and challenge their students’ perspectives. However, it seems that many campuses are allowing the student body to dictate who is allowed to speak on campuses as of late. A prime example of this recently happened at DePaul University in Illinois. Conservative writer Ben Shapiro came to DePaul along with fellow conservative author Christina Hoff Sommers, and was turned away by security and not allowed to speak. The university claimed it was because Shapiro was not pre-approved to speak, but “in this case, DePaul had a few days' notice and could have allowed Shapiro to appear with adequate security on hand. That would have served the interests of students and made a powerful statement about a university as a marketplace of ideas.” Clearly shutting down the speaker at the last minute when plenty of time to discuss the issue with all parties was available does not portray the image of a campus that encourages debate and differing viewpoints.

This was roughly 6 months after a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos ended in violence and was shut down due to the chaos which ensued after Yiannopoulos made offensive remarks. The Chicago Tribune points out that “In the aftermath, DePaul's president, the Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, acknowledged that allowing protesters to shut down a speaker was wrong. The right approach, he suggested, was to ‘welcome speakers, give their ideas a respectful hearing, and then respond with additional speech countering the ideas.’" This seems like the appropriate approach for a university which wants to prepare students for the real world, but only 6 months later the university simply shut down a controversial speaker rather than deal with the unruly students who might not like what he had to say.

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