Open inquiry and constructive dialogue are essential to excellence in higher education. The free and respectful exchange of ideas, however, requires effort.
Researchers, instructors, and students alike must cultivate habits of mind, social norms, and practices that promote reasoned disagreement, engage a range of ideas, and facilitate robust exchanges. Such interactions, designed to inform and challenge — even unsettle — us are vital to the intellectual and personal growth gained through rigorous education.
But how do universities create environments where students and faculty feel both empowered and safe engaging in open dialogue? After an unsettling year, this was the question set before us when asked by Harvard University president Alan M. Garber and Provost John F. Manning in April to lead the school’s Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group.
We began our work with listening sessions and a campus-wide survey. What we learned was sobering. Although a majority of Harvard students reported that they are comfortable engaging in discussions of controversial issues inside and outside the classroom (55 percent and 61 percent of survey respondents, respectively), 45 percent of survey respondents reported that they are reluctant to share their views about charged topics in class. Students cited peer judgment, worries about criticism on social media, unease about reputational damage, and fear of potential bullying and harassment as driving their reluctance.
Faculty members shared similar concerns. A majority of survey respondents reported that while they are comfortable researching controversial topics, only 49 percent reported that they are comfortable leading a classroom discussion about controversial issues. These individuals expressed reluctance based, in part, on their perception that students sometimes are not open to debate. The possibility that students might post recordings or unfavorable comments about contentious classroom discussions on social media represents a substantial reputational risk, even for tenured faculty, they reported. Untenured faculty and those not in tenure-track positions reported feeling especially vulnerable to unfavorable student opinion given the precarity of their employment.
Such challenges are not unique to Harvard — or even higher education. A 2023 American Public Media opinion poll, among other sources, documents that the challenge of constructive dialogue about controversial issues is widespread in American society and institutions.
While not unique to Harvard, this phenomenon is especially harmful to the mission of higher education. Given that discourse about challenging issues is crucial to educational excellence, the reluctance expressed by students, faculty, or instructors to participate fully can chill open inquiry and constructive dialogue. It demands attention.
And although this is not simply a problem on our nation’s campuses, higher education can be a primary locus for innovative solutions to this national crisis. Constructive disagreement can be taught and learned through tools and techniques, and our faculty, which includes leading experts in negotiation, conflict resolution, and communication, already have integrated them into the curriculum.
The most promising innovations provide structure and set ground rules for difficult conversations. Some professors teach classes on argumentation and persuasion. Others anonymously poll students at the start of discussions so they can see the spectrum of opinions among their peers about controversial issues and create space for disagreement. Some assign students to play roles or articulate positions — even ones they don’t personally hold — to improve critical thinking, reduce defensiveness, and promote empathy.
In an age of social media and viral posts that can cause profound social harm, there is a particular need for innovations that preserve the classroom as a space for candor, risk-taking, and making mistakes. Students need assurance that things they say in the classroom will not be used against them outside of it. The Chatham House Rule, where comments are not attributed to individuals outside the room, can help put students at ease. Some schools forbid the use of personal devices during class. These and other responsible-use policies can erect guardrails that prevent social media from impeding learning.
Habits of mind and practices that promote open inquiry and constructive dialogue, if widely shared, can help bridge our differences. Learning to thrive on a vibrant campus community can prepare us intellectually and socially to thrive in our modern world: a democratic society composed of many individuals, identities, experiences, and viewpoints.
Universities and colleges should be a training grounds — not for instilling particular orthodoxies but for teaching active citizens who believe as we do that democracies are not threatened but are strengthened by a wide range of ideas and people.
Tomiko Brown-Nagin is the dean of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute and Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law and History at Harvard Law School. Eric Beerbohm is a professor of government and faculty director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. They serve as cochairs of Harvard’s Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group.