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ICYMI: Shortly after Stand Columbia argued for institutional neutrality and for clearer guidelines to its Rules, Barnard College made both official. We hope Columbia will follow shortly.
Big Idea
To build civil discourse, Columbia undergraduates should have to explore both sides of critical issues in their introductory writing classes and (potentially) Core Curriculum papers. Ideally, this should be proposed and introduced as an initiative of the faculty, who as educators, hold primary responsibility of the University’s pedagogical approach.
University education is a time to challenge your core assumptions about who you are and how you think. In the current environment, many Columbia students enter college and graduate school with deeply held views, making it difficult to arrive at what many of us consider a right of passage: that moment when you realize the views you had as a 17-year-old may not carry you through life. The current cohort of students who arrived on campus after spending part of their developmental years in Covid lockdown are arguably even less prepared.
Studies show that civil discourse on college campuses declines when students can’t understand the beliefs of their peers. In fact, many college students only befriend political allies and frequently choose classes with faculty who share their political outlook.
This holds true for both liberals and conservatives.
Study after study shows that understanding both sides of an argument makes you more educated. The more educated you are, the less likely you are to hold extreme views. The more educated, also the more likely to build lasting relationships across political divides.
How can schools structurally break through the inherent political divides to create more long lasting friendships and educated graduates?
One idea that can be implemented quickly (and at no cost) is to require students to argue both sides of an issue they care about deeply. Already, every Columbia first-year takes University Writing (effectively a freshman writing seminar) and has to write an “Op-Ed” and a series of other papers. Students also have to write a research argument paper quoting 8-10 sources. What if students, after selecting their two main opinion papers, had to subsequently write the same paper but from the “other side” of the issue? Perhaps to accentuate the importance of questioning your own beliefs, instructors would give higher weight towards how strong the argument was against the initial opinion.
A longer-term project could be to weave major debates adjacent to current political issues into core courses. For example, “Are we better off with more economic inequality but a higher standard of living for all or less economic inequality but a lower standard of living?”
The ability to facilitate constructive dialogue between students and build relationships across political, racial, and economic divides will be bolstered by students learning the complexity involved in the issues they care about. Who knows, students may even realize that their views at 17 are correct. Or, they may find themselves going back home with a more nuanced, ever-evolving understanding of layered issues.
News Roundup
– September 9, 2024. The New Yorker gives further insight on some of the beneath-the-surface dynamics between student protestors (last year and this semester) and Columbia affiliates such as security officers, Transport Union Workers, and thousands of workers for New York City’s public transport. One security officer reported being shouted at by students: “[you are] part of the genocide.” He said, “We’re the ones getting the brunt of the attitude and the anger and frustration.” The article offers Sian Beilock’s approach at Dartmouth as a contrast: emphasizing culture rather than force. She asks, “How do you make the students who are engaged in dialogue the heroes, rather than the ones protesting?” John Samuelsen, the international president of the Transport Workers Union (which embodies Columbia staff), has his own contingency plan: “We’re not going to let a bunch of freaking trust-fund babies hold our members against their will at Columbia.”
– September 9, 2024. The NYT reports that some law enforcement officers and elected city officials allege that a large degree of the campus unrest at Columbia last spring was incited by people from outside the Columbia ecosystem. This past week, a Brooklyn lawyer, James Carlson, was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and arson, specifically lighting an Israeli flag on fire. If convicted, he will face four years in prison for a felony conviction and three misdemeanor counts.
– September 11, 2024. The Columbia Spectator writes on Barnard’s adoption of its own institutional neutrality policy, a formalization of a similar interim policy under which it had been operating since summer. Barnard will from now on hold back from taking formal stands on “matters of public concern except to offer sentiments of support for those who are directly affected or grieving.” New expectations have also been laid out for conduct, speech, and behavior on campus. Some examples of violations include: “Spraying individuals with foul-smelling substances,” “Releasing insects or any pests in College buildings or at the residences of College community members,” “Engaging in doxxing,” “Requiring participation in demonstrations, protests, or activist activity as a condition for membership in a student club,” and damaging college property.
– September 12, 2024. The Economist remarks on ongoing challenges facing American college presidents, namely how to square a rigorous commitment to free speech with operational policies that thwart antisemitism on campus. As interim president Armstrong says, she’s in favor of “the right to free expression…but those rights cannot come at the expense of the rights of others to live, work, and learn here, free from discrimination and harassment.” Amongst these considerations, Columbia has recently employed more security officers and educated them in de-escalation techniques.
– September 7, 2024. The Guardian writes that while tension levels on campus haven’t yet erupted, they are climbing. The rightwing Accuracy in Media group has sponsored Doxxing vans right outside the Columbia campus, displaying faces and names of protestors under the title “Columbia’s Leading Antisemites.” Furthermore, multiple free speech pundits have shared their concern at the proliferation of rules on American campuses. Laura Beltz, the policy reform director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), expressed her unease with the “heavy-handed approach” and “pretty restrictive policies” she sees outlined by some of Columbia’s new campus rules: “I’m concerned students may be discouraged from free expression on campus.” She predicts a “chilling effect” among Columbia and other US campuses.
– September 12, 2024. Columbia Spectator shares concern that the surveillance culture on campus, enacted by the administration, has been taken far too far. In an article titled Inside Columbia’s Surveillance and Disciplinary Operation for Student Protesters, multiple student anecdotes are shared depicting the use of private investigators and other invasive techniques by the school to unearth student information. In one such story, Fadi Shuman, GS ’26, reports getting a call from a man identifying himself as a private investigator engaged by Columbia to gather information on an “unauthorized event on campus.” Apparently, this man was employed by investigative and forensic accounting firm Renaissance Associates. During Shuman’s time with the private investigators, the investigators showed footage of Shuman outside Q House, where the “unauthorized meeting” happened. They brought up photos of other students and asked Shuman to recognize them. Shuman leaves the interactions with a deep feeling of unease.
– September 3, 2024. Op-ed by Columbia student Aidan Hunter argues for liberalism over illiberalism and asserts that his experiences on campus have led him to believe in the legitimacy of Columbia’s fundamental commitment to pursuing truth. He recognizes that a community dedicated to seeking truth must also acknowledge protest as a form of free speech, while condemning Columbia University Apartheid Divest as “an unabashedly anti-humanist and anti-pluralist organization that disengages from debate and vilifies those with whom its members disagree.”
– September 12, 2024. The Columbia Spectator reports that dozens of Columbia faculty wrote a letter protesting the recent report by the Task Force on Antisemitism. They criticized the report for “contribut[ing] to a hostile narrative about Columbia, which is used to justify interference in the institution’s governance and operations.” Their main concerns were the following: “neglect of context and climate”; “conflating [of] feelings and facts”; “slippery” definitions of antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and Zionism; “misrepresentation[s]” of discriminatory incidents.