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Why is HxA Necessary?

In order to address society’s most intractable problems, learners must weave together the best ideas from a range of perspectives.

In many fields, scholars’ backgrounds and commitments are insufficiently diverse. As a result, important questions and ideas may go unexplored, key assumptions can go unchallenged, and the natural human tendencies towards motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, and tribalism can go unchecked. This undermines research quality and the impartiality of peer review; it can also corrupt committee decisions about admissions, hiring, promotion, and curriculum design. Simultaneously, institutional policies, procedures and incentive models of colleges and universities are changing. The needs, priorities and expectations among new cohorts of students are evolving — even as the political climate in the United States (and beyond) has grown increasingly polarized and toxic. The result is a highly-combustible campus environment. Professors and students alike describe the toll self-censoring and the ever-present threat of social or bureaucratic censure have taken on learning, discovery, and growth.

These problems have not gone unnoticed by lawmakers, the media, or the general public. Many fields and institutions where these trends are most pronounced have faced declining enrollments and budget cuts. Meanwhile, trust in universities, expertise, and scientific research has eroded — reducing the impact and continued viability of many lines of inquiry.

What Does HxA Do?

As a collaborative of academic insiders, we are deeply committed to the continued flourishing of colleges and universities — and deeply concerned about the current state of affairs, which is not sustainable. We aspire to help chart a different path forward by:

Increasing public awareness of these issues, to spur action among faculty, staff, students, alumni and donors;
Conducting, disseminating and facilitating research to better understand the nature of the challenges facing institutions of higher learning — and how they can be effectively addressed;
Developing tools and resources that professors, administrators, and others can deploy to assess and then improve their own pedagogical, disciplinary and broader campus cultures;
Cultivating communities of practice among teachers, researchers, and administrators to help accelerate the process of reform; and
Identifying and celebrating institutions that make progress on these matters.

Key Tools & Resources:

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A self-report tool you can use to assess which students are feeling intimidated to speak up about which topics and why.

An interactive, psychology-based platform designed to depolarize campuses and foster mutual understanding across differences.

LATEST BLOG POSTS

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- Partisan Dehumanization in American Politics
  Abstract: Despite evidence that dehumanizing language and metaphors are found in political discourse, extant research has largely overlooked whether voters dehumanize their political opponents. Research on dehumanization has tended to focus on racial and ethnic divisions in societies, rather than political divisions. Understanding dehumanization in political contexts is important because the social psychology literature links dehumanization to a variety of negative outcomes, including moral disengagement, aggression, and even violence. In this manuscript, I discuss evidence of partisan dehumanization during the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign and demonstrate how a focus on dehumanization can expose new relationships between moral psychology and partisan identity. Using data from two surveys conducted in October of 2016, I show that partisans dehumanize their political opponents in both subtle and blatant ways. When I investigate the correlates of dehumanization, I find that partisans who blatantly dehumanize members of the opposing party prefer greater social distance from their political opponents, which is indicative of reduced interpersonal tolerance. I also find that blatant dehumanization is associated with perceptions of greater moral distance between the parties, which is indicative of moral disengagement. These results suggest that dehumanization can improve our understanding of negative partisanship and political polarization. Over the past decade, concern over how extremist political communities can employ social media to promote their views and incite violence has increased. The Dangerous Speech Project defines dangerous speech as “any form of expression (e.g., speech, text, or images) that can increase the risk that its audience will condone or commit violence against members of another group.” One of the hallmarks of dangerous speech is dehumanization, the process of classifying rival outgroups as subhuman so that derogation, prejudice, and even violence against them can be justified and rationalized. Research on dehumanization has a long history in social psychology (see Bandura, Underwood, & Fromson 1975). Since a person can dislike a group and its members without denying their fundamental humanity, dehumanization and prejudice are considered distinct concepts, although they can co-occur within an individual (Haslam & Stratemeyer 2016). Much scholarship in this field has focused on how dehumanization has been used to justify and rationalize prejudice and derogation of racial and ethnic groups, immigrants, and refugees (e.g., Ellemers 2017; Lajevardi & Oskooii 2018; Utych 2018). Less attention has been given to how dehumanization may occur between rival political groups and thus contribute to political divisiveness; recent research by Erin Cassese addresses this gap. Cassese investigated two questions: Do partisans demonstrate evidence of dehumanization when asked to assess the opposing party? And, if there is evidence of dehumanization, does partisan identity strength moderate its effect? Four hypotheses were specified: Partisans will rate their own party as significantly more human than the opposing party.Dehumanization of one’s political opponents is greater among strongly identified partisans.Dehumanization of the opposing party is associated with a preference for increased social distance from one’s political opponents.Dehumanization of the opposing party is associated with perceptions of increased moral distance from one’s political opponents. Methods To investigate these four hypotheses, a student sample (N = 397) and a Mechanical Turk sample (N = 609) were collected in October of 2016. Two kinds of dehumanization were measured, subtle dehumanization and blatant dehumanization. Research postulates that subtle dehumanization can take two forms: Animalistic dehumanization signals a denial of human uniqueness (e.g. *those people* are uncouth, stupid, deplorable). Mechanistic dehumanization signals a denial of human nature traits (e.g. *those people* are robotic, unemotional, impersonal). Participants evaluated Democrats and Republicans on 10 animalistic traits (e.g., humble, polite, cold, hard-hearted) and 10 mechanistic traits (e.g., passionate, sociable, jealous, aggressive). Blatant dehumanization was measured with the Ascent of Man scale (see Kteily, Bruneau, Waytz & Cotterill 2015). Participants rated both parties on a scale anchored by 5 images corresponding to the evolution of man, ranging from subhuman to human. Responses were standardized and composite scores measures were created, with higher scores indicative of more dehumanization. Identity strength was measured with a four-item partisan identity scale developed by Huddy, Mason, and Aarøe (2015). This measure is informed by social identity theory and is designed to provide a more granular measure of identity strength. For instance, participants were asked “How important is being a [Democrat/Republican] to you? And, “When talking about [Democrats/Republicans] how often do you use ‘we’ instead of ‘they’?” A standardized composite measure was created, with higher scores indicative of greater identity strength. Social distance was measured with two items: “Suppose a son or daughter of yours was getting married. How would you feel if he or she married a supporter of the [Democrat/Republican] Party?” And, “If you are single or weren’t already married, imagine yourself marrying a supporter of the [Democrat/Republican] Party. How do you think marrying a supporter of this party would make you feel?” A standardized composite measure was created, with higher scores indicative of a preference for greater social distance. Finally, moral distance was measured by asking participants how different Democrats and Republicans are from each other on morality, honesty, trustworthiness and sincerity. A standardized composite measure was created, with higher scores indicative of a perception of greater moral distance. Standard demographic questions were also included. Results In both the student sample and the Mechanical Turk sample, evidence of subtle and blatant dehumanization emerged among partisans, lending support to hypotheses 1 and 2. Democrats and Republicans, in both samples, engaged in animalistic dehumanization, mechanistic dehumanization, and blatant dehumanization. As can be seen below, these effects were the most pronounced among the most strongly identified partisans: The regression model that tested hypotheses 3 and 4 included the demographic variables and blatant dehumanization as predictor variables. The two subtle forms of dehumanization were not included as predictors due to collinearity with blatant dehumanization. Results suggest the evidence for partisans preferring greater social and perceiving more moral distance was mixed. In terms of social distance, there was evidence of a preference for greater social distance among partisan Democrats in the Mechanical Turk sample and, among partisan Republicans in the student sample. Partisan Democrats in the student sample also reported a preference for greater social distance, although this effect was quite small. Partisan Republicans in the Mechanical Turk sample did not report a preference for greater social distance. When it came to a perceiving greater moral distance between the parties, Partisan Democrats and Partisan Republicans in both samples all perceived greater moral distance between the parties. These findings lend support to hypothesis 4, and suggest there is a moral dimension to partisan dehumanization. Conclusions Although the process of dehumanization has not received much attention in political science, it has received a good deal of attention within social psychology. Although this has provided a number of insights into how people dehumanize racial and ethnic groups, immigrants, and refugees, research on the dehumanization of rival political groups has been scant. Nevertheless, research on dehumanization indicates that the process is associated with moral disengagement whereby a person or group are classified as less than human, and thus less deserving of moral consideration. In other words, when a rival person or group is dehumanized they are seen as undeserving of moral concern. When this occurs, unfair treatment, derogation, and even aggression are then easily justified and rationalized (see e.g., Ellemers 2017; Schwartz 2007). Once this process is underway it may become self-reinforcing, as research indicates perceived dehumanization prompts dehumanization as a response (Kteily, Hodson & Bruneau 2016). The present research can be added to a small, but quickly growing, body of literature that has documented dehumanization (see Kteily & Bruneau 2017; Pacilli, Roccato, Pagliaro & Russo 2016) and partisan moral disengagement (Kalmoe & Mason 2018) in the political realm. Data from a student sample and a Mechanical Turk sample, collected closely before the 2016 Presidential Election, demonstrate that both Democrats and Republicans engage in subtle and blatant dehumanization of their political rivals — and perceive a considerable moral distance between Democrats and Republicans. These effects most pronounced among partisans strongly identified with their party. What Do These Findings Mean? Cassese suggests that dehumanization has often been overlooked as a component of intergroup bias and derogation in the political domain. Indeed, much of the research on intergroup bias within the political domain has focused on affective partisanship and affective polarization, and found it is driven by the strongest partisans (see Huddy et al. 2015; Iyengar Sood & Lelkes 2012; Iyengar & Westwood 2015). The current results are consistent with these findings and extend them to the realm of dehumanization. The strongest partisans dehumanize their political rivals far more than weaker partisans do. Other scholarship has found that outgroup derogation is considered a legitimate means of challenging political opponents (Combs, Powell, Schurtz & Smith 2009) and that dehumanization may be a self-reinforcing process (Kteily et al. 2016). When these findings are considered in conjunction with Cassese’s results, they suggest the American political landscape is fractured and may be at risk for even greater polarization — threatening the continued functioning, viability and political legitimacy of our political and civic institutions (as well-described in a recent New York Times column by Thomas Edsall that provides links to much more research in this area). To counteract these trends, citizens should heed the advice of people like Arthur Brooks and Christian Picciolini, who both urge us to keep our contempt in check and learn to love our political “enemies.” Reference: Cassese, Erin (2019). “Partisan dehumanization in American politics.” Political Behavior. DOI: 10.1007/s11109-019-09545-w Sean Stevens is Heterodox Academy’s Research Director. He has a PhD in social psychology from Rutgers University. As an organization that prizes pluralism and disagreement — with more than 2,500 members holding diverse views on most issues — Heterodox Academy almost never takes positions as an organization on current events and controversies. Opinions expressed here are those of the author(s). Publication does not imply endorsement by Heterodox Academy or any of its members. We encourage readers to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn — and to join in the conversation on those forums — to weigh in on this or other posts.... Read more...
- Actually, students seem substantially less free than the general public
  As an organization, Heterodox Academy is growing increasingly focused on highlighting not just problems, and what is going wrong – but also solutions, and what’s going right, who is doing it well, and how. Consequently, many of us were thrilled reading Jeffrey Sachs’ recent Niskanen essay highlighting positive trends on campus (although an implication of his argument — that the 2015-7 blowups were tied to broader polarization around the election — is that we may be fast approaching another wave of unrest). I dove into Sachs’ latest Washington Post essay in the same spirit, eager for good news. Therein, Sachs argues that the self-censorship problem on universities seems to be overblown — and is largely a product of (mis)perceptions among conservative students that they will be punished by their professors and fellow students should they contradict the prevailing consensus. Despite clear evidence that conservative students are deeply concerned about being graded more harshly by their professors for their political views (leading them to self-censor), he asserts there isn’t strong evidence that political discrimination in grading actually occurs. I think this latter point is important – and as far as I can tell, it is true. Some have (rightfully, to my mind) quibbled with some of the studies he cited, and/ or the way they were deployed – but none of these critiques have really undermined his core claim that there is a dearth of positive empirical evidence that grading discrimination actually does occur. Of course, an absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. However, it is a fundamental aspect of our legal and moral thinking in Western liberal democracies that the burden of proof lies with the people leveling a charge (such as alleging pervasive political discrimination in grading). Prima facie, it seems pretty logical to me that political grading discrimination would not occur, even in an environment where there is strong evidence of political discrimination in other quarters, towards other members of the academic community. That will be the topic of a forthcoming essay. Here, I want to focus on a different claim Sachs made in his piece. Citing a recent survey by the Cato Institute he posits: “Reports of self-censorship on campus are not much more prevalent than reports of self-censorship among the general public. About 58 [sic] percent of Americans admit they stop themselves from saying what they believe to avoid giving offense…” Yet the Cato data actually suggest students are (5 percentage-points) more likely than the general public to agree that current political climate prevents them from saying things they believe “because others may find them offensive.” In fact, they are significantly less willing to share their views on virtually any issue than the general public. This effect is particularly pronounced with regards to crime, guns, poverty, inequality, policing, immigration, foreign policy — for which the relative comfort gap approaches or exceeds 20 percentage points: Q: Suppose you were at a restaurant with co-workers after work, or with classmates after school — If any of the following topics came up would you be (somewhat or very) willing to share your views? % in college affirm % broader pop. affirm Difference (percentage points) Health care 80 85 5 The Environment 79 84 5 Education 79 81 2 Abortion 69 76 7 Women’s issues 66 78 12 Crime 65 86 23 Guns 62 81 19 Poverty 61 80 19 Queer and transgender issues 61 69 8 Immigration 59 79 20 Race relations 57 71 14 Foreign policy 54 72 18 The police 53 79 26 Q: The current political climate prevents me from saying things I believe because others may find them offensive 62 57 5 Q: Do you think the major blowups in the news are isolated incidents or part of a broader pattern regarding how college students respond to controversial ideas? 77 76 1 That is, in the very institutions that are supposed to be places for understanding and formulating responses to social problems, people feel especially uncomfortable discussing pressing social issues. Indeed, they were less comfortable discussing even technocratic and scientific issues like health care and the environment than the general public. Perhaps the most striking, students were less comfortable talking about education than those who are outside the academy. This is a sorry state of affairs — and the Cato data show that most students agree. A majority of students felt that: Political correctness has stifled conversations we need to have as a society (62%)People call others racist/ sexist to avoid debate with them rather than because they deserve it (53%)Colleges are not doing enough to protect free speech (51%) or expose students to a wide variety of viewpoints or perspectives (51%). Yet the same students who feel more constrained than the general public in their expression, and who feel widespread discontent with the relative lack of freedom on campus, also tend to be far more censorious than the general public: Q: Would you favor a law that would make it illegal to do the following in public… % college agree % broader pop. agree Difference (percentage points) Call for violent protests 72 61 11 Disparage Jews 62 38 24 Disparage blacks 53 45 8 Disparage immigrants 51 38 13 Burn the American flag 49 59 10 Disrespect military service members 49 39 10 Disparage Hispanics 48 37 11 Disparage whites 47 30 17 Make sexually explicit statements 47 45 2 Deny the Holocaust 47 33 14 Fail to comply with preferred gender pronouns 46 35 11 Disrespect police 42 36 6 Disparage LGBTQ people 41 36 5 Disparage Christians 39 34 5 Disparage Muslims 37 37 — Q: People who aren’t respectful don’t deserve free speech 51 43 8 Q: People should be allowed to express unpopular opinions in public, even those that are deeply offensive to other people 49 60 11 What is most striking about this data is how uniform the higher support for censorship is. Students are more supportive of laws against disparaging LGBTQ people, immigrants and racial or ethnic minorities on the one hand (views associated with the left) – but also more supportive of making it illegal to disrespect police or military service members, disparage Christianity, or call for violent protest (impulses associated with conservativism). Literally the only item for which the general public was more supportive of censorship than students related to burning the American flag – but even here, students were slightly more likely to support the draconian measure of stripping citizenship away from flag burners (40% of students supported, as compared 38% of the broader public)! Beyond legal censorship, students were also more supportive of denying campus platforms to speakers across the board. Once again, they are more supportive than the general public of denying campus platforms to those who disparage immigrants, minorities, and LGBTQ Americans — and also whites, Christians or law enforcement. Disturbingly, the only kind of speaker students are relatively more supportive of granting a platform to are people advocating violent protest (indeed, students are also 10 percentage-points more likely than non-students to say that it is morally acceptable to punch a Nazi). Here, a critic might object that of course students would be less likely than most to support providing controversial speakers a platform on campus. After all, students are on campus all the time; many students literally live there. Isn’t it reasonable to want to avoid needless disruption in one’s own community? Perhaps the real test might be to see whether the general public would support hosting these speakers in their own communities, and compare that to students’ willingness to host different speakers on campus. Yet even here, students tend to be more supportive of denying platforms on campus to controversial speakers than non-students are to host these speakers in their local communities: Q: Universities should not provide a platform to those who… % college agree re: universities % broader pop. agree re: universities Difference (percentage points) % broader pop. agree re: their local community Advocates violent protest 78 82 4 76 Reveal students’ immigration status 68 65 3 56 Deny the Holocaust 61 57 4 59 Supports banning Muslims 59 48 11 47 Advocates conversion therapy for LGBTQ people 57 49 8 47 Defines transgenderism as a mental disorder 55 49 6 52 Claims all whites are racist 55 50 5 58 Claims Christians are backwards 55 47 8 56 Justifies police stopping blacks at higher rates 53 47 6 53 Claims whites and Asians have higher IQ than blacks, Hispanics 53 47 6 54 Criticizes the police 51 49 2 60 Claims men are better at math on average 48 39 9 45 Calls for deporting immigrants 44 41 3 42 Students are also significantly more likely than the general population to define speech as hateful, and to assume that bad motives underly speech they find offensive: Q: Which of the following would you label hate speech? % college agree % broader pop. agree Difference (percentage points) Saying one race is genetically superior to another race 69 56 13 Calling a racial minority a racial slur 65 60 5 Calling gays and lesbians vulgar names 57 56 1 Calling a woman a vulgar name 47 42 5 Saying transgender people have a mental disorder 47 33 14 Saying homosexuality is a sin 41 26 15 Saying all white people are racist 40 40 — Saying illegal immigrants should be deported 34 23 11 Saying Islam is taking over Europe 32 16 16 Saying America is an evil country 31 34 3 Saying police are racist 28 27 1 Saying women should not fight in combat roles 25 14 11 Q: People usually have bad intentions when they express offensive ideas 65 57 8 Although, in the abstract, a slight majority (52%) of college students recognize a distinction between allowing a controversial speaker a platform v. tacitly endorsing their views – this distinction quickly collapses when applied to more specific cases. A plurality (49%) of college students believe that supporting someone’s right to say racist things is as bad as being racist oneself – a difference of 7 percentage points as compared to the general public. 44% of college students believe that allowing a racist to speak would be tantamount to that university endorsing racism (14 percentage points higher than non-students). But as with the other examples, it’s not just racism or left-aligned views that generate this effect. For instance, students were also slightly more likely than the general public to believe that providing a platform to an anti-American speaker would be the same as the college endorsing those views. In the same paragraph where Sachs cited the CATO report, he highlighted that private-sector employers also restrict speech. He is right to point that out, and it is another important point that could use more attention in the media than it gets (especially relative to campus blowups). But disturbingly, students are also significantly more supportive than most of employers punishing workers for speech, even for speech that occurs outside the workplace (and of course, policing speech entails surveilling it). For instance, 64% of students support employers sanctioning employees for things they say on social media, as compared to 44% of the general public. What Gives? We can see, from the very data Sachs cited, that students seem to feel substantially less free to express themselves than general public. Yet while they chafe under these perceived constraints and express frustration about them, students are also tend to be significantly more censorious than the general public. How can we square these findings with the datapoint Sachs cites from FIRE that the vast majority (87%) of students feel generally comfortable expressing themselves on campus? Simple: just as people are more likely to support free speech in abstract than with regards to specific controversial issues, or specific groups they dislike – students are also more likely to declare comfort expressing themselves in general than with respect to particular issues. As we saw in the Cato data, this holds with virtually any specific issue. Indeed, issue by issue, across the board, students felt substantially less comfortable expressing themselves than the general public. They were also far more likely to support censorship on a range of issues – irrespective of the political valence of those issues. This suggests that while there does seem to be an element of political bias to censorship (margins tended to be much larger for issues with a left valence) — it seems like students are far less comfortable with controversy of any kind than the general public, and more likely than the general public to try to suppress controversy of virtually any kind through censorship of self and others. It is unclear whether these dynamics are a product of selection effects (i.e. more censorious people just happen to be more likely to go to college), cohort effects (i.e. contemporary students are more censorious than previous generations – my take on this question here, here), or whether they are a product of the education process itself (i.e. education renders people more likely to support censorship than they otherwise would have been – my take on that question here). Regardless, rather than serving as bastions for free exchange of ideas and the exploration of controversial topics, the state of discourse on campus seems substantially less free than that of the broader society. At least, that’s what the Cato data suggest. I’ll note in closing that Heterodox Academy is very committed both to measuring this phenomenon in more detail, and to providing others with tools to do the same. Towards this end, we developed our Campus Expression Survey (CES). We have fielded a couple nationally-representative samples, and will be sharing some of that data soon. But in the meantime, if you are a faculty member or administrator hoping to understand the dynamics within your own classroom or institution, instructions for how to deploy the CES are available here (we also have a version of the CES for high-school students). Musa al-Gharbi is a Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in Sociology at Columbia University and Managing Editor at Heterodox Academy. As an organization that prizes pluralism and disagreement — with more than 2,500 members holding diverse views on most issues — Heterodox Academy almost never takes positions as an organization on current events and controversies. Opinions expressed here are those of the author(s). Publication does not imply endorsement by Heterodox Academy or any of its members. We encourage readers to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn — and to join in the conversation on those forums — to weigh in on this or other posts. In a recent Washington Post article, Jeffrey Sachs cites a statistic by FIRE that roughly 87% of students generally feel comfortable expressing themselves on campus. Importantly, there is a 9 percentage-point partisan spread (Democrat students are more comfortable than Republicans) and a 14 percentage-point ideological spread (very liberal students are far more comfortable expressing themselves than very conservative students). Nonetheless, even a majority of “very conservative” students seem to generally feel comfortable expressing themselves. On first blush, this sounds great. Yet, as I have previously argued, statements phrased in general terms like this fail to accurately capture the speech climate on campus. In fact, students seem to be substantially less comfortable expressing themselves, and more censorious of others, than the general population. The FIRE data does not disconfirm this picture. Instead, they help clarify what is driving self-censorship. Most (59% of fourth-year) students did admit to having censored themselves in the classroom; additionally, a near-majority (48% of fourth-year students) have censored themselves on campus outside the classroom context. The most common reasons students gave for self-censoring included: Fear they might be wrong (53%) Fear students might judge them (48%)Fear of causing offense (30%) Here, Sachs sees an exoneration: maybe it’s not such a bad thing if students hold their tongue if they think they might be wrong, or if they might offend others. It’s perfectly natural for students to want to fit in with one’s peers, and to avoid needlessly “rocking the boat.” However, the FIRE report seems to also suggest some areas for significant concern that cast the data Sachs cited in a less positive light. For instance, when presented with options for how they would respond to views they disagree with, only 59% said they try to see where others are coming from. I say “only” 59% because respondents were allowed to choose as many response options as apply to them. Hence, a substantial minority of students – 41 percent — do not even try or aspire to understand views that conflict with their own; it’s not even part of their tool kit (let alone being their first reaction). And to be clear, we’re not talking about views that respondents find offensive – merely disagreeable (indeed, just over a third of respondents expressed a willingness to try to understand views they actually found offensive). This seems like a significant failure for institutions of higher learning. The FIRE data suggests a pervasive lack of intellectual curiosity when students are confronted with views they find disagreeable – and also a lack of will or interest to constructively engage with those who see the world differently than they do. The data further suggest that many students feel as though mistakes are unacceptable: rather than trying to test ideas they are uncertain about, they bite their tongue for fear they might be wrong. This is a problem because exploration of uncertain terrain is precisely how innovations come about. Indeed, science is primarily about learning from errors, failures and unexpected outcomes. This is also how false ideas are corrected — by putting them on the table. To the extent that students bite their tongue and simply persist with false beliefs due to a perceived stigma around being wrong, this is really the worst of all worlds. Not only are self-censoring students missing an opportunity to learn and grow in the event they are wrong — but others who may hold similar beliefs are similarly deprived of a chance to deepen their understanding of the world. Finally, many students expressed concern about being punished for expressing controversial ideas. Although Sachs is right to point out that there is not strong evidence suggesting professors punish students for controversial views (via grading), the FIRE data show that these concerns are well-placed with regards to one’s fellow students: 45% of students expressed that they would curtail future interactions with someone who said offensive things; almost a third would impose social sanctions just for others saying something they strongly disagreed with (but did not find offensive, hurtful or racist). This, again, suggests that a large percentage of the student body has not been taught the elementary skill of separating positions from people. Worse, it is widely understood among students that many of their peers fail to draw this distinction, and it leads them to self-censor.... Read more...

Heterodox Academy

Why is HxA Necessary?

What Does HxA Do?

Key Tools & Resources:

LATEST BLOG POSTS

The Value of Heterodoxy in the Academy

“The whole educational process will be enriched and enlivened by a multiplicity of voices and perspectives.“
–Nadine Strossen

We welcome applications from academics, graduate students, and others.

Heterodox Academy

Why is HxA Necessary?

What Does HxA Do?

Key Tools & Resources:

LATEST BLOG POSTS

The Value of Heterodoxy in the Academy

“The whole educational process will be enriched and enlivened by a multiplicity of voices and perspectives.“ –Nadine Strossen

We welcome applications from academics, graduate students, and others.

“The whole educational process will be enriched and enlivened by a multiplicity of voices and perspectives.“
–Nadine Strossen