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These are very challenging times for higher education. The White House is dramatically changing the way the federal government supports research, and it has offered clear instructions on how it sees the end of affirmative action in admissions, affecting everything from hiring to student life. At the same time government officials make announcements about their commitment to free speech, they are telling universities how to conduct everything from admissions to graduation ceremonies. There has not been a greater threat to academic freedom since the McCarthy period.  

At Wesleyan we have long felt that academic freedom and welcoming a diversity of views and experiences makes speaking freely meaningful. Without a diversity of viewpoints, free speech is just an echo chamber. While it is true that universities have undermined our own arguments for diversity by not working hard enough to promote intellectual heterogeneity on our campuses, the governmental overreach has created a climate of fear across academia. Having worried about the soft despotism of shared opinion we now have to contend with the hard despotism of ideological tests from Washington.  

Free speech matters when the commitment to diversity creates a safe enough space for people with very different views to explore those differences. That doesn’t mean one needs to allow the propagation of speech that incites violence. It doesn’t mean we should join in the puerile scapegoating of trans people and immigrants by those with fearful power. But it does mean that many views that might disturb us will get a hearing. We might discover we were wrong to dismiss those ideas or learn why those ideas have seemed persuasive to others. We might discover something about ourselves and the community to which we belong.  

Belonging is also an important value connected to free speech. In my cultural history class, the students are much more likely to have difficult conversations once we have established a sense of community in the classroom. Once everyone feels included in our shared endeavor, that they belong, they are better able to take a stand in opposition to others, or to explore ideas that they might not have otherwise entertained. When people are strangers to one another, or when they have deep-seated suspicions of one another, the commitment to free speech is not nearly as productive as it is when folks have a common purpose. 

Academic freedom and welcoming a diversity of views and experiences makes speaking freely meaningful. Without a diversity of viewpoints, free speech is just an echo chamber.

Free speech yields a healthy bounty if diversity and belonging are in the soil. It is also vital to ensure that access to speaking and the ability to be heard are open to all. Free speech needs basic fairness to be a meaningful value. If one student talks over everyone else in my class, that won’t work very well. My job as a teacher is to keep them engaged, but not to let one person’s engagement make it less likely that others will learn. Ideally, the students will see the fairness in this, and others will be encouraged to play roles in the conversation. This is what equity looks like in the classroom. 

Freedom of expression is vital for educational institutions—as are diversity, inclusion, and equity. We need safe enough spaces for people from diverse backgrounds with a mix of ideas to learn from one another with courage and resilience, and we must ensure that access to those spaces and conduct within them are fair. At Wesleyan, we know how to do this without demonizing certain groups or opinions. We know how to do this without stirring up engagement through rage and hatred. And we can do it, as long as we resist the attempts by politicians and their billionaire allies to drown us out with invective and fear mongering.