The Brown Daily Herald reports that Brown University President Ruth Simmons questioned Brown’s ideological conformity in her recent semester Opening Address:
Simmons began by telling the audience that one of the questions she receives most frequently when visiting Brown alums and parents around the country is, “What is the University doing about the lack of diversity of opinion on campus?” She said that students on campus of all political stripes have told her of “a chilling effect caused by the dominance of certain voices on the spectrum of moral and political thought.”
Such a chilling effect is detrimental to education and intellectual inquiry because “we are often creatures of habit when it comes to learning,” Simmons said. “Familiar and appetizing offerings can certainly be a pleasing dimension of learning, but too much repetition of what we desire to hear can become intellectually debilitating,” she said.
. . . .
Simmons posed several questions she said should be addressed without hesitation, such as whether Brown is “suppressing expression, limiting debate (and) fostering hostility to particular ideas and different perspectives.”
She asked, “Why do so many hold up Brown as an example of the way that universities today circumscribe free expression?”
. . . .
Simmons said a reasoned challenge to a perspective is “the most important obligation of scholarship” and the duty to enter debates lies with students themselves.
“Unchallenged opinion is a dark place that must be exposed to light,” she said.In the question-and-answer session following the speech, Danny Doncan ’05 asked Simmons about the impact of faculty sharing their opinions and political positions in classes.
Simmons said though freedom of expression must apply to all, including faculty, “there is a relationship of power that exists in the classroom.” She said her advice to professors would be “to ensure that every student feels empowered to enter into debate.”
Link via Inside Higher Ed.
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