HKS Professors Discuss Role of Dissent In Democracy, Academic Freedom at IOP

Five Harvard Kennedy School professors discussed the role of dissent and discussion in democracy and on university campuses at an Institute of Politics forum on Thursday.

The event — moderated by HKS Academic Dean for Faculty Engagement and political scientist Erica Chenoweth — featured University Professor Danielle S. Allen and HKS professors Archon Fung, Arthur C. Brooks, Eliana La Ferrara, and Cornell William Brooks, who also served as president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

In his introductory remarks, IOP Director Setti D. Warren urged attendees to follow the example of President John F. Kennedy ’40, who he said “was candid and constructive, while providing dissent and being unafraid of disagreement to save our democracy.”

“It would serve us well to look to historic events to help guide us to a better future as we face deep division in our nation and our world today,” Warren said.

Some panelists voiced concerns over a decline in academic freedom at universities, as they try to balance commitments to creating inclusive campus environments and to free speech.

In a Dec. 10 op-ed in the Washington Post, Allen wrote that colleges and universities “don’t know how to protect intellectual freedom and establish a culture of mutual respect at the same time.”

During the forum, Allen added that “there is a real hunger for being able to marry that protection of free expression and mutual respect.”

“A lot of it is a ‘how’ question, not a ‘whether’ question,” she said.

Arthur Brooks pointed to the “crisis” of what he sees as a declining diversity of views on university campuses.

“We’re narrowing the range of acceptable opinions, and we’re canceling the people who don’t hold those opinions,” he said.

“This is supposed to be a gym, and you go to the gym to find people that are going to make us stronger and more skillful,” Brooks added. “The only way you’re going to do that is with the discomfort that comes from having different points of view.”

As some undergraduate students faced disciplinary action for entering and leading students out of classrooms in a walkout protest last semester, Allen argued that students and instructors should be protected from disruptive protest because the classroom is critical to fostering an environment conducive to free dialogue.

“Protecting classrooms from protest is actually about protecting academic freedom so that debate can happen,” she said.

The panelists also discussed the value and function of dissent to democratic societies.

Fung led the audience in an impromptu exercise in which audience members listed three political stances “they were particularly committed to.”

Audience members were then asked how many of the issues they would “be willing to say, ‘okay, the other side got more votes in a fair democratic process, I’ll try to persuade more people next time’,” because of their commitment to democracy over a particular issue.

Over half the respondents said they were willing to yield on either zero or one of their core issues. Fung said that “if there aren’t many or any top issues for which you’d say that, you might be a justice authoritarian rather than a small-d democrat.”

“Now, maybe one reason why democracy is fragile is because too many of us have become justice authoritarians and not enough of us are small ‘d’ democrats,” he added.

Despite the panelists’ concerns over the state of dissent in academia and American democracy, La Ferrera struck an optimistic tone.

“Being unhappy means that we’re finding dissatisfaction with something that’s unjust and we want to fix it,” La Ferrera said.

“The issue is not being unhappy,” she added. “It’s about where do I go from there.”

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.