Trump's political bullying of Harvard will do nothing to foster diversity of thought

Substituting liberal biases with conservative will only serve to subvert academic objectivity

- Kenan Malik

Few people want to live in an echo chamber. Many have no problem being friends with those who vote differently to the way they do. And many would probably agree with John Stuart Mill that “he who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that”, that to truly know one’s own argument, one must also know the arguments of those who disagree.

How to create a culture that encourages more fruitful engagement between those of differing political views has become a key question in contemporary public debate. Nowhere more so than in universities, where there has been much debate about “viewpoint diversity”, the aspiration to nurture differing and conflicting perspectives within an institution or group as a means of sharpening arguments and teasing out truths.

Universities have in recent decades become recognised as predominantly liberal institutions, in which the range of debates can be constrained, both by the fact that most people share a similar perspective and by a culture wary of ideas deemed offensive or hurtful. Hence the growing calls for greater viewpoint diversity. The desire to create a richer culture of intellectual engagement and debate has also, however, been turned into a political cudgel, as in the current standoff between Donald Trump and Harvard University. The Trump administration sent to Harvard, as to many other elite colleges, a series of demands for the reorganisation of its governance and procedures, and for the reform of myriad departments deemed too radical.

It is part of an attempt to impose political authority over academic life. One key demand is that any department “lacking viewpoint diversity” must hire new faculty members to transform its political complexion. University authorities must “audit” political views and only hire staff whose politics would ensure greater diversity of opinion.