Advice for current and prospective college students from Princeton University's James Madison Program for American Ideals and Institutions, signed by 15 professors from Princeton, Harvard and Yale.

It's sad that this even needs to be said, but clearly it does. 

Some Thoughts and Advice for Our Students and All Students

August 29, 2017

We are scholars and teachers at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale who have some thoughts to share and advice to offer students who are headed off to colleges around the country. Our advice can be distilled to three words:

Think for yourself.

Now, that might sound easy. But you will find—as you may have discovered already in high school—that thinking for yourself can be a challenge. It always demands self-discipline and these days can require courage.

In today’s climate, it’s all-too-easy to allow your views and outlook to be shaped by dominant opinion on your campus or in the broader academic culture. The danger any student—or faculty member—faces today is falling into the vice of conformism, yielding to groupthink.

At many colleges and universities what John Stuart Mill called “the tyranny of public opinion” does more than merely discourage students from dissenting from prevailing views on moral, political, and other types of questions. It leads them to suppose that dominant views are so obviously correct that only a bigot or a crank could question them.

Since no one wants to be, or be thought of as, a bigot or a crank, the easy, lazy way to proceed is simply by falling into line with campus orthodoxies.

Don’t do that. Think for yourself.

Thinking for yourself means questioning dominant ideas even when others insist on their being treated as unquestionable. It means deciding what one believes not by conforming to fashionable opinions, but by taking the trouble to learn and honestly consider the strongest arguments to be advanced on both or all sides of questions—including arguments for positions that others revile and want to stigmatize and against positions others seek to immunize from critical scrutiny.

The love of truth and the desire to attain it should motivate you to think for yourself. The central point of a college education is to seek truth and to learn the skills and acquire the virtues necessary to be a lifelong truth-seeker. Open-mindedness, critical thinking, and debate are essential to discovering the truth. Moreover, they are our best antidotes to bigotry. 

Merriam-Webster’s first definition of the word “bigot” is a person “who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.” The only people who need fear open-minded inquiry and robust debate are the actual bigots, including those on campuses or in the broader society who seek to protect the hegemony of their opinions by claiming that to question those opinions is itself bigotry.

So don’t be tyrannized by public opinion. Don’t get trapped in an echo chamber. Whether you in the end reject or embrace a view, make sure you decide where you stand by critically assessing the arguments for the competing positions.

Think for yourself.

Good luck to you in college!

Paul Bloom
Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology
Yale University

Nicholas Christakis
Sol Goldman Family Professor of Social and Natural Science
Yale University

Carlos Eire
T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies
Yale University

Maria E. Garlock
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Co-Director of the Program in Architecture and Engineering
Princeton University

Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions
Princeton University

Mary Ann Glendon
Learned Hand Professor of Law
Harvard University

Joshua Katz
Cotsen Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics
Princeton University

Thomas P. Kelly
Professor of Philosophy
Princeton University

Jon Levenson
Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies
Harvard University

John B. Londregan
Professor of Politics and International Affairs
Princeton University

Michael A. Reynolds
Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies
Princeton University

Jacqueline C. Rivers
Lecturer in Sociology and African and African-American Studies
Harvard University

Noël Valis
Professor of Spanish
Yale University

Tyler VanderWeele
Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Director of the Program on Integrative Knowledge and Human Flourishing
Harvard University

Adrian Vermeule
Ralph S. Tyler, Jr. Professor of Constitutional Law
Harvard University

Wow. For Ivy League professors that seems pretty profoundly unprofound.

a glimmer of hope?

Hope for what? 

Fifteen Ivy League professors said:

At many colleges and universities what John Stuart Mill called “the tyranny of public opinion” does more than merely discourage students from dissenting from prevailing views on moral, political, and other types of questions. It leads them to suppose that dominant views are so obviously correct that only a bigot or a crank could question them.

Interestingly, Mill's use of this specific phrase appeared in a London Review piece he wrote about Tocqueville in 1835. Mill agrees with Tocqueville that, in Mill's words, "when all are in nearly the same pecuniary circumstances, all educated nearly alike, and all employed nearly alike, it is no wonder if all think nearly alike; and where this is the case, it is but natural, that when here and there a solitary individual thinks differently, nobody minds him. These are exactly the circumstances in which public opinion is generally so unanimous, that it has most chance to be in reality, and is sure to be in appearance, intolerant of the few who happen to dissent from it."

Mill's antidote: a leisured class. Such a class "would always possess a power sufficient not only to protect in themselves, but to encourage in others, the enjoyment of individuality of thought."

So, hooray for college professors. Hooray -- if they weren't such drudges, Mill says -- for lawyers. Hooray for the elite. 

15 professors tell students how to think by saying "Think for yourself."

The irony!

My minority thought: As much as I love the album, Rubber Soul is one of the all-time misogynist pop records.

hah. exactly.

sprout said:

Wow. For Ivy League professors that seems pretty profoundly unprofound.

Hope that freedom of thought would hold the same value as freedom of speech.

sprout said:

Hope for what? 

OK. How would that be demonstrated?

Allowing an opposing opinion of a poster - without a barrage of insulting retorts. Folks have a right to disagree without a threatening post.

Repeated bashing of a religion of a poster by a poster.

Essentially here on MOL, you find most posters in a defensive mode 24/7. It is as if others had no right to participate if they didn't drink the Koolaid.

sprout said:

OK. How would that be demonstrated?

To me, it sounds like your description of "think for yourself" would be realized once there was no strong disagreement with anything.

A person might also take some time for self-reflection. If the opinions you hold lead others to believe you're a bigot -- consider thoughtfully that maybe you are one. 

mtierney said:

Repeated bashing of a religion of a poster by a poster.

It's not "bashing" to ask people how they reconcile their religion with politics that are mostly in opposition to it.

My post was an answer to questions posed.

Cannot a poster disagree without being disagreeable ? Freedom of speech and thought are one and the same.

Did I accurately describe what you would expect to see as the outcome?

mtierney said:

My post was an answer to questions posed.

Cannot a poster disagree without being disagreeable ? Freedom of speech and thought are one and the same.

There are some arguments that are so dishonest or illogical that they deserve disagreeable disagreement. Fact is, not all opinions are equally valid. Some opinions deserve contempt. Free  speech doesn't mean dishonesty or foolishness should get a pass

The problem is not so much that people don't think for themselves as it is that they don't think at all.

The best advice anyone can give to incoming College Freshmen is to avoid excessive alcohol consumption. Now that is a real problem.

LOST said:

The problem is not so much that people don't think for themselves as it is that they don't think at all.

The best advice anyone can give to incoming College Freshmen is to avoid excessive alcohol consumption. Now that is a real problem.

When I went to college no one had enough money for excessive alcohol consumption.

Must have been expensive in your day. 

LOST said:

Must have been expensive in your day. 

Far cheaper. But... College itself was paid for. I was on a grant like many others. We each had about 600 pounds per term. That stayed the same for all four years I was there despite having to find a place to live and pay rent for the last three of them. Actually, one year I didn't even have the grant.

From Mrs. GL2's university president:

As we begin the new academic year, I have been asked by some students to send a message to the entire University community expressing, in no uncertain terms, that the president of this university “has their back,” as they put it, at a time when statements and policies emanating from Washington are causing them considerable anxiety. I am happy to do so. What follows is not intended by me to speak to partisan political differences but instead it is my effort to underscore fundamental rights that belong equally to all of us, and that are incorporated in the institutional values that we state clearly on our XXX website. This essay has also been posted to my blog. 

Forward to the Past

            In the 1985 movie, Back to the Future, Marty McFly travels 30 years back in time to change the future of his parents’ lives. In 2017, President Donald Trump seems intent on reversing certain of the actions of past presidential administrations, most notably those of President Barack Obama, to create a future in America that returns us to the past—hence, Forward to the Past.

            I identified 13 threats to higher education and its values poised by Mr. Trump’s election in my essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education on November 15, 2016.  Sadly, virtually all of them have either happened, or are in the offing.

            Some of these threats have the potential to affect profoundly certain members of the XXX community. As the University’s president, it is my responsibility to declare our unwavering support of ALL of our community’s members, and I do so now with respect to three distinct threats.

Title IX

Rumblings out of the Department of Education represent cause for concern. First, the acting head of the department’s Office of Civil Rights, XXX, said that “90 percent” of campus rape cases involved alcohol and female students with subsequent regrets (a comment for which XXX subsequently apologized, describing it as “flippant”). Then, Secretary DeVos scheduled a hearing at which those alleging to be sexual assault victims and those claiming to be wrongly accused of sexual assault each were given equal time to testify (implying that each side was somehow equivalent in numbers and therefore deserving of the same amount of attention).

            Second, there are rising concerns that “preponderance of the evidence”—the most commonly used evidence standard on college campuses, and the one enshrined in the famous 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter during the Obama administration— may be replaced by “clear and convincing evidence”, a higher standard that would benefit the accused.

            Over the years, campus surveys have consistently shown that about 20 percent of female students claim to have been victims of sexual assault during their college years. Sexual assault is a huge issue on college campuses, but one that, until quite recently, was not given the priority and attention it deserves. Campuses are still struggling to create policies and procedures that incorporate due process standards and that fairly and impartially balance the rights and interests of the parties—but to introduce a new evidentiary standard at this point would not only require rewriting campus protocols but would also (and much more importantly) roll back the rights and protections of female students, and return us to an era we in higher education thought had been permanently relegated to the past.

            Until and unless the law is changed, XXX will continue to maintain our heightened protection of female students, and we will continue to use the “preponderance of the evidence” standard in sexual assault cases.

Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action began in the 1960s as a means of favoring members of underrepresented groups in hiring and college admissions decisions, and in the awarding of government contracts. At the time, the focus was almost exclusively on expanding opportunities for African-Americans.

            Over the years, U.S. Courts of Appeal and Supreme Court decisions have severely narrowed the application of affirmative action such that, today, race may not be considered in hiring decisions, although it still is permitted as one of many factors that can properly be used in college admissions.

            Recently, The New York Times reported that the Justice Department was seeking lawyers to pursue compliance investigations and federal lawsuits that would target affirmative action programs in college admissions. Interestingly, the report focused on a case involving Asian-Americans at Harvard. The issue was not that their admit numbers were disproportionately low, relative to the overall percentage of Asians in American society (there is actually a much higher percentage of Asian students at Harvard than there are Asians in the broader society). Rather, it was that, on purely meritocratic grounds, less able students of other races were being admitted to Harvard instead of more Asians.

            If the Supreme Court were to rule in favor of the Asian students, thereby increasing their numbers at highly competitive colleges and universities across the country, most of the students who would be displaced would be white—and one wonders if white students displaced by Asians would be demanding reinstitution of affirmative action—but this time to favor white students!

            The push against affirmative action comes from people who think that no race should be advantaged or disadvantaged relative to another race. Unfortunately, the myth that “all [people] are born equal” is belied by the reality of inequality of wealth and income at birth, to say nothing of continued discrimination based on race or ethnicity. Underrepresented groups are underrepresented in higher education in the first place because disproportionate numbers of them were born poor—and without the means to obtain a college education, they are likely to stay poor.

            XXX will continue to consider race among the many factors we use in admissions decisions, but we are particularly focused on finding creative ways of opening our doors more widely to low-income students. Consideration of race or ethnicity may be in peril by the current administration, but at present it is still legal to advantage the poor.

Transgender and the Military

Recently, President Trump announced—first in a series of tweets and subsequently in an executive order to the Department of Defense—that he intends to ban transgender individuals from serving in the military “in any capacity.” That action would reverse a policy instituted by the Obama administration in July, 2015, permitting transgender individuals to serve in the armed forces. President Trump has now reversed his own position, stated at last year’s GOP convention, that he would “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ individuals.”

            The speed with which society changed its position on gay rights to include, for example, same-sex marriage was enough to cause whiplash for individuals who had, in recent years, been pushing (successfully, in several states) for legislation that defined marriage as being restricted to the union of two members of opposite sex. So it may not be surprising that there are people who would very much like to revisit the recent extensions of rights to gays.

            But herein lies the danger. A worst case scenario would be for gay rights to be held prisoner to the party in power. History provides a dramatic example: the repeated reversal of religious rights in Tudor England. To obtain a divorce, Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic church in the 1530s, in favor of Protestantism. When Henry’s 10-year-old son, Edward VI, became king, Catholicism was banned—but when Edward VI died, at the age of 16, his half-sister Mary assumed the throne, and England became Catholic once again—but only for five years. Upon Mary’s death, Elizabeth I assumed the throne, and, during her reign, Protestantism was reinstituted as England’s official religion. Thus, for over 70 years, the people of England were forced to endure repeated flip flops in the country’s official religion, at times facing charges of heresy for failing to conform to the religion of the day—and a heresy conviction could bring prison, torture, or even a death sentence.

            There is certainly no imminent danger of anyone being burned at the stake in 21^st-century America—but there is the very real danger that transgender individuals, having been encouraged by the Obama administration’s willingness to allow them to join the military to “come out” without fear of rejection, now will face discrimination and exclusion once again.

            And that outcome strikes me as unfair in the most fundamental way. Our system of jurisprudence is designed to ensure that newly passed laws are applied only prospectively. That is, almost without exception, one cannot be prosecuted for an act that he or she did prior to the passage of the law. But this 180-degree pivot by the Trump administration regarding transgender individuals in the military effectively does just that: having relied on the rules established by the Obama administration, these individuals are now being told that they are no longer able to serve in the military. At present, that means that no additional transgender individuals will be allowed to enlist, but Mr. Trump’s executive order is written in such a way that some transgender people now serving can be discharged, although what isn’t clear is whether that discharge would be honorable or dishonorable.

Being discharged for the “crime” of being transgender would be the equivalent of retroactive prosecution, something our country normally does not allow.

            But the harm is not limited to the capacity to serve in the military. Rather, it is the declaration by the government of the United States that transgender individuals have restrictions on certain of the rights enjoyed by all other members of our society—and that declaration will encourage testing the limits to see what additional rights might be taken from them. For example, several states have reintroduced bills to restrict the use of public restrooms to the gender of one’s birth, an action clearly directed at humiliating and discriminating against transgender individuals. And with the Department of Justice’s amicus brief in a civil case involving a gay individual’s discrimination claim, in which the Department of Justice argues that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not apply to sexual orientation, but only to gender, the rollback of rights recently extended to the LGBTQ community is clearly under way.

            As would be true of any community of 4,000 or more, XXX has some number of students who identify as LGBTQ. We also have a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program (ROTC), in which some of our students participate (and receive significant financial assistance with their college costs). Finally, we have declared (as have most other institutions of higher education) that we do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, or sexual orientation. How, then, under the current set of circumstances, are we to reconcile the presence of ROTC on the campus with the military’s now being ordered to disallow transgender individuals the right to serve? How do we accept that transgender people will be denied the opportunity available to every other student to receive financial support from the ROTC program?

            To all of the members of the XXX community, let me make my position clear: I am not willing to accept discriminatory practices at our university, and if that means having a campus discussion that could lead to the termination of our ROTC program, so be it.

ridski
When I went to college no one had enough money for excessive alcohol consumption.

Me either. But nowadays parents are financing their college kids' entire existence. God forbid their kids are burdened by a 20+ work week for beer money. 

mtierney said:

Allowing an opposing opinion of a poster - without a barrage of insulting retorts. Folks have a right to disagree without a threatening post.

Repeated bashing of a religion of a poster by a poster.

Essentially here on MOL, you find most posters in a defensive mode 24/7. It is as if others had no right to participate if they didn't drink the Koolaid.

sprout said:

OK. How would that be demonstrated?

Classic.  Complaining of those who do not respect the opinion of others and throw out insults - you know, those Kool-Aid drinkers.

August 28, 2017

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

Dear Mr. President:

I write to express my deep concern about reports that the Administration is considering whether to eliminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and to urge you to continue it as it currently exists. I also urge your Administration to vigorously defend DACA in the federal courts should its validity come under challenge.

The American experience has demonstrated that education and service are pathways to stronger communities and economic growth as well as personal enrichment and happiness. Since 2012, the availability of a legal status through DACA has advanced these goals for thousands of students who are in this country as a result of choices made by their parents. Most of these young people have known no home other than the United States. At Harvard and other institutions of higher education across the country, DACA has made it possible for talented and motivated students to pursue their education and explore meaningful ways of contributing to our communities and economy. 

I have come to know many undocumented students at Harvard over the years, students who have worked hard their entire lives and have been standout members of their communities.  These are extraordinarily talented young people who, like their peers, aspire to be leaders in public service, science, business, medicine, and the arts. They embody the drive and determination that has made the United States the most prosperous and innovative country in the world. We, as a nation, have already made an investment in these young people, and we will benefit far more by permitting these students to put their skills to their highest use rather than by repealing DACA and forcing them to return to the shadows of our society.

It is my hope and, more importantly, the hope of hundreds of thousands of talented, dedicated, and determined young people who are American in all but immigration status, that you and your administration continue the DACA program, and do everything in your power to defend it.

Best regards,
Drew Gilpin Faust

http://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2017/letter-to-president-trump-regarding-daca