Preaching to the Choir: Wash U’s Political Diversity Problem

“Washington University in St. Louis’ mission is to discover and disseminate knowledge, and protect the freedom of inquiry through thought, research, teaching and learning.”

Written in large red font on the University website, this claim defines Wash U as a key player in the field of higher education. It claims to not only develop new knowledge, but also to propagate it. But before we take this mission as given, we must think about what kinds of knowledge Wash U provides. It is clear that Wash U provides exceptional programs in the sciences and in business, for example, but does the school effectively educate its students on political and social issues in the same way?

Before I arrived at Wash U, I went to a very liberal high school that was founded on the principle of social justice. From the time I entered ninth grade, I was taught that in order to make a difference in the world, conversations about social issues need to happen. My school facilitated this process. There was a mandatory freshman seminar that focused on social issues affecting both the United States and the world. Every year, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, the school would schedule a full day of workshops and assemblies concerning prevalent social issues. After events like the unrest in Ferguson, staff members would facilitate class-wide discussions on the questions prompted by these events. As shown in these examples, the faculty and staff took it upon themselves to educate the students on sociopolitical issues.

Yet despite these efforts, the political and social conversations at my high school were extremely one-sided. Because the student body was so overwhelmingly liberal, conservative viewpoints were effectively silenced. While the school sought to educate its students about social and political issues, it failed to foster a dialogue that both discussed and embraced opinions on both sides of the political spectrum.

I have noticed a similar pattern at Wash U. However, Wash U’s student body is far more geographically and ethnically diverse than that of my high school. In its undergraduate schools, Wash U enrolls students from all 50 states and numerous countries, and 45 percent of its students are nonwhite. Moreover, its five academic divisions attract students with diverse skillsets and interests. Compared to my high school, which was close to half Jewish and had less racial diversity, Wash U is innumerably more diverse. Even so, the political climate on campus still feels overwhelmingly liberal.

Why is this? Perhaps Wash U feels overwhelmingly liberal because it is so. But this absence of political diversity is only part of the problem. One could argue that another source of the problem is that Wash U does not provide curricular spaces for social and political conversations. However, even though Wash U does not specifically mandate sociopolitical education to all of its students, there is no shortage of opportunities for such conversations in the classroom. The programs in African and African-American Studies, American Culture Studies, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Latin American Studies represent a mere sprinkling of humanities programs that prompt insightful political and social discussions. Furthermore, there is a Social Differentiation requirement in the Arts and Sciences curriculum that states that all students in the division must take at least one course that covers social issues.

The issue in question, then, is not whether Wash U has classes that foster sociopolitical conversations, but whether they are effective in contributing to the discovery and dissemination of knowledge as written in its mission statement. That is to say, when these conversations do happen, do they draw new conclusions or take different directions? In order for conversations on social and political issues to be effective, participants in these conversations must not only hold different points of view, but must also be willing to express them. However, in my experience at Wash U, most of the students who speak in such courses tend to agree with each other on the core issues of these discussions. Although we have insightful, intellectual discussions on social and political issues, in most classes, the classroom seems to become an echo chamber, much like my high school.

Evidently, a key shortcoming in the sociopolitical education Wash U provides is the lack of political diversity in classroom discussions. But why are such conversations in classes so one-sided? One possibility for this phenomenon is that students with minority opinions may fear being silenced by the majority. However, Prof. Linda Lindsey of the American Culture Studies department believes that at Wash U “there is a spirit of openness and constructive criticism and dialogue where people respect others’ opinions.” Another possibility for the lack of disagreement is that many students who take classes on social engagement identify with the group(s) of people that are studied in the classes they take. For example, in my class on Asian and Pacific Island America, I am one of two students out of 15 that do not have any Asian or Pacific ancestry. I am also taking a class in Mexican Studies, and many of the students in that class are of Mexican descent. In addition, Anna Kleydman, a freshman in Introduction to Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, says that well over half of the students in her class are women. Thus, even though Wash U provides opportunities for education of social issues in the classroom, not everyone takes advantage of them.

This lack of expressed political diversity exists outside the classroom as well. In my own experience, I have observed that liberal students tend to be more vocal about their political and social beliefs than conservative students are. “I think there are some conservatives on campus but many that I know are afraid to admit their conservative views,” says Ben Epstein, a freshman in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. “I, for one, am not afraid, but many are.” When asked why, he speculated that many students with conservative viewpoints feel that they would “probably [be] judged [or] silenced.” Epstein thinks that the fact that opposing viewpoints remain mostly unexpressed is an even greater problem than the lack of political diversity as a whole. “I don’t know if there are or aren’t opposing viewpoints because I don’t think there is enough conversation about it,” he says. “Opposing viewpoints are the whole point of an interesting conversation.” Thus, while many insightful, intellectual political conversations take place on campus, they often remain one-sided because students with opposing points of view feel drowned. Only so much progress can be made when only one major viewpoint is vocal.

Ultimately, the problem that Wash U has with political diversity is twofold. For one, the undergraduate student body is primarily liberal, representing a low level of political diversity. But more importantly, even though there is some level of political diversity on campus, opposing viewpoints are seldom verbally articulated, and conversations on sociopolitical issues still remain one-sided. While Wash U students are motivated academics that seek to excel in their fields of study, many do not stray far from their perceived academic paths. So, the many classes that promote reflection and discussion on sociopolitical issues tend to be most popular among liberal students. And how can we have diverse political discussions without diverse political opinions?

The next step for the Wash U community in the political sphere is to engage not merely in discussion, but in dialogue. In order to have valuable dialogue, there must be multiple points of view articulated in a tolerant and intellectual way. Although, as Epstein postulates, some conservative students may resist speaking their minds for fear of being silenced by the liberal majority, they are effectively silencing themselves already before any valuable dialogue is established. By that same token, it is necessary for liberal students to listen to the opinions of their conservative counterparts and to learn from the healthy disagreements that will ensue. Although many students graduate from Wash U without taking many (or any) courses focused on social and political topics, everyone can, and should, benefit from the types of multi-faceted dialogue these courses are designed to foster. While learning about sociopolitical issues is important, having dialogue between parties that express different points of view is more powerful; dialogue and disagreement not only help to facilitate learning, but more importantly, they teach students to think. As Wash U describes in its mission statement, it gives students the freedom of inquiry. Ultimately, it is up to the students to embrace this freedom in the political sphere.