To the Editor: Considering Open Inquiry

The Crimson characterizes the “Open Inquiry” panel at the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching conference as a “clash” over whether the “University has done enough to promote” open inquiry, with me as the foil, having stated it is not “much of a problem.”

Unfortunately, this did not accurately characterize my position or the event’s overall tone, where faculty enjoyed a thoughtful discussion based on my assertion that the state of open inquiry at Harvard is difficult to discern and that, one may argue, we do relatively well compared to other institutions.

During the discussion, I raised several points that I believe should be considered in order to better understand and improve open inquiry, a topic that is both complex and important.

First, I would wager that nearly all faculty, including the conference panelists, agree that certain subjects and perspectives at Harvard are more difficult to teach and research than others (although interestingly, people often disagree on which perspectives these are). But adjusting how we teach comes at real cost, especially in response to politicized pressure, so we should think carefully about what successful open inquiry looks like and how to assess our achievement. For example, does open inquiry mean a professor or student can broach any topic without apprehension? Likely not, so what state of open inquiry are we trying to achieve?

Second, we should also ask to what standard we should compare ourselves. To an idealized institution of perfect open inquiry, or to other real-world institutions? Harvard is full of passionate people with strong opinions. And yet, one might argue that, compared to other places, minority perspectives at Harvard have a better chance of being heard than those same opinions would be elsewhere because, despite its imperfections, we have a philosophical commitment to academic freedom and open inquiry.

I have often held minority views on controversial topics, and though I sometimes worried about expressing them at Harvard, I still imagine I had more freedom to do so here than I would have if my employer were a corporation, a private foundation, or, maybe, another university. Is there something to be learned from this?

Ryan D. Enos is a professor of Government.