The Academic Case for Intellectual Diversity

Arguments over intellectual or viewpoint diversity within universities are often framed in explicitly political terms, with regard to “balance” or “representativeness.” Such arguments might include that, for example, the ratio of faculty identifying as liberal vs. conservative at Harvard is vastly different from the analogous ratio of the United States population. While our universities should arguably help inform our national political life, their central aims are not principally political, but academic, grounded in the generation, preservation, and transmission of knowledge.

Arguments for greater intellectual diversity on the grounds of achieving rough demographic representativeness or balance do not get to the heart of higher education’s purpose, and objections to promoting intellectual diversity often rightly point to the need to protect the intellectual goals and autonomy of academic life from subjection to external political aims.

Viewpoint diversity should not be a political end sought for its own sake, but an important means for advancing the pursuit of knowledge. While there are arguably reasonable ways to address these matters, including in faculty hiring, fears over limited intellectual autonomy make it less likely any of this will be carried out unless an academic case can be made for their merit.

But a strong academic case that intellectual diversity in fact promotes the pursuit of knowledge can be made. In what follows, I put forward such an academic case in ten summary points, each of which points to a particular instrumental value of intellectual diversity in the pursuit of knowledge.

First, greater intellectual diversity of faculty could expand the range and coverage of the courses and authors taught. This diversity is badly needed here; an analysis of undergraduate syllabi by conservative publication The Harvard Salient argued that recent history courses, for instance, were significantly more likely to include assigned readings by Marxists than by conservative authors.

Second, and relatedly, greater intellectual diversity of faculty would expand the range and coverage of research topics (along with possibilities for research mentorship on these topics).

Third, greater intellectual diversity could result in more rigorous research, scholarship, and discourse on disputed political, economic, moral, and policy topics by better requiring evidence and arguments be defended and subject to critique. As per Mill’s classic argument, our thinking and arguments are refined, and we are sometimes even corrected, when we encounter ideas with which we disagree, and no efforts at self-criticism are likely to be as effective in this regard as an intelligent opponent with whom we can debate and deliberate.

Fourth, greater intellectual diversity could lessen self-censorship and lead to more robust discussions in class, which remains a problem both at Harvard and nationally.

Fifth, greater intellectual and ideological diversity could help enable our capacity for civil discourse across political divides and the transmission and refinement of knowledge within society after students leave university. If we are not developing the capacity for this in university life, where is such formation going to take place?

Sixth, if efforts to increase intellectual diversity also resulted in a greater conservative presence on campus, this would allow academic life, discourse, and arguments to further help shape, refine, and influence the thinking of the conservative movement itself, which conservatives and liberals alike should regard as a welcome development.

Seventh, with greater intellectual diversity, and particularly a greater conservative presence, we might better protect our mission of seeking truth (veritas), from a gradual shift towards a greater focus on political activism. Studies indicate that those with conservative political beliefs tend to more strongly prioritize academic rigor and the advancement of knowledge among a university’s aims, and those with liberal political beliefs, social justice and student emotional well-being. The tilt of faculty and students toward liberal political views thus arguably has implications for the core academic mission of universities.

Eighth, with regard to the transmission and application of knowledge at the societal level, greater intellectual and ideological diversity on campus may help generate greater trust in science, scholarship, and universities generally. Trust in universities and science has been in decline, and much of this is because of a perceived political agenda of universities, with a potential conflating of values with science. Again, per Mill, greater intellectual diversity could help address these matters, and thereby also help with trust.

Ninth, with regard to its instrumental value at the institutional level, greater intellectual and ideological diversity might render universities less vulnerable to attack from the federal government and prevent such federal funding fluctuations as we have experienced in the past year.

And, tenth, such intellectual diversity might also provide universities with more access to potential conservative donors. Such financial considerations are again means, not ends, but these means are not at all irrelevant to our core academic mission, as this past year at Harvard again makes clear.

An academic case can thus be made for expanding intellectual diversity as an important means, sometimes direct and sometimes relatively indirect, in our pursuit and transmission of knowledge. While objections to promoting intellectual diversity as an end in itself are reasonable, such objections can be met when regarding such diversity as a means, and can be expanded in ways that respect, and even contribute to, the primary academic goals of universities.

When done well, with a focus on the strongest scholars, the strategies of establishing endowed chairs, new research centers, or strategic hires in neglected research areas that may attract conservatives or other “intellectual minorities” can both expand intellectual diversity and contribute to academic ends. It is time we take up such approaches, as indeed Harvard has begun to do.

Our institution, our society, and our pursuit of veritas will all benefit from expanding intellectual diversity for the sake of the pursuit of knowledge.

Tyler J. VanderWeele is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology.