As polarization deepens and skepticism of higher education grows, WashU School of Law hosted a panel last Thursday night to discuss how universities can better educate students for democracy.
There were three panelists: Professor of Liberal Education at Bard College Roosevelt Montás, Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School Mary-Rose Papandrea and New York Times columnist David French. The event was moderated by WashU Professor of Law and Religion John Inazu. The discussion was the culmination of a two-day conference at the law school convened by Inazu that brought together academics and commentators to discuss the role of the American university in civic life.
The panel began by discussing liberal education and its importance. Montás spoke about how liberal education is losing traction to preprofessional-oriented studies.
“Liberal education has been almost entirely subsumed, entirely devoured by disciplinary studies,” Montás said. “It is the responsibility of a faculty and an institution to provide a rigorous curriculum, a required curriculum that ensures that every student gets a liberal education.”
In a 2022 interview, Montás described liberal education by saying it “teaches, in the profoundest sense, how to be human or rather it facilitates a process of full human development.”
Montás was asked why liberal education is still important in an age of preprofessionalism in an interview with Student Life following the event.
“The bottom line is that we are not just feeders and seekers of status and comfort, that there is another dimension to human existence,” he said. “I don’t know anybody who simply and exclusively wants job training. Anybody given the opportunity will want to think deeply about big questions.”
The panelists then discussed the importance of free speech and civil discourse to a liberal education. French described a university’s role in educating for free speech.
“The defense of free speech is incomplete without the exercise of virtue, and I think there’s very few places in American life better equipped, in theory, to educate people about both the tremendous power of the liberty of free speech and the indispensable obligation of personal character and virtue than a university,” he said.
French referenced the recent assasination of Charlie Kirk as an example of attacks on free speech in the United States right now.
“The fact that it [the assasination] happened on a university campus while he was in the process of a debate meant that the assassin’s bullet wasn’t just aimed at Charlie Kirk, it was aimed at the heart of the American public square,” French said.
When asked what we can do to foster free speech, French said the most important thing to do is to have civil discourse.
“I disagreed with him on a lot of things, but I agree with him on this, that when we stop talking is when violence finds its purchase, and so the answer to the assassin’s bullet has to be to courageously continue the conversation,” French said.
Specifically, at university campuses such as WashU’s, French said that it is important for students to continue to speak up no matter what.
“You cannot give into fear in this moment, you have to continue to speak your mind, to speak it as fearlessly as you can in a dangerous environment, but to do it anyway.”
French also discussed how he believes diversity and free speech go hand in hand on university campuses, although they have been portrayed as in opposition.
“The fact that somehow we allowed free speech and diversity to be put at odds with one another has been catastrophic for our conception of free speech,” French said. “I would say without free speech, we ultimately can’t have real pluralism and real diversity.”
The panelists also commented on some of the policies adopted under Chancellor Andrew Martin including WashU’s statement of institutional neutrality in interviews with Student Life before the event.
“The role of the university, as the institution, is to provide the theater of political debate. It is not to be the political debater,” French said, quoting from the University of Chicago’s statement of institutional neutrality.
Papandrea added that administration officials had no special knowledge on topics outside the university, so when they publicly comment on a political event, such as conflicts in Ukraine or Gaza, it is most likely because of pressure from stakeholders.
“They lack expertise on that topic,” Papandrea said. “It’s then no different from a corporation of any kind issuing a statement, and it often comes in response to a demand by some constituency.”
In response to Martin’s recent announcement of the Ordered Liberty Project — the administration’s initiative to recruit faculty with expertise in classical liberalism — the panelists expressed disagreement with hiring professors because of their political beliefs, either liberal or conservative.
“I think what we actually need to have is true, equal academic opportunity, a divorce from ideological litmus tests,” French said.
Several attendees of the event said that they were impressed and reflective afterwards. WashU Law alumnus John Hull gave his impression of the panel.
“One thing that jumped out at me was the discussion around self-governance and how important that is for our country and how we need to teach people to prepare for that,” Hull said. “The thing that I thought about was, individually, to what extent people are willing, interested, and able to govern their own lives.”
In reflecting on the evening’s discussion, Inazu expressed his optimism in WashU’s potential.
“We have the real privilege of having students who come here, who are very smart, who are from very different backgrounds, who can commit to being in sustained efforts of reading hard texts together and having difficult conversations,” Inazu said. “And I would just love to see more of that, and I would love to see us rise to the occasion.”
