Heterodox Out Loud

Threats to open inquiry and viewpoint diversity do not know ideological bounds. Today’s episode addresses the times when viewpoint diversity gets hijacked for political gain. Today’s blog, Constructing Campus Craziness, was written by professor Donald Moynihan in February of 2019, in response to a close friend (and co-author) being targeted and falsely accused for being, well, you know the script:...

“Critical Race Theory” is all the rage these days. Between February and June of 2021, Fox News used the term nearly 1300 times. In the past two months, more than 20 bills have been proposed intending to ban Critical Race Theory from K-12 classrooms, while countless op-ed’s have been published taking positions on all sides of the issue. And yet, it still is a term with a slippery definition that ve...

Today, we explore a subject that has been under-examined at Heterodox Academy: Religious viewpoint diversity. The piece, Religion: A Viewpoint Diversity Blind Spot? , was written by Dr. Seth Kaplan. He teaches at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. Today’s episode is part of a new effort this summer to explore the nuances of religious viewpoint d...

Six years ago, in the fall of 2015, a wave of campus protests spread across the United States. From Yale to Claremont McKenna College to UC Berkeley, students demanded changes related to social justice and gave long lists of demands to their university presidents, often including demands that specific faculty members be fired for perceived verbal offenses. Today’s blog, “ True Diversity Requires G...

Today’s episode, “White Fragility is not The Answer: Honest Diversity Is” by Irshad Manji is a personal reflection on diversity and a call for a new way to think about what it means to be a human being. Irshad is a member of the Heterodox Academy advisory council, the founder of the Moral Courage Project, and a New York Times best-selling author. Her most recent book is called: Don’t Label Me: An...

Diversity-related training is one of the most contentious issues in higher education today. They have become embedded in the culture wars and spark intense moral disagreements. Musa al-Gharbi, a Fellow in Sociology at Columbia University, has done a deep dive into the research on the efficacy of these trainings. In today’s episode, we speak with Musa and listen to his blog, “‘Diversity Training’ D...

Could the French postmodern philosopher, Michel Foucault or American Gender theorist, Judith Butler provide us with arguments for the value of viewpoint diversity? For increasing the number of conservative faculty members on college campuses? Alice Dreger thinks so. Today’s blog, written by Alice, a Heterodox Academy Advisory Council Member and the author of four books, most notably, Galileo’s Mid...

Do you have a friend, family member, or neighbor whose views you just cannot stand? They seem to have jumped off the deep end, living in a land of conspiracies and false truths? And you know, at the core of your heart, that they are just wrong? If so, this episode is for you. Today’s blog, written by Musa al-Gharbi, the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in Sociology at Columbia University, is about persua...

In this episode of Heterodox Out Loud, Glenn Geher, Professor of Psychology and Founding Director of the Evolutionary Studies Program at the State University of New York, New Paltz tells us the story of when he invited Dr. Lionel Tiger, the Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University, to campus to speak on the value of the evolutionary perspective on the modern world, and how it...

Political polarization has become a defining feature of modern American life. Research surrounding the 2020 election from Pew Research Center demonstrated that - a month before the election, roughly eight-in-ten registered voters in both [left and right] camps said their differences with the other side were about core American values , and roughly nine-in-ten worried that a victory by their oppone...

In this episode of Heterodox Out Loud, we meet Amanda, a 20-year-old White female college student, who told her therapist, Andrew Hartz, that she “identified” as Black. Today’s piece, “ Splitting and Identity Politics, ” was written by Andrew Hartz, a Postdoc Fellow at Rose Hill Psychological Institute. Hartz explores the pitfalls of a psychological phenomena known as “Splitting,” a form of black...

On today's episode of Heterodox Out Loud , we discuss how the death of George Floyd in May of 2020 led to calls for racial justice that have spread rapidly throughout the United States and beyond. As they search for solutions to the deeply complex issues around race in America, many schools, organizations, and corporations have embraced the ideas of best selling author, Ibram X. Kendi, whose best...

For the past few months at Heterodox Academy, we’ve been focusing on the contributions of Black scholars, the diversity of perspectives among them, and the tensions around representation in institutions of higher learning. In this episode, we bring to you Randall Kennedy, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and his blog piece “ On the Authority of Experience in Black thought. ” To engage deepe...

In this episode of Heterodox Out Loud, Sociologist Musa Al-Gharbi makes the case as to why ideological diversity in social research and pedagogy is an important cause to fight for - even for those who may be skeptical of its benefits. Musa’s piece is titled, “Why We Should Care About Ideological Diversity in The Academy.” To engage deeper with Musa’s ideas, check out our related posts “What Are Th...

When it comes to the production of knowledge the value of viewpoint diversity cannot be overstated. For simple problems, or well established technicalities, we may not need multiple viewpoints, but wicked problems can only be addressed by engaging with diverse points of view. Yet, not all points of view are equal, and certainly not all of them belong in the academy. In this episode of Heterodox Ou...

In Episode Three of Heterodox Out Loud, we bring you pieces by authors Madeleine Kearns and Ian Storey that illustrate how, in academia, ideological intolerance is actually not monopolized by any particular party. Aggressive intolerance towards diverse viewpoints has led to what Kearns calls a "campus culture" and Storey labels "a toxic ecosystem"  of greater polarization, self-censorship among st...

For this episode of Heterodox Out Loud, we have Oliver Traldi’s response to Jonathan Haidt’s contention that “no university can have Truth and Social Justice as dual teloses. Each university must pick one.” In “ The Truth is Not Enough ,” Traldi furthers the discussion by arguing that Truth by itself is not an adequate mission for the university. To engage deeper with Haidt and Traldi’s ideas, che...

In our first episode of Heterodox Out Loud , our host, Amna Khalid takes us on a journey back to the earliest days of the Heterodox Academy blog to listen to NYU Social Psychologist, Author, and HxA co-founder Jonathan Haidt read his seminal blog post, “Why Universities Must Choose One Telos: Truth or Social Justice,” a summary of his talks at Wellesley , SUNY New Paltz , and Duke University in 20...