Some students expressed surprise and disapproval after learning a number of their professors voted for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, based on a recent article published in The Collegian.
These snap judgements are directly opposed to Hillsdale’s liberal arts education.
You can disagree with someone and still respect him or her, especially when he or she is your professor. Educated people engage in dialogue — they don’t write off others as unintelligent without asking questions.
Many Hillsdale students came from high schools or educational institutions where they had to lay low for fear of losing the respect of their peers because of their beliefs. Now that you are in the majority, the correct impulse isn’t to turn around and become the bully.
If you disagree with someone, go have a conversation with that person. You would probably appreciate it if he or she did the same for you — and you might learn something.
This criticism is not one-sided, of course. For the faculty, staff, and students who complained about the red Collegian masthead as a slanted political statement: it was a fun design choice and would have been blue if Harris were elected.
It is good that Hillsdale welcomes more than one political view. It is even better that students don’t necessarily know what political candidates the faculty support. Professors are here to teach, and we are here to learn. Contemporary political views don’t always enter into that work, nor should they.
According to the college’s mission statement, Hillsdale pursues the primary object of developing the minds and improving the hearts of its students by training them in the liberal arts.
“The college also considers itself a trustee of our Western philosophical and theological inheritance tracing to Athens and Jerusalem, a heritage finding its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law,” the statement reads.
American politics enter into liberal education at Hillsdale because the political thought of our country’s founding follows from the greater intellectual inheritance of the Western Tradition, not because the school exists to shore up the foundations of the political order or lobby for the Right.
Hillsdale ought to embrace the fact that its faculty and students don’t agree on everything. We are a stronger school when we hire and accept thoughtful people who practice free speech, listen to and challenge each other, and respect each other’s ideas.
The country does not need another echo-chamber school, even if it’s a conservative one.
