Attending Stanford over two decades ago was a privilege. I was surrounded by brilliant faculty, bright peers, and a great basketball team. But I relish my time at Stanford because I was often intellectually uncomfortable. I had my views challenged and my norms questioned; I had to be introspective and ready to explain ideas and practices which were a given. I also had to accept difference and tried to understand new values, traditions, and narratives that were previously quite foreign to me; I had to be open and address my own ignorance. That discomfort helped shape me into an empathic, inquisitive scholar and prepared me to effectively contribute to the community and my future students.

I moved west to Stanford as a religious Jew from the East Coast and found myself in an extremely different world—one that was far more racially and ethnically diverse than home and was very religiously secular. While a student, I had my views and biases challenged in class, in the dorms, and in the dining halls; I did not understand other cultures, beliefs, or traditions, so I asked questions. Many did not understand my cultural upbringing, and fellow students approached me, asking about my values, my history, and my worldview. We engaged with each other inside and outside of the classroom, and we started to gain insight into cultures different than our own. Disputes and differences became heated at times, but this is the essence of a liberal educational experience.

In my residence hall, we held a dynamic set of programs around public policy questions, and I ended up being part of the student staff after my first year. We planned and organized a plethora of ideologically diverse events—many of which I disliked—for most of my student colleagues who held significantly different views from my own. The supervising professor who lived in the hall with us held fairly progressive views that were in deep opposition to my own. However, I was free to invite and organize programming, and while it was very clear what his views were, he never tried to prohibit alternative thinking and encouraged a multitude of ideas.

Classes and campus life were generally open and inquisitive. I did not realize how fortunate I was to have this experience. This discursive culture thrived under the guidance of constitutional law scholar Gerhard Casper—a former law professor at the University of Chicago, a student of history, and a leader with direct experience of Nazi Germany, fascism, the Holocaust, and the dangers of authoritarian and limited speech.

Stanford has changed in recent years. There have been several well-known cases of shouting down speakers and administrative overreach to control ideas and speech.

With the appointment of economist Jonathan D. Levin as the school’s 13th president, however, Stanford placed at its head a president who is committed to open debate, discourse, viewpoint diversity, and institutional neutrality and has boldly shown the higher education community what a liberal education should look like.

In his first remarks as President of Stanford, Levin gave an inspiring speech referencing former President Casper. President Levin noted that Casper was taken with the idea of freedom in a university and worked to ensure that while he was president, he understood the school’s motto—“The wind of freedom blows”—to mean that there was “freedom of faculty and students to pursue knowledge without constraints; the freedom to challenge orthodoxy, whether old or new; and the freedom to think and speak openly” for “these freedoms nurture the conditions for discovery and learning.”

President Levin continued by unmistakably and powerfully articulating his views toward Stanford’s values of public engagement:

To be clear, we want Stanford’s students and faculty to engage with the world. We expect them to wrestle with social and political issues. We hope that they will have an influence on the direction of society, pursue public service, and tackle the pressing challenges of our time. 

However, these values have some conditions:

Yet the university’s purpose is not political action or social justice. It is to create an environment in which learning thrives. As Harry Kalven memorably put it, the university’s obligation in challenging times is “to provide a forum for the most searching and candid discussion of public issues.” 

This is what we should strive for today: to foster searching discussion, to listen with curiosity, and to ensure the freedom of members of the university to study and learn. 

Levin is correct on every point. While only time will tell how well these ideas will play out on campus, Stanford is showing the world what higher education can be. The students are quite fortunate to have such principled leadership now, and the higher education world should be looking west for principled and authentic leadership from President Levin.

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