This fall, I am teaching a seminar course on polarization. Despite my courses being subject to boycotts, my classes filled up in an ironic twist of fate. The class is intended to present a broad overview of American politics through our nation’s many socio-cultural and political divisions meaning that our readings and discussion inevitably lead us into the culture wars.

In this course, my students and I will not back away from controversial topics; we will discuss traditional political science topics involving ideology, partisanship, and various institutions. And we will move beyond traditional academic topics; we will discuss a host of very controversial and salient political topics including the gender gap and faith and religion and we must explore these issues because of the impact they have throughout campus and within the larger socio-political sphere as well. Last week, we tackled one of the biggest questions related to polarization – identity politics. And when the class confronted these issues head-on, we had a civil, respectful, and engaging dialogue.

College campuses are now ground zero for the culture wars with the waves of protests -providing clear evidence that politics and disagreement are fueling real unrest on campuses nationwide. Despite that, I believe that it is possible to have meaningful dialogue about challenging topics with students. While news and social media tend to highlight the vocal, aggressive, and agenda-setting minority on campuses at the expense of curious students who come to college looking to learn, so many less vocal students are up for the challenge of debating and learning from difference.  

We just read Yascha Mounk’s The Identity Trap, for instance. The book takes on many challenging questions of our time—race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality all of which have become the “yardstick by which all else is measured.” In Mounk’s telling, the nation has seen a rise of progressive political ideas “centrally concerned with the role that identity categories like race, gender, and sexual orientation play in the world,” which are problematic because “advocates of this ideology fixate on identity to the exclusion of all else, rejecting “universal values and neutral rules like free speech and equal opportunity as mere distractions.” This world view, Mounk notes, gained traction in countless institutions and it is hard to disagree—much to the chagrin of DEI offices across the country.

Historically, I have been fortunate to have curious and open-minded students in my classes. Given the political climate and the upcoming presidential election, I was worried about this new group of students. I was unsure of how students would react to discussing Mounk’s critiques of ideas which have become so dominant on campus.

Yet, for over an hour, my class had a wide-ranging discussion about diversity and the rise of identity politics. Our discussion covered the benefits and shortcomings of identity politics and no one stormed out of the class. No one assumed the worst when a participant asked a question or made a comment and no one yelled or tried to dominate the dialogue – people listened, empathized, and considered differences of view. I made it clear that we would be respectful and open minded, use Chatham House rules, and start from the position that no one in the room was looking to harm anyone else.

By holding the line on the tone of the discussion, my students opened up and shared that they appreciate being able to speak about their identities, but they find the intense interest in fracturing and segregating by various traits to be problematic and dangerous. The students recognize that there have been historically marginalized groups and value the efforts to promote greater levels of belonging and inclusion that identity politics has promoted, but they see the fixation on characteristics as overly simplistic, regressive, and reductionist about their unique personalities. To them, such intense focus on gender and race impedes progress and friendship formation, and focuses more on differences rather than creating shared experiences, values, and traditions. They recognize that having particular social safe spaces can be very appreciated and useful, but that these spaces may also limit broader connections being made and create echo chambers and ideological bubbles.

We had a terrific discussion and enjoyed being able to talk freely and candidly about an issue so pronounced and omnipresent on campus. Students told me that they were excited to finally have space to engage in these discussions and wanted to take this seminar because I explicitly demand that students accept that my course “will be driven by data, not dogma” and that “we will treat this material as social scientists—not as ideologues.” Clearly, students crave spaces for genuine debate. We as faculty can help realize these goals by setting the right conditions and terms for these critically important discussions; we just need to step up to this challenge.

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