Campus Leaders Can’t Avoid Viewpoint Diversity in Pursuit of Open Inquiry

How recent pronouncements of reform could result in a divide across the academy

The 2025-6 academic year opened with college presidents across the country affirming their commitment to building cultures of open inquiry on their campuses. To restore public trust in universities, many of these leaders declared that they planned to embark on internal reforms, effectively bringing their campus cultures more in line with the ideals of knowledge-seeking that HxA has long championed.

In my visits to campuses across the country this Fall — including Berkeley, Cornell, Furman, and UNC — I can attest that the early-semester pronouncements are increasingly being backed by action. Many colleges are adopting programs to teach students the principles of free expression, including the rationale for time, place, manner rules, and it’s now hard to find a campus that hasn’t launched some version of “bridge-building,” “dialogue-across-differences,” or “constructive disagreement” programming.

Even more striking was the breadth of good-will from college presidents and senior leaders toward Heterodox Academy — toward HxA members and Campus Communities, and towards me personally on these visits. From university leaders joining me publicly to discuss building lasting cultures of open inquiry, to administrators hosting substantive conversations and campus-wide events on institutional neutrality, the pattern was consistent: HxA is increasingly viewed as a constructive partner in their efforts. As more HxA members and Campus Communities move into positions of leadership on campus, a clear shift is underway: we’re viewed less as isolated “campus contras” and more as sought-after, principled allies who can help translate support for open inquiry into lasting policies, initiatives, and campus reform.

On that point, however, I have a final observation to share. And this is a big one.

Despite campus leaders’ renewed commitment to open inquiry, it’s largely understood as the free exchange of ideas and constructive disagreement. However, the third pillar of open inquiry — viewpoint diversity — is rarely (if ever) explicitly mentioned by leaders as part of their commitment to open inquiry. In today’s changing campus climate, supporting free expression and respectful discussion have (thankfully) become fashionable; but viewpoint diversity remains a third rail of university life.

This is not to say that none of the university leaders I have spoken with this semester recognize the central role of viewpoint diversity towards building an authentic campus culture of open inquiry. But emerging is a national pattern that could well splinter all these reform-minded campuses into two groups.

On one side, to put it starkly, are campus leaders who believe that to build a culture of open inquiry it is enough to improve students’ understanding of the principles of free expression and their skills of constructive disagreement. On that approach, open inquiry is to encourage the habits of heart and mind needed to make better use of the forms of diversity that already exist on each campus.

On the other hand, building a culture of open inquiry requires that we dig a little deeper — and dig even in areas where the soil may at first seem less easy to work. It also requires that we bring in new people — professors, students, administrators, and even trustees — to increase the range of viewpoints actually held by people on the campus.

At HxA, we firmly believe that freedom of expression and our ability to engage constructively with others are fundamental, but if everyone on a campus thinks roughly the same way about the most important social issues of the day, then that campus has fallen into group-think — no matter how free or willing to speak people on that campus may be.

The “differences” across which “dialogues” are occurring on campus have antecedently become overly narrow. As Jon Haidt and I recently reminded readers, HxA’s very first blog post pointed to the foundational importance of improving viewpoint diversity for the good of the scholarship produced at universities. Reforms of this sort — deeper and more difficult to accomplish though they may be — are essential to building enduring cultures of open inquiry on campuses and within disciplines. For reforms of this deeper sort, we need inside reformers like you, the members of HxA.

I do not mean to understate the importance of the movement to recommit universities to the ideals of free expression and constructive disagreement. One of the greatest achievements of our university system over the past 75 has been to begin including talented people from identity and class groups that had for too long been excluded from higher education, often most glaringly at elite universities. But one of the greatest failings of our universities in recent years has been to misuse the new diversity on campus, dividing students and balkanizing our campuses. Breaking down these self-erected barriers on campus is vital work, and HxA applauds every campus leader who is undertaking it. Nonetheless, we must aim higher still.

If our universities are to regain the trust of the public, university leaders need to recommit their institutions to knowledge-seeking as their highest purpose. This means working with HxA members, our Campus Communities, and other campus leaders to build whole cultures of open inquiry on their campuses by unleashing the free exchange of ideas, investing in constructive disagreement, as well as insisting on viewpoint diversity.

We are delighted that so many college presidents are now working with HxA members on their campuses to address the first two points. But we now also need leaders to take up the deeper challenge of viewpoint diversity as well. HxA is ready to help.