Educational institutions pride themselves on their progressive environments conducive to openness of expression. In an effort to evaluate the accuracy of such statement, College Pulse and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) released their annual ranking of universities based on seven metrics: openness, tolerance for liberal speakers, tolerance for conservative speakers, administrative support for free speech, comfort expressing ideas, disruptive conduct, and speech code rating. Prestigious universities supposedly known for their diversity of thought, such as Harvard University and Yale University, almost uniformly ranked low on the list. Interested in applying these metrics to our own campus, the masthead of The Phillipian decided to evaluate Andover and our levels of free speech.
Comfort to express and tolerance to a spectrum of perspectives contribute to a campus where new and polar ideas can interact freely. However, Andover, being a close-knit community, makes expressing potentially controversial takes uncomfortable and risky. Word travels fast and resultant interactions are unavoidable. Amidst the culture of singling out the worst beliefs of an individual, one misstep feels as though it is enough to brand you with labels like “racist,” “bigot,” or “sexist.” Fear of such repercussions stymies dialogue, constricting the peer learning of students. This is evident in the political demographics of our campus. According to the 2023 “State of the Academy” (SOTA), only 8.6% of the student body identify as politically conservative. Additionally, 50.2% of students feel the need to self-censor in our community, rising to 94.7% among conservative students. It’s evident that Andover lacks tolerance for non-conforming ideologies. At Andover, “conservative” and “liberal” no longer denote ideologies; alongside terms like “woke” or “racist,” “virtue-signaling” or “ignorant,” they’ve become insults in daily conversation.
The masthead sees self-censorship occur in many parts of Andover, from mandatory Equity, Balance, and Inclusion (EBI) classes to casual discussions among friends. Several members of the board have experienced instances where a student with unconventional views was immediately shut down by either another student or even faculty. Despite the endless nuances of certain topics, Andover had adopted a reductive mindset where in tough discussions, there will always be a “righteous” side that should prevail. Members of the masthead note that during experiences in the EBI curriculum, facilitators guide classes through frameworks where the “correct” answer is mutually exclusive to the range of world views students bring into the classroom.
Facing a world with an array of complicated problems, the incompatibility of Andover’s dominant perspective is an incredible weakness. To reflexively apply negative labels and turn our attention away from a prevalent viewpoint omits valuable and needed opinions. Due to its association with truly deplorable rhetoric, many perspectives that should be discussed and taken seriously are almost immediately ostracized and shut down. Thus, the masthead of The Phillipian believes that Andover does not meet many of the criteria used by FIRE to evaluate a school’s level of free speech. Despite Andover’s claim of diversity, our community is ideologically homogeneous.
Recognizing this problem is the first step in addressing our restrictive intellectual environment. Look beyond your own presumptions about the other and consider perspectives as though they were brand new. Explore the in-between of the extremes common at Andover. Disassociate the person with the opinion and engage just with the latter. We can and must do better.
This editorial represents the opinions of The Phillipian, Vol. CXLVI
