Andover has two new policies that are meant to guide students’ discussion on politically charged issues. Dr. Raynard Kington, Head of School, announced the policies, respectively called the Civil Discourse and Political Activity policies, in an email to the community on September 23. The policies are accompanied by revisions to the Regarding Political Activity employee policy, now also called the Civil Discourse and Political Activity policy, which outlines rules for employees on separating their political engagement from the Academy’s.
Amidst the 2024 election season and the rise in student demonstrations across the country, many colleges and universities are adopting similar policies that both regulate and provide a framework for political discourse and demonstration on campus. Andover’s Civil Discourse Policy explicitly states student demonstrations cannot interfere with Academy programming or administration, violate Community standards, or damage Academy property. Since the beginning of last year, this kind of political activity has been minimal.
Eric Denby, Instructor in History, said “I am surprised I haven’t seen any real political action on campus since I got here, which was last school year. The [Civil Discourse and Political Activity Policies] might be in anticipation, or that we’re just behind other institutions for having this document, but I don’t see a lot of protests happening to begin with.”
Head of School Dr. Raynard Kington, described how the Civil Discourse policy is an explicit extension of Andover’s core values of having diversity of thought and experience. While it aims to encourage dialogue between individuals, the policy also details the importance of using non-harmful rhetoric within these conversations.
“It was important for us to have a policy that stated explicitly what has been the implicit policy and the implicit practice of saying, ‘here are our community standards when it comes to civil discourse,” said Kington.
Kington continued, “We believe in civil discourse. We think it is important and we think students should engage in civil discourse. Part of what we do is prepare students to be engaged citizens, we want our students to be engaged with the world out there. But we also think that it’s important to have a clear statement about what our institutional and community standards are for how that discourse occurs.”
These community standards, which emphasize speaking for oneself and not the Academy, have raised questions about what institutional neutrality and non-partisanship look like in practice. The policy states, “students and student clubs are not permitted to use Academy resources in connection with a political campaign to support or oppose any candidate for public office at the federal, state, or local level (‘Candidate’).”
As a nonprofit entity, Andover is obligated under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code to remain non-partisan. Beyond the legal requirements of Andover to be non-partisan, Kington noted how the policy was created to establish Andover as a space that supports community-wide political engagement.
“Neutrality is a means to an end. The end is engaging with ideas and struggling with complicated ideas, even ideas you disagree with, because that’s our mission to educate. And you cannot educate at a high level without students, faculty, and our community being able to engage with ideas. That is how I would characterize [institutional neutrality] as a tool that creates the circumstances that allow students to learn optimally and develop the critical thinking skills that are part of our educational mission,” said Kington.
Kington continued on to highlight how students should not express their personal beliefs in ways that could be conflated with Andover’s institutional beliefs. While not explicitly mentioned in the new written policies, he said that students should not visibly hang political flags outside of their dorm windows, a contrast to past elections where multiple students visibly displayed campaign posters.
“All of us have to think about when we do something that could be construed as speaking on behalf of the institution. For example, having a political sign on the outer wall of your dorm, hanging out of your window. That could be construed as a statement of the institution. Having that sign on the inside of your room is unlikely to be construed as being a statement about the institution, from the institution,” said Kington.
This change seems to mirror the updated employee policy, which states “Faculty and other community members who reside in Academy owned or rented residences are not allowed to display any signage endorsing or opposing a candidate for public office at the federal, state, or local level, party, or ballot measure in a manner that is visible to those who do not reside in their residence.”
Although the policy supports political dialogue in nonpartisan environments, it does not state any places specifically aimed for fostering this discourse. Rania Ali-Svedsater ’26 hopes that the school will provide students with physical spaces and opportunities to talk about politically charged issues in the future.
“There aren’t any spaces that are explicitly for civil discourse as of yet. Civil discourse on campus happens between people in a more informal setting versus on a grander scale. There should be more opportunities for students to voice their opinions potentially at bigger events or, for example, ASM. There should be more initiatives implemented by the school in order to expand civil discourse, but there is definitely a culture that enables students to put their opinions forward,” said Ali-Svedsater.
Similarly, Sergia Hay, Instructor in Philosophy and Religious Studies, said she appreciates that the new policies guide students in how they should express their political viewpoints. Hay highlighted the importance of developing informed opinions when navigating controversial subjects.
“I hope these changes will prompt all of us to think of new, concrete examples of how to live out the Blue Book values, particularly how to ‘cultivate relationships with a diverse group of people.’ I think that being willing to appreciate the complexity and diversity of human thought and experience takes courage and an open mind and heart. It also requires practice and an acknowledgment that sometimes we won’t do it well, yet we should keep at it. High school is a great time to start doing this, as you’ll want to start honing your own carefully thought-out positions rather than being swept away with the boisterous crowd,” wrote Hay in an email to The Phillipian.
Andover has several student-created spaces for political conversations through political clubs and unions. Pragun Seth ’25, co-president of Andover Political Union (APU) and Andover Conservative Club (ACC), felt that the new policies would not change student’s political activity on campus, but instead encourage discussion. He mentioned that the APU and ACC already facilitated safe spaces for students to discuss without judgment.
“From my understanding, the new policies are to ensure that we aren’t using our resources to enforce candidates. What that really means is that we give people the opportunity to discuss and disagree… I don’t think [the policies are] going to change much because I haven’t seen [students] misusing academy resources or misusing their positions to force their political views on others,” said Seth.
Denby hopes that this policy will lead to more conversations between adults and students in the coming year.
“What I would like to see is if there will be any follow up to this policy at an institutional level. How can we talk about it with our students, whether it’s in cluster meetings or an all school meeting, in some way that we can actually unpack the usefulness of this policy, because the knee jerk reaction from some students is, ‘here’s another policy, here’s another set of rules we’ve got to follow.’ There wasn’t as much explanation as to why these rules are important. Granted, there was an email and it did explain, but just one email isn’t going to [have an] impact. I assume many students didn’t read the email or just quickly read it. There needs to be follow-up conversations,” said Denby.
