If you ask students whether they think Brown is an inclusive university, most would probably respond positively. After all, Brown students have done an excellent job upholding the doctrines of religious and cultural inclusivity. The campus brims with vibrancy of cultural groups such as the South Asian Students’ Association, the African Students’ Association and many more. In my own experiences with the Brown Muslim Students’ Association, I have seen genuine curiosity and acceptance of minority religious groups.
But there have been repeated incidents at Brown when students fail to foster a welcoming atmosphere of political inclusivity and diversity. One such incident even began in the pages of The Herald. In response to his now infamous column on voting rights (“Universal suffrage is immoral,” Nov. 13, 2012), Oliver Hudson ’14 received a barrage of insults and derogatory remarks.
As radical and provocative as Hudson’s views were, they do not justify ad hominem attacks that do more to halt conversation than to promote it. Fortunately, Hudson himself acknowledged that many people wrote thoughtful, informed critiques of his arguments, which may demonstrate this behavior is not severely widespread.
Thus, even after seeing the backlash to Hudson’s article, I still refused to believe that most Brown students would ever unintelligently debase a minority view, even a controversial one.
I especially did not believe students would do so in person. But during the activities fair in early September, members of the Brown Republicans reported that, while sitting at their booth, they were given the middle finger by other students.
At first, I was surprised something like this could have occurred on a campus as inviting as Brown’s. But then it dawned on me that we often practice a double standard of inclusivity. We are incredibly inclusive toward a wide range of sexual orientations, races and cultural identities, but not toward political philosophies.
This indecent behavior arises from a commitment to liberalism so dogmatic that one begins to expect everyone else on campus to hold the same views. When some students, for example, express their support of the Republican Party, it is not uncommon for them to be stigmatized without even having a chance to justify their beliefs.
Liberals often accuse the Republican Party of advocating racist and discriminatory practices against minorities and other groups. But when a Republican is immediately ostracized due to a blind assumption that his views are backwards or bigoted, that is discrimination in itself. Republicans at Brown have been targeted similarly. We should treat these students not as gun-wielding racists ready to background check the clothes off us but rather as peers equally entitled to voice their views.
Some might argue that at a college as liberal as Brown, it is not feasible to implement a doctrine of political inclusivity. But if Brown students really are liberal, shouldn’t we uphold the values that have traditionally underpinned liberalism — like free speech and political equality?
Fortunately, there are positive signs of combatting political monism and exclusivity on campus. Organizations like the Brown Political Forum provide a venue for minority political views to be voiced. These groups advocate intelligent discourse, where civilized debates on topics such as market economies and military intervention can help drown out political ignorance. BPF and like-minded groups serve a critical function on campus. As the group notes on its webpage, current political groups “tend to be an echo chamber of like-minded opinions with little to no acknowledgement of opposing positions.” Many of our peers will go on to careers in politics, and it is important for them to respect the views of others.
I am not proposing that we need to increase the number of Republicans on campus to foster a sense of political inclusivity. Rather, we should remember that any student with a minority political view should be respected just as much as minorities in other categories on campus are. In addition, it is our responsibility as a community to protect the right of political minorities to express their views, no matter how extreme they may be. Until the political culture at Brown changes to adopt this tenet, our community will continue to fall short of achieving a true sense of tolerance and inclusivity.
Faiz Khan ’15 is a (confused) liberal who hopes people think more critically about their political leanings.
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