WEBVTT

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As a teacher,

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I know the value of having
a classroom filled with students

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from different backgrounds.

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My classes on American politics are deeply
enriched by the diversity of my students.

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For example, when discussing
welfare reform,

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there's nothing like having
a brave young student raise their hand

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and talk about the challenges
of personally growing up in poverty

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to get the rest of the class
to sit up and pay attention.

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But while our colleges and universities

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make every effort to increase
the representation

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of racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities,

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there's another kind of diversity
that we often forget:

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viewpoint diversity.

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In today's increasingly
polarized political climate,

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having people on campus with different
perspectives is more important than ever.

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If you haven't noticed, Washington DC
has recently been a bit of a spectacle.

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(Laughter)

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And if you're like me,
you've probably thought

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that our leaders could use
some remedial education in civil dialogue.

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(Applause and cheers)

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Our colleges could be a place

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where our future leaders learn to engage
with people they disagree with.

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But today, too many people
on campus seem to think

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that the appropriate response
to people they disagree with

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is shouting, name-calling,
and even violence.

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Every year, every semester
brings more and more examples.

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In 2017, at Middlebury College,
when the liberal professor Allison Stanger

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tried to moderate
a free and fair exchange of ideas

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with a controversial
libertarian Charles Murray,

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students yelled, screamed,
and pulled fire alarms.

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Eventually, campus officials
tried to sneak them out of back door,

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but a mob of mass protestors found them

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and jerked professor Stanger's head

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so violently that she suffered
whiplash and a concussion.

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This is what's happening on our campuses,

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places the next generation of leaders
is learning to interact with others.

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If it's happening there,

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can we be surprised
at what's happening in Washington

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or corporate boardrooms

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or even our own neighborhoods?

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My expertise happens
to be in higher education,

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and I've seen the lack
of intellectual diversity first-hand.

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Today, less than 13 percent of professors
identify as conservative,

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while 60 percent identify
as either liberal or far left.

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In the Humanities and Social Sciences,

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fields where politics is often central
to teaching and research,

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only five percent
identify as conservative,

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and most of those are in Economics
or Political Science.

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In some fields, they're almost
an extinct species.

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And of that five percent,

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only some are even willing
to admit it to their co-workers.

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Seven years ago,
my friend John Shields and I

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decided it would be interesting to study
conservative and libertarian professors

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in the Social Sciences and Humanities.

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Everyone in the university knows

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that professors
are overwhelmingly liberal.

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But we realized that there
was almost no research

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on the experiences
of conservatives on campus.

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What are their lives like?

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Are they afraid of being punished
or that they'll be denied tenure

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because of their politics?

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We ended up interviewing
153 conservative professors.

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Much of what we found was alarming:

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One-third of them hid their politics
from their colleagues.

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They described themselves
as "in-the-closet conservatives."

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Many expressed profound fear
about being outed.

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Some even thought that our project
was a Red Scare in reverse:

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we must be trying
to identify conservatives

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so they can be run out of the university.

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One sociologist was so afraid

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that he refused to let us interview him.

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But after convincing
him that we came in peace,

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he finally agreed to talk to us

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but only far away from his office,

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where his colleagues
would never see or hear us -

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in the middle of a botanical garden.

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(Laughter)

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John and I left this interview
feeling like spies

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rather than the nerdy, socially awkward
professors that we actually are.

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(Laughter)

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Now, maybe you think
that it's not a problem

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that conservatives have to hide
behind bushes in botanical gardens,

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(Laughter)

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but if you think that diversity
is good for all of us,

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then so is viewpoint diversity.

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For one reason, it matters for teaching.

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(Applause and cheers)

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At its best,

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the university is a place where students
can learn deliberative virtues,

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like civility, toleration,
and mutual respect.

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But in a monoculture,
it's difficult to do this.

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This is a lost opportunity
for civic education.

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The university is also a place

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where students should learn
to live in a diverse society.

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For many, it's really the first time

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they're exposed to people
who are different from themselves.

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Ideally, students would learn
the best arguments

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of both the left and the right,

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not the watered-down
and inflammatory versions

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you hear on cable news
or read on social media.

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But today, it's quite possible
to receive an education -

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and an elite one at that -

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and never be exposed
to major conservative ideas,

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ideas that have, for better or worse,
profoundly influenced American politics.

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But it's not impossible.

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Robby George is one of America's
most prominent conservative professors,

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and Cornel West is one of our most
prominent African American scholars.

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He's a progressive and
a self-declared radical democrat.

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Despite their political differences,

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the two became close friends
while they were colleagues at Princeton.

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Eventually, they decided
to teach a course together.

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Doing that allowed them to show students

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how you could respectfully
engage people you disagree with

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and sharpen your own arguments
at the same time.

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Today, they have a traveling roadshow
and visit campuses around the country.

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The only sad part of their story
is that it is so rare.

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Our campuses would be far healthier places

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if their example was the norm
rather than the exception.

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(Applause)

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Another important goal of the university

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is to generate research that improves
our understanding of the world.

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But academic echo chambers, where we
only talk to people we agree with,

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undermine that mission.

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And that's because of confirmation bias.

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Confirmation bias is just
the tendency that we all have

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to accept evidence that supports
our pre-existing beliefs.

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For example, if you're like me
and drink a lot of coffee,

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at least one to two pots a day,

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(Laughter)

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you enthusiastically accept every story
about the health benefits of coffee,

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(Laughter)

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and you share them widely on social media.

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"Look, everyone, science
has confirmed my life choices."

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(Laughter)

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But if you see research showing
that coffee might be bad for you,

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"Don't tell me, I don't want
to hear about it, it can't be true."

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That's confirmation bias.

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Basically, none of us like
being told that we might be wrong,

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and that's particularly true
about our deeply held beliefs

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about things like politics,
religion, or coffee.

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When intellectually isolated
research communities form,

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no one is there to challenge their biases.

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And when that happens, groupthink sets in,
and errors go uncorrected.

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When we're divided
into groups of like-minded people,

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our positions also tend
to become more extreme.

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Just compare Boulder to Colorado Springs.

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(Laughter)

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You may have heard there are some
differences between the two communities?

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(Laughter)

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In fact, scholars have studied them.

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In one experiment, they took
a group of liberals from Boulder

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and had them talk about
controversial issues like climate change

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and same-sex marriage with each other.

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And then they took a group
of conservatives from Colorado Springs

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and had them do the same thing.

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After each group had deliberated,
their views became more extreme.

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The Boulder liberals
moved farther to the left,

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and the Colorado Springs conservatives
moved farther to the right.

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Viewpoint diversity directly affects
the quality of education we're providing

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and the quality of research
that we're producing.

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Universities, particularly administrators,
must make it a priority.

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They need to remind their campuses

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that the university depends
on the free exchange of ideas.

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And that affects everything
from hiring to guest speakers.

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Now, these changes
aren't going to happen overnight,

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but there are things that we can do
that can make a difference.

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One option is what my co-author
and I have called

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"an ideological Fulbright Program."

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The Fulbright Program
is an educational exchange program

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where American faculty and students
go abroad to study, teach, and research.

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And then non-US citizens
come here and do the same.

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America created it after World War II.

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The goal was to promote peace

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by increasing mutual
understanding across cultures.

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Something similar
would be useful here at home,

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where conservative
and progressive cultures

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rarely interact with each other on campus.

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In fact, there's already
a program much like this

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at the University of Colorado Boulder,

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where each year they bring
a conservative professor to campus.

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(Laughter)

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More faculty could also be encouraged

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to follow the example
of Robby George and Cornel West

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and teach classes
across the ideological divide.

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Many professors are already on board.

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One organization, Heterodox Academy,

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was founded in 2015
by a progressive scholar.

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It already has several thousand members.

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These faculty believe
that viewpoint diversity

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is in their own self-interest

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because it makes them
better teachers and scholars.

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But there's a deeper lesson for all of us
whether we're on campus or not.

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We all need to get out
of our comfortable political silos

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on Facebook or Twitter.

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Think about the close, personal friendship

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between the conservative
Justice Antonin Scalia

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and the liberal Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg,

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(Applause and cheers)

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the notorious RBG, as she's known.

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(Laughter)

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Before Justice Scalia died,

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there were hardly two people
on the Court who disagreed more

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about how to interpret the Constitution.

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But there were no closer friends
on the Court either.

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In fact, they also had
a traveling roadshow,

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where they went around the country

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and talked about how they disagreed
just about everything

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when it came to politics
or constitutional interpretation.

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Their odd-couple relationship
even inspired someone to write an opera

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about their peculiar friendship.

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(Laughter)

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When Justice Scalia died,

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Justice Ginsburg wrote a moving tribute
to the man she called her best buddy.

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She said, "We disagreed now and then."

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(Laughter)

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That's a significant understatement
for anyone who studies the Supreme Court,

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but she said whenever Scalia
dissented from her opinions,

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it always made them better

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because Scalia nailed all the weak spots.

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We all need friends like that.

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We can't really do our jobs
as citizens without them.

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In the end,

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what happens in the ivory tower
doesn't stay in the ivory tower

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because today's student
is tomorrow's leader.

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A diversity of ideas will make us
better leaders, neighbors, voters,

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but only if we get a chance to hear them.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)