Explaining her “Dartmouth Dialogues” programme to foster empathetic discussion on controversial issues, Sian Leah Beilock told journalists: “It’s not a secret that higher education has a trust problem. Our responsibility is to show we can produce students who can think across difference.”
Since then, her university and others across the United States have been forced to review security measures as they seek – under fierce political scrutiny – to promote free speech against a backdrop of intensifying political polarisation and violence in the US.
The student-run Dartmouth Political Union, which swiftly issued a statement condemning the murder of Charlie Kirk, is now considering how to proceed with a “Politics of Youth” debate it had scheduled later this month between Kirk and the left-wing social media influencer Hasan Piker.
Elsewhere, there were calls for tighter scrutiny of guests, but student organisers, speakers and universities alike stressed their continued commitment to free speech including events on contentious topics.
RM Block
Robert Shibley, special counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which has criticised colleges for left-wing “cancel culture” but supported them against the Trump administration’s clampdown on alleged anti-Semitism on campuses, said: “We’ll see a greater emphasis on security, with events indoors, almost always in smaller venues.”
JT Marshburn, chair of the College Republican National Committee and a student at the University of Georgia, said: “I’m hearing some security concerns but I’ve told our membership to not be afraid of hosting these speakers. We cannot kowtow to the mob. I call on universities to look out for their students’ best interests and work with local public safety officials.”
Ben Shapiro, the right-wing commentator, posted on X: “We will never stop debating and discussing.” Shapiro’s editor denied reports that he had cancelled planned student events, saying, “Ben ... still plans to attend college campuses this year.”
Riley Gaines, a former collegiate swimmer and campaigner against trans women participating in women’s sports, posted that she would attend the first meeting of a planned launch of a chapter of Kirk’s Turning Point USA organisation at Vanderbilt University.
The open nature of US campuses places a heavy burden on them – Kirk’s apparent killer was not a Utah Valley University student, but a visitor to the campus.
At Wellesley College in Massachusetts, Paula Johnson, the president, stressed she had long placed focus on campus security, including scrutiny of social media posts in advance of sensitive events. The Kirk assassination “makes ever more urgent the work we are engaged in to advance pluralism and viewpoint to give our students the skills to actually have constructive dialogue”, she said.
Universities are frequently the first place young people are exposed to a wide range of views. But the campus protests sparked by Israel’s response to Hamas’s invasion on October 7th, 2023, have triggered a period of intense reflection in the higher education sector.
The latest cohort of students accepted to Wellesley was asked to include on their applications a description of how they had worked alongside people of “different backgrounds and/or perspectives”. “Civility” pledges and honour codes around tolerance and respectful discussion have spread across the country.
At Princeton, Christopher Eisgruber, the president, addressed the incoming class at the start of their orientation this month with a defence of free speech, and is holding informal discussions with student groups linked to his new book Terms of Respect on the same theme.
Caroline Mehl, executive director of the Constructive Dialogue Institute, a non-profit with programmes on 120 campuses across the US, said: “More and more academic leaders are looking to stand behind initiatives for free expression, open dialogue and constructive engagement.”
It advises “letting go of winning” in polarised debates, in favour of “focusing on understanding” by building empathy with interlocutors with different views.
Social media is definitely conducive to echo chambers. We can blame it a lot for radicalisation. We need to spend more time valuing the struggles of young men in contemporary America
— Sunjay Muralitharan, president of College Democrats of America
Rajiv Vinnakota, president of the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, says “well over” 120 college presidents have signed up to his network to tackle polarisation, with more than 40 now involved in a series of on-campus programmes it is helping support. He says universities need to focus on “not just the opt-in crowd” but students who are less engaged in political debate.
Like others, he emphasises informal “low stakes” approaches to bring students with different perspectives together. Johnson at Wellesley says she has increased outreach in dormitories with residential advisers who knock on doors and invite students to come together daily for joint activities. “You don’t choose who’s with you, so they are critically important learning grounds. It’s a low-stakes way of building community.”
However, college administrators face broader pressures that are in some ways beyond their control. The first has been managing a generation of students confronted by mental health issues because of fears about, among other things, climate change and an uncertain job market.
They are moving into adulthood after a period of enforced social isolation during pandemic lockdowns in which they turned to social media, with its emphasis on performative outrage and divisiveness.
Beilock says more face-to-face discussion is needed to resolve conflicts between students. “Roommate conflicts used to be resolved by talking. Then it went to texts and voice memos. Now it has escalated to asking for help from someone [in authority],” she says.
Sunjay Muralitharan, president of College Democrats of America, who issued a joint statement with his Republican counterpart after Kirk’s killing calling for “respectful dialogue”, said: “Social media is definitely conducive to echo chambers. We can blame it a lot for radicalisation. We need to spend more time valuing the struggles of young men in contemporary America.”
A second difficulty for colleges is tackling the wider attitudes of US society, not least from its political leaders.
“We still need to address the new permission structure that has been created for vitriolic rhetoric and violent reactions in response to political, social, and cultural disagreement,” said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
“Civil discourse needs to be modelled not only in the academy but across all sectors of society.”
– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
