Seven Bad Arguments Against Viewpoint Diversity 

The fall issue of Academe magazine, the organ of the American Association of University Professors, an organization that used to promote academic freedom, prominently features an essay by Lisa Siraganian, Professor of Comparative Thought and Literature at Johns Hopkins University. Siraganian denounces what she calls “Viewpoint Diversity,” complaining that advocates of viewpoint diversity offer no definition of the term, yet she herself fails to define the term. She does advance seven, or perhaps really six, numbered “theses” against viewpoint diversity, including, with a remarkable absence of self-irony, “Thesis 5. Viewpoint diversity is incoherent.” Naturally she thinks so, since she has not defined the term. But the lack of any definition of what she opposes does not stop her from making other assertions about viewpoint diversity. In particular, she contends that, whatever she thinks it is—and she’s not telling—it can only be a good thing if (a) more viewpoints are good per se or (b) additional points of view are useful in triangulation of the one truth.  

The author insists that if advocates of viewpoint diversity “really” believe what they say, they will take time out of their busy lives to address her point of view. It does not occur to her that her plea for those whose viewpoints diverge from her own to voice their views is itself a call for viewpoint diversity.  

To help with the discussion, here’s a definition: viewpoint diversity refers to the mutual tolerance of people holding ideas across a spectrum of perspectives. This includes idiosyncratic ideas held by experts about their own field, diverse perspectives taken by members of different disciplines within a division (for example physics and biology) and across different divisions of human inquiry (e.g., the humanities and the sciences), and diverse ideas about the issues of the day that play out beyond the customary bailiwick of the academy, e.g., global warming or the alliance with Israel.  

The central fallacy driving Siraganian’s essay is the assertion that the existence of truth precludes diverse viewpoints. One might as well say that stereoscopic vision is based on a lie, as at least one of your eyes must be “wrong,” and so you should leave at least one of your eyes permanently closed. Of course, the truth is better understood when viewed from numerous perspectives, which is why universities have so many academic departments, and why faculty members require freedom to think independently about their disciplines.  

Let’s consider Siraganian’s first talking point: “Thesis 1. Viewpoint diversity functions in direct opposition to the pursuit of truth, the principal aim of academia.” She notes that once DNA was found to form a double helix, all legitimate debate was over, as the “Truth” had been revealed. And Siraganian ends her defense of her first thesis by noting that many in her own discipline “avoid the language of truth” but believe there is such a truth. None of this is an argument against promoting multiple perspectives on the truth. Fortunately, there were diverse viewpoints on the matter of DNA until Watson and Crick’s decisive discovery, and while the evidence continues to support the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule, it turns out that not all DNA is diploid: some species have as many as six mutually redundant sets of chromosomes. Have there been comparably decisive discoveries in Siraganian’s discipline of comparative literature? If so, what are they? 

It should be apparent on the slightest reflection that in different disciplines truth will take different forms, and that in some of them the contestation over truth will remain unresolved on many questions. It would have been interesting to see how a humanist reconciles the various definitions of the word “truth” across academic disciplines: how does the truth of a work of art or moral philosophy line up with the Boolean definition of truth in probability, or with the validity of a falsifiable scientific claim, for example about the structure of DNA?   

A classic example of where viewpoint diversity gets us even in “hard” science is Alfred Wegener’s theory of continental drift. While Wegener was not believed by his critics, his point of view circulated in the scientific community, and eventually, long after his death, the ancillary structure needed to explain how it worked was developed. Today Wegener’s theory has become an integral part of geology. More generally, every discovery begins as a divergent viewpoint.  

A core failure of Siraganian’s worldview is its fundamental misperception of science as a source of revealed truth. Instead of Moses returning from the mountain top with stone tablets, Siraganian seems to portray Watson and Crick emerging from their lab with the double helix. In this mischaracterization of the scientific process, God has been replaced by X-ray crystallography, but the truth is now revealed and it cannot be questioned. The truth is that the scientific method is an ongoing process using evidence to place theories in jeopardy of being shown wrong. All theories are subject to repeated testing and to potential invalidation—this is what gives surviving theories their credibility.  

Even Siraganian’s own strongest source for her first thesis, a 2004 column by Stanley Fish, does not lend her the support she thinks it does. Fish did not categorically say that truth and intellectual diversity were directly opposed, as Siraganian does. He merely rejected viewpoint diversity as “an end in itself,” calling it instead an instrumental good. 

Which brings us to Siraganian’s second numbered point, the claim that viewpoint diversity can work only as an instrumental value. This was Fish’s view; he remarked that in the pursuit of truth “the serious embrace of that purpose precludes deciding what the truth is in advance, or ruling out certain accounts of the truth before they have been given a hearing, or making evaluations of those accounts turn on the known or suspected political affiliations of those who present them.” That is a very strong case for diversity as a means to the end of truth. It may well be that here, as in other cases, the instrumental good under discussion is the indispensable means to the end we seek. Yet the utility of diverse perspectives as a means of reaching the truth does not preclude their intrinsic value; having a poet’s perception of the moon can enrich one’s spirit as well as viewing the orb through an astronomer’s lens.  

But Siraganian misses these points entirely. Instead, after quoting a sober opinion piece by the Harvard social scientist Tyler VanderWeele, who modestly suggested that universities give a hearing to “views [that] are held by a large portion of the population, have not been clearly refuted, and influence culture and policy,” she wonders aloud whether that means “QAnon” is representative of viewpoint diversity—an obvious caricature of VanderWeele’s point.  

Her third and seventh numbered points overlap considerably: “Thesis 3.  Viewpoint diversity assumes a partisan goal based on unproven assumptions,” and “Thesis 7. Viewpoint diversity is an argument made in bad faith.” Both of these boil down to the single claim that viewpoint diversity is simply an excuse for promoting conservative political thought on university campuses. This, to be fair, was Fish’s worry two decades ago as well. But many accomplished conservatives in the academy can attest, from hard experience, that whole departments are closed to their points of view, not because they are false but because the critical mass of faculty in those departments believe they are false and do not want to expose their own views to searching criticism. Hiring for intellectual orthodoxy is a familiar pattern going back many decades by now. 

But such orthodoxy manifestly does students no good. Siraganian dismisses with scare quotes the extensive evidence stretching back over the course of years that conservative and moderate students are afraid to express their views on campus for fear of being ostracized by their classmates. But her sneer is not an argument. She is remarkably unconcerned about the plight of conservatives on campus, claiming that remedying discrimination against them “would not resolve, or even address, an academic issue, dilemma, or debate.” It would be child’s play to identify many such issues and debates that would be more fruitful and productive of truth-seeking were there more points of view in the room. 

Siraganian’s fourth thesis is this: “Viewpoint diversity undermines disciplinary and specialized knowledge and standards as well as the autonomy of academic reasoning and scholarship,” a claim that falls under its own weight. Disciplinary and specialized knowledge are manifestations of viewpoint diversity! “Rejecting intellectually unsuitable ideas” is what academic freedom protects the right of faculty experts to do, she says, which is true up to a point. But once again Siraganian confounds the humanities and the softer social sciences with the hard sciences—as though a philosophy department with no room, say, for Aristotelian virtue ethics is no different from a chemistry department that refuses to countenance the “phlogiston theory of heat.” Surely it is apparent even to Siraganian that the assertion that something is “intellectually unsuitable” can be an expression of mere prejudice rather than of warranted certainty. 

And here is her sixth thesis: “Viewpoint diversity has already been used, both in the United States and abroad, to attack higher education and stifle academic freedom.” By this she seems to mean that the slogan “viewpoint diversity” has been used as an excuse for various policies she doesn’t like. One notes that the common defense, the promotion of public health, and loyalty to one’s family and friends have each been invoked for evil ends. Is this an argument against any of these laudable goals? Of course not. Whether policies being implemented in many universities today—where legislators and donors have backed the creation of new programs such as civics education claiming to expand viewpoint diversity— actually succeed is an interesting question that needs to be addressed case by case. In some cases the policies achieve their goal; in some cases perhaps they do not. But the failure of a program purporting to promote a range of views is no more a refutation of the idea of intellectual diversity than a counterfeit dollar bill is an indictment of monetary policy.   

In the end, Siraganian’s seven theses mostly collapse from their own structural inadequacy as arguments. Sneers, exaggerations, false comparisons, and non sequiturs are what her theses have going for them. In these respects, she neatly illustrates the need for the intellectual challenge viewpoint diversity promises, on her own campus and others.

Image licensed via Adobe Stock.