AU is a very proud school. We are proud of our location, our history and our academics. We boast new buildings, amazing professors and our top rate study abroad program.
We are also very proud of our diversity. From religion to socioeconomic background to race, we are known for attracting students from a wide range of backgrounds. I am very proud of American’s commitment in this area, especially the efforts of our Center for Diversity & Inclusion.
But as forward thinking as AU students are when it comes to LGBTQA inclusiveness or first-generation accommodation, I can’t help but feel like we are slipping behind when it comes to one area of inclusiveness: our tolerance for different political beliefs.
As a school renowned for political activism and “Being in the Know,” it is frustrating to see how intolerant we can be sometimes of different beliefs.
I have seen female students asked how they reconcile their Republican affiliation and the fact that they are a woman. I’ve watched conservative students belittle liberal outrage over the shootings of Trayvon Martin or, more recently, Michael Brown.
I was also embarrassed by the walk-out protest against former Vice President Dick Cheney last March. Those students and the students who interrupted Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s speech in February 2012 reflect poorly on our school and make us appear intolerant of different opinions and viewpoints.
We all have stories like these and neither side of the political spectrum is without blame. And maybe it’s not our fault.
A recent study by the Pew Research Center shows that,
“Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines – and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive – than at any point in the last two decades.”
More and more, Americans are isolating themselves from differing opinions, choosing where they live, who they’re friends with and what news they watch by political ideology. I fear that AU is becoming a reflection of this deep polarization.
So the question we should ask ourselves is: should we allow the tide of polarization to infect this school or should we swim against the current?
I personally believe we owe it to our own history and the country to hold ourselves to a higher standard. The sense of public service and community runs deep in this school, from the founding of the school of public affairs in the midst of the New Deal to the present-day Freshman Service Experience.
We should be setting the example to other schools and to the rest of the country by encouraging dissent, debate and discussion with one another. Instead, we seem to encourage polarization, with too many students becoming more entrenched in their views the longer they are here.
While I worry that there may be little appetite for civility I also know that neither party has a monopoly on good ideas. Liberals, conservatives and independents all stand to gain from listening to one another.
Take the Affordable Care Act, for instance. The central tenet of the law – the individual mandate – originated at the Heritage Foundation. Whether you like the law or not, there is no disputing that liberals would have preferred a single-payer system and conservatives would have preferred a more hands-off, market-driven solution.
I could talk in circles about issues of partisanship at the national level, but my main point is this: AU students can and should do better when it comes to political tolerance.
So, to all the freshmen out there, and for the upperclassmen who are still reading this, recognize that soon we will all enter the so-called real world. And if we enter this world more partisan than when we entered this school, and if we continue the trend of polarization, we are no better than the talking heads on MSNBC or Fox News.
So the next time the conservative in your class speaks up, listen instead of interrupting. And the next time AU Democrats host an event, attend, even if you disagree with the speaker politically. If we can’t do something so simple here, then how can we expect political tolerance to thrive elsewhere?
Glenn Holmes is a senior in the School of Public Affairs.
