Democracy and Disagreement: Applying What We've Learned

In the last class of the series, faculty leads Paul Brest and Debra Satz and a panel of students reflect on the course and discuss some of the rhetorical techniques of past presenters.
Deep disagreement pervades our democracy, from arguments over immigration, gun control, abortion, and the Middle East crisis, to the function of elite higher education and the value of free speech itself. Loud voices drown out discussion. Open-mindedness and humility seem in short supply among politicians and citizens alike. Yet constructive disagreement is an essential feature of a democratic society. This class explores and models respectful, civic disagreement. Each week features scholars who disagree - sometimes quite strongly - about major policy issues. Each class will be focused on a different topic and have guest speakers. Students will have the opportunity to probe those disagreements, understand why they persist even in the light of shared evidence, and to improve their own understanding of the facts and values that underlie them.
This course is offered in the spirit of the observation by Hanna Holborn Gray, former president of the University of Chicago, that “education should not be intended to make people comfortable, it is meant to make them think. Universities should be expected to provide the conditions within which hard thought, and therefore strong disagreement, independent judgment, and the questioning of stubborn assumptions, can flourish in an environment of the greatest freedom.”
ABOUT THE SERIES:
Democracy and Disagreement
Debra Satz, the Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, and Paul Brest, interim dean and professor emeritus at Stanford Law School, host faculty members on opposing sides of a given issue for discussions that model civil disagreement.