Heterodox Academy Launches Columbia Chapter
The nonprofit aims to bring more viewpoint diversity and a healthy exchange of ideas to the academy.
Columbia and Barnard have a viewpoint diversity problem. In 2022, the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology ranked Columbia 140th out of 159 leading schools for viewpoint diversity, as measured by the ideological diversity of the student body. The study ranked Barnard second to last. In contrast, less elite state schools, such as the University of Arkansas, which the study ranked first, tended to maintain a better balance of liberals, moderates, and conservatives.
Elite schools in particular are struggling not with demographic diversity but with ideological diversity. A diverse ideological community enriches students’ educational experience by exposing them to a wide variety of ideas and improves research by encouraging new solutions and fighting confirmation bias.
The nonprofit organization Heterodox Academy, or HxA, seeks to address academia’s longstanding lack of viewpoint diversity. NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt founded HxA in 2015 because he saw firsthand how the lack of ideological diversity in psychology negatively impacted research quality and credibility. The organization has 50 official chapters, known as the Campus Community Network, with thousands of affiliated professors, students, and faculty members. According to HxA’s website, its members work together to combat the “rise of orthodoxy in scholarly culture” through dialectical conversations rooted in “open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement.”
Columbia joins the HxA Campus Community Network
HxA’s mission resonated with Anthony Rispo (GS ’25), who also studies psychology. Rispo became a member of Heterodox Academy in 2021 and founded the Columbia chapter last year.
According to Rispo, who serves as co-chair of Columbia’s chapter, HxA’s mission isn’t to change anyone’s mind or make people maintain ideologically consistent beliefs. Rather, their mission is to recognize and lean into the reality that people can and do have nuanced, dynamic views.
While the chapter’s events are yet to be announced, there is perhaps more value in what they represent than what they plan to do. Rispo considers HxA to be not just a non-profit but a broader “cultural mechanistic response to the cognitive rigidity-at-large within academic domains and spaces.” Their goal is the creation of “healthy, dialectical conversations. . . and an exchange of ideas.”
“While it isn't the case that professors and the administration are explicitly mandating that students think a certain way, the lack of viewpoint diversity both on campus at large and in the classroom setting is effectively coagulating our potential as a body of scholars," Rispo wrote in a statement to Sundial.
Joe Terwilliger, co-chair of the Columbia chapter and professor of neurobiology, echoed Rispo’s sentiments. “I find it boring to talk to people who agree with me all the time, as you learn more by talking to people who disagree respectfully and are willing to listen and engage in real conversations,” Terwilliger wrote in a statement. He believes HxA can help fill this role on college campuses.
Rispo finds that because it is often the “vocal minority of college campuses that sow disorder and chaos,” the silent majority chooses to self-censor, fearing social ostracization from “upsetting the equilibrium.”
To combat self-censorship, Rispo hopes to combat the University’s “neurotic” campus policies that he believes are often full of “double standards.” To him, these administrative policies seemingly mean well but reflect a form of “top-down censorship” that comes at the expense of viewpoint diversity.
Is viewpoint diversity a conservative cause?
Rispo first became interested in challenging what he saw as political orthodoxy during the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in 2014. He said the social pressures, bandwagon, and ostracization he witnessed catalyzed his interest in promoting viewpoint diversity. Rispo and other members see HxA as a refuge from the negative effects of political polarization.
Yet, HxA’s focus on bringing more viewpoint diversity to academia, which at most schools means more conservatives and non-liberals, and its promotion of free speech, which many now see as a conservative cause, have led some to label the organization as right-leaning. When I asked Rispo and Terwilliger whether they were worried about this perception, they pushed back on these characterizations.
“I don't think HxA is right-leaning…that said HxA seeks to attract people who want to talk with folks who disagree, and see the world differently. We don't want to attract people from left or right who demonize the other and don't want to exchange ideas with them in a civil and friendly manner,” Terwilliger wrote.
Rispo recognizes why those on the Left may be hesitant to join HxA. He cites Jonathan Haidt’s departure from The Society for Personality and Social Psychology over their mandated adoption of DEI goals as an example of why some view HxA as right-leaning. However, Rispo believes these characterizations are a result of the organization’s mission to challenge orthodoxy, rather than a result of any political bias.
“A dissenting view should not automatically characterize a person as good or bad. Unfortunately, for many who subscribe to identity politics, a dissenting opinion from the other side of the discussion is experienced as a shorthand for a person lacking in moral clarity,” Rispo said.
To explain the leftist critiques, Rispo cited the idea of “symbolic racism” from social psychologists David Sears and Donald Kinder’s seminal 1981 paper. After the Civil Rights Movement, many white people shifted their bigotry from explicit expressions of racism to symbolic expressions by conveying their disagreement with social policies such as desegregation busing. Rispo believes that when people on the left accuse HxA of conservative bias, they are misapplying the concept of symbolic racism. He says leftists see HxA’s emphasis on questioning campus orthodoxies like DEI or affirmative action as a similar kind of symbolic bigotry, which many leftists associate with conservatism. In reality, he says, HxA questions orthodoxies regardless of where they originate.
Where HxA goes from here
On April 22, HxA Columbia sent a letter to University President Minouche Shafik, offering the club’s support in “maintaining a campus community that is free, vibrant, safe, intellectually diverse, and just.”
In the letter, the HxA student officers and co-chairs affirmed the shared values Shafik outlined in her testimony to Congress in the April 17 campus antisemitism hearing. These include fostering an environment of intellectual inquiry, promoting viewpoint diversity, and creating a welcoming community for all.
HxA also proposed four initiatives to “improve campus culture and promote our shared values.” First, they proposed organizing “a series of reasoned dialogues between scholars, writers, activists, and leaders with different perspectives” on pressing issues. Second, they proposed hosting “a lecture series featuring scholars of high standing to expose students to a diverse range of perspectives.” Third, they advocated for the creation of an “online forum for students to ask questions and air their concerns to the university Administration.” Fourth, they suggest the University convey the rules of conduct, the rationale behind them, and the consequences for violating them during new student orientation.
Columbia's free speech and self-censorship issues run deep, and it is unrealistic to expect dramatic shifts in the administration’s commitment (or lack thereof) to viewpoint diversity. But, HxA’s approach to honest dialogue can bring about a meaningful deconstruction of cult-like orthodoxies and challenge every student’s ideological biases. Improving our ability to speak freely and question different political viewpoints as students is a major step toward building a more ideologically pluralistic community.
To join the Columbia Chapter, visit columbiahxa.org. Visit linktr.ee/columbia_hxa to stay informed on all things HxA.
Imaan Chaudhry is a sophomore at Columbia College studying history and a staff editor for Sundial.