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Striking a delicate balance in colleges between unpleasantly heated arguments and academic freedom Students have every right to voice out their views just as anyone else and a lot of them sure do. Universities have seen many a student condemning gay marriage and abortion. Conservatives lash out at the bailout plan of President Obama. While healthy and interactive discussions are always welcome, those in the universities turn out to be quite impolite and heated.

Students have always been strong in their opinions. Right from students from a generation ago protesting vociferously against Vietnam war to the recent protests and demands for the administration to take a positive and affirmative action in relation to admissions, discussions and arguments have always been heated. Colleges have definitely been hotbeds of activism.
However, the recent past has seen a host of ugly confrontations which has seen campuses promoting civil debates on an emergency basis.

Companies such as Ford Foundation have come forward to promote dialogues in universities after there were undesirable clashes and confrontation between the conservatives and liberals.
One of the colleges this foundation is focusing on is the University of Missouri which has seen a spate of harassment targeting minority students. One of the initiatives is to host “difficult dialogues”, a workshop which saw the participation of nine colleges including the Texas Tech, Texas A&M, University of Texas-Austin, Oklahoma State, University of Missouri-St. Louis, University of Kansas, Iowa State, Baylor and University of Alaska-Anchorage.

Four days were spent by the participants exchanging stories about various nasty encounters in their colleges. They also provided tips on how academic freedom can be provided even as you tolerate offensive speech and disallow any explicit religious slurs, cultural, ethnic, racial or sexual remarks.

Role playing exercises conducted in this workshop included stimulating an undesirable and violent verbal encounter between a professor of astronomy trying to keep a control on her lecture and a student vehemently opposing evolution. During the process, they learnt how to avoid calling names and indulge in unnecessary screaming and shouting. This workshop proved to be an excellent platform to learn how not to let culture wars affect university environment and how not to make colleges a political battleground.

Robert O’Neil, the Ford Foundation head says colleges require a balancing act between faculty members who are faced with constant dilemma due to endless classroom comments that are divisive and the vociferous students.

It is important to balance and fine tune the reaction of faculty. The barrage of unhealthily heated debates has resulted in an atmosphere of timidity among professors who do not want to appear too liberal and therefore avoid speaking out or confronting any intolerant outburst.

This approach results in unfair deprivation of exposure to philosophical debates and intellectual ideas which form a major part of college experiences for students. Workshops must focus on striking an amenable balance in handling debates and issues without really offending student sentiments.

More such workshops are required to train both students and professors to eliminate any undesirable issues as they indulge in proactive discussions and debates.