Are Colleges Failing ‘Haidt’s Choice’? Betsy DeVos Says Yes. Jonathan Haidt Isn’t So Sure.

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Jonathan Haidt didn’t know that Betsy DeVos, the U.S. education secretary, would be quoting him. In fact, it was something of a surprise.

Yes, the social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business has become a leading critic of the openness (or lack thereof) of discourse on college campuses. And yes, that was DeVos’s topic on Monday, when she spoke at a celebration of Constitution Day at the National Constitution Center, in Philadelphia.

But the affinity goes only so far. Haidt, whose work focuses on political diversity in higher education, says he is against government overreach in the realm of free speech and academe. What’s more, he says, DeVos didn’t quite get his point.

In her speech, the secretary joined other members of the Trump administration, including the president, in characterizing college campuses as unwelcoming of speech and diverse viewpoints. She accused colleges of shielding students from ideas they disagree with and allowing protesters to use the the “heckler’s veto” to silence speakers they disagree with. (Without being specific, DeVos, who was booed last year while delivering a commencement speech at Bethune-Cookman University, suggested she had been the victim of such tactics.)

Then, as part of an argument that universities no longer hold the pursuit of an objective truth as one of their main tenets, she invoked Haidt:

“Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist and professor at New York University, argues that institutions of learning cannot pledge to pursue truth and at the same time oblige ‘a welcoming atmosphere,’ ‘civility,’ or even ‘social justice,’” DeVos said. “The latter are to be voluntarily embraced by each member of the community. A school, on the other hand, must make a choice as to its purpose. Let’s call it ‘Haidt’s choice’: Pursue truth or pursue harmony.”

Pursuing Truth, or Not

That formulation sounds simple. In fact, Haidt says, DeVos oversimplified his argument. She apparently raised some points from a talk he gave at Duke University in 2016, he says, in which he argued that a university could choose to hold one core tenet — a “telos,” as he put it. Traditionally, he went on, that tenet had been the pursuit of truth. But in recent years, he said, some universities had chosen social justice as their telos.

Haidt’s argument is nuanced — and available in its entirety here — but roughly speaking, it’s this: You can have only one telos. That doesn’t mean a university can’t strive to create a “welcoming atmosphere” or a “civil environment.” Those just can’t be the main goal if the pursuit of truth is essential.

“Many of my projects are attempts to foster harmony, civility, and mutual respect,” Haidt says. “But I would not expect a university to say, ‘Our purpose for being here, the very reason for the existence of this university, is to foster friendship, solidarity, harmony, and civility.’”

For Haidt a bigger concern is also at play. For years the professor has argued that the culture wars in America are damaging to colleges. The advocacy group he helped found, Heterodox Academy, strives to support political diversity on campuses. The government doesn’t need to push colleges, he says, because they’re capable of changing themselves, free of interference.

“I think the political world is playing a very different game, and it’s a game that almost always damages our ability to do our work in universities,” he says.

The Trump administration doesn’t seem to share that opinion. When asked for comment on Haidt’s remarks, an Education Department spokeswoman, Elizabeth Hill, pointed to DeVos’s saying in Philadelphia that change wouldn’t come from “government muscle,” from new laws, or “from a ‘speech police’ at the U.S. Department of Education.” But under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department has filed four statements of interest in cases in which colleges have been accused of restricting free speech. Sessions also said colleges are creating “a generation of sanctimonious, sensitive, supercilious snowflakes” in a speech at a meeting held by Turning Point USA, a conservative group that focuses on college students.

Just on Monday the Justice Department held its own Constitution Day event, holding a forum on free speech on college campuses in which Sessions gave the opening remarks. During his comments, he made clear that the Justice Department’s combative stance toward higher education wouldn’t end anytime soon.

“It is time to stand up to the bullies on campus and in our culture,” Sessions’ prepared remarks read. “There are radicals out there now that have openly and systematically justified actions that would deny Americans the right to speak out against their ideological agenda. We must put an end to this nonsense. It is time to put a stake in its heart.”

Chris Quintana is a staff reporter. Follow him on Twitter @cquintanadc or email him at chris.quintana@chronicle.com.