Stanford University has announced a new, university-wide initiative, ePluribus Stanford, designed to empower students to think critically and empathetically, engage in meaningful conversations across their differences, and embrace active, life-long roles in civic life through whatever field or career path they pursue.  

The initiative, which builds on Stanford’s long commitment to civic purpose, comes at a critical time for democracy and freedom of expression in the country. 

“Freedom of speech and academic freedom are critically important,” said Stanford Provost Jenny Martinez. “To create an environment in which free ideas flourish, though, it’s not enough to just avoid official censorship. We hear a lot about self-censorship, and about people feeling like their ideas and voices aren’t being heard and valued in the conversation on campus. To address those concerns, we need to cultivate a culture of openness and curiosity in our community. What’s more, we need to help students develop the skills to think critically and to engage constructively. These are essential to the university’s mission of research and education, and also to sustaining democracy in the broader society.” 

ePluribus Stanford is led by two Stanford professors who have both overseen programming to elevate civic engagement and constructive discourse on campus: Norman W. Spaulding, the Nelson Bowman Sweitzer and Marie B. Sweitzer Professor of Law, and Dan Edelstein, the Nehal and Jenny Fan Raj Director of COLLEGE, and the William H. Bonsall Professor of French in the School of Humanities and Sciences (H&S). Debra Satz, the Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of Humanities and Sciences, also serves as senior advisor and university liaison. 

The initiative aspires to develop new programming that emphasizes the importance of civic engagement, democracy, and pluralism across all aspects of its research and educational mission. 

Renewing Stanford’s civic purpose 

ePluribus Stanford continues a long tradition, dating back to the university’s Founding Grant, of preparing students to be engaged leaders working together toward the greater good. To further this commitment, Stanford has been investing in the civic education space in recent years. For example, Stanford redesigned its core first-year curriculum – Civic, Liberal, and Global Education (COLLEGE) – to unite the study of democratic citizenship with the development of skills for having intellectually rich, open-minded, and productive dialogue. The winter module in the COLLEGE three-quarter sequence, Citizenship in the 21st Century, is currently taken by approximately two-thirds of all entering undergraduate students.

Meanwhile, advanced courses and research opportunities can be found across the curriculum for students to further study the ideas and practices of civics and democratic citizenship, notably through the Stanford Civics Initiative a university-wide effort directed by Josh Ober that is split between H&S and the Hoover Institution. There is also the Stanford Democracy Hub which serves to elevate and amplify Stanford’s collective scholarship, teaching, and programming that strengthen democracy and connect the people central to these efforts. 

At Stanford Law School, Spaulding co-founded an organization that prepares law students to engage peers, judges, clients, adversaries, and strategic partners who often have sharply conflicting interests, identities, and viewpoints. “Stanford has world-class research and education on democracy and civic engagement for students who seek out specialized courses and faculty research mentors,” Spaulding said. 

Students have also helped cultivate a culture of civic engagement in recent years, creating Democracy Day, launching Stanford Votes, and reviving the Stanford Political Union, among other examples. What the initiative will do is help broaden access and exposure at Stanford so that more Stanford students, as well as faculty and staff, have opportunities to acquire and practice core skills and deepen their knowledge about how democracy works. 

ePluribus Stanford will make programs and projects like these more systematic, coordinated, and integrated into the culture at Stanford by: 

• Supporting, elevating, and amplifying research and education related to free speech, civics, democratic citizenship, constructive dialogue, pluralism, and diverse beliefs, values, identities, and experiences.

• Offering deeper training to students, staff, and instructors to support critical inquiry and constructive dialogue.

• Providing sustained and deliberately structured opportunities to practice and hone these skills. 

The new initiative will seek additional philanthropic resources to scale their efforts up.

Furthering skills in constructive dialogue 

Today, Stanford students arrive ready to gain knowledge that can help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, whether it be finding new ways to treat cancer, expanding health care access, mitigating the effects of climate change, or addressing challenges posed by emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, among others. 

Addressing the challenges the world faces requires people from diverse disciplines and backgrounds coming together and deliberating across sharp disagreement. But some students, nationally and at Stanford, have reported both self-censorship and intimidation on and offline for their speech and expressing divergent or dissenting views.

“Without hearing and integrating different perspectives, groupthink sets in and the quality of deliberation diminishes,” said Satz.

It is by engaging differences that students can learn from one another in ways that enhance their understanding of an issue or idea – as demonstrated in Democracy and Disagreement, the popular course Satz taught last year with Paul Brest, former dean and professor emeritus (active) at Stanford Law School. Each week, scholars, who hold opposite views on controversial topics, modeled what intellectually rigorous, thoughtful disagreement can look like. 

“Democracy is an achievement, and it is hard work,” Satz said. “It’s not easy to live together on equal terms with those with whom you disagree. Stanford can contribute to that hard work through its research on topics such as polarization; the Civics Initiative which mounts classes and research on democracy; its COLLEGE curriculum and its attention to teaching skills; and new programming. But ultimately, it is ‘we the people’ – who must do this work, both in the US and in other parts of the world.” 

Efforts already underway, more to come 

Some of this new, integrated work has already begun. 

In residence halls, ePluribus Stanford has convened a series of informal events throughout fall quarter called “Pizza, Politics & Polarization,” where faculty with expertise on the topic provide useful ways for students to think about polarization, while offering opportunities to discuss how it shows up in their lives and what can be done to address it. 

Spaulding has also designed new training to help Resident Fellows, RAs, student teachers of the Frosh 101 course, and student services staff navigate conflict and challenging conversations that arise in academic and residential life. Techniques include active listening, empathetic engagement, critical inquiry, and diminishing groupthink.

On the faculty resources side, ePluribus Stanford has worked with the Center for Teaching and Learning to offer new training on addressing major events in the news, with more sessions planned for this year. 

Spaulding emphasizes that the goal of ePluribus Stanford is not to suppress disagreement or force agreement, but to help develop capacities to consider differences and move through conflict with curiosity and empathy, so all voices are heard and understanding is deepened. 

“Due to increased polarization and segregation over the last 30 years in our society, higher education is one of the only remaining institutions where people who have fundamentally different experiences, beliefs, values, and identities live together and interact in genuinely sustained ways,” Spaulding said. “This presents a vitally important opportunity. By bringing together cutting-edge research, skills instruction, and channels of practice, we can improve critical inquiry, constructive dialogue, and civic engagement. Stanford should lead the way.”