“You have to ask yourself, what is it you’re good at doing that could make a difference in the world?”

Pamela Karlan, a Stanford legal scholar and civil rights lawyer, shared that advice with students recently at Otero, Stanford’s public service and civic engagement-themed house, during a discussion on responding to injustice.

Karlan was a guest speaker for that week’s Civic Salon, a series of winter quarter conversations held in residence halls across campus. These discussions focused on issues explored in Citizenship in the 21st Century, the second course in Stanford’s undergraduate requirement program, Civic, Liberal, and Global Education (COLLEGE). Faculty who taught the course led the salons, covering topics such as free speech, immigration, and economic inequality.

Karlan opened the Civic Salon by summarizing concepts from COLLEGE seminars that week. Students had read an essay by the political economist Albert O. Hirschman, who articulated three ways people respond to injustice: exit (leaving), voice (speaking up and working with others to effect change), and loyalty (accepting the situation despite dissatisfaction).

Moderating the discussion was Karlan’s colleague at Stanford Law School, Juliet Brodie, the director of the Stanford Community Law Clinic and the Peter E. Haas Faculty Director of the Haas Center for Public Service.

After Karlan described Hirschman’s framework, Brodie asked students: “How does ‘exit, voice, loyalty’ work for you? Does it resonate with experiences you’ve had or you’re having now? Do you see any dilemmas or challenges in the framework that it doesn’t account for?”

For the next hour, students engaged in a lively discussion about what resistance looks like and its limitations. Students peppered Karlan, a former top Justice Department official, and Brodie with questions about using law to transform society. One student asked how to stay motivated in a bureaucratic system that can slow or stall change. 

“Sometimes you’re trying to hold the line on things that people already got right,” Karlan said. “A lot of my life has been spent trying to defend the Voting Rights Act against people who are trying to get rid of the act.”

Jayden Moore, ’28, who attended the discussion, said “I was getting ideas that I had never thought about before.” This was Moore’s second salon; he had also attended a Jan. 16 Civic Salon on free speech led by Paul Brest, professor emeritus (active) and former dean at Stanford Law School (SLS) at Schiff. At that salon, Brest had students break into discussion groups to discuss various scenarios related to the Leonard Law, a statute in California that prohibits private universities like Stanford from disciplining students for expression that is protected by the First Amendment.

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Ethography

In Moore’s discussion group, they deliberated how to craft a policy around protest that did not infringe on free speech. “It was like we were acting like mini-lawyers because we had to go into the law and actually apply it,” Moore recalled. “It was interesting seeing how people look at the law because it can be interpreted in many different ways.” That conversation inspired Moore’s final paper for Citizenship in the 21st Century.

Strategies for effective protest also emerged in a Feb. 13 Civic Salon at Casa Zapata, led by Jay Hamilton, the Freeman-Thornton Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. Hamilton discussed collective action, including his own work on the topic and his early scholarship in environmental justice. He also shared lessons from teaching social and political movements, including Martin Luther King Jr.’s strategies for raising awareness during the Civil Rights Movement.

Will Gibbs, ’28 attended a number of Civic Salons, including Hamilton’s discussion. “At Civic Salons, you really got to dive deep into a subject,” Gibbs said. “A Civic Salon put a different spin that helped me look at a problem from a different angle or situation.”

He also found the personal format of the Civic Salons appealing. While COLLEGE seminars focused on analyzing specific readings, Civic Salons were more informal, offering students freedom and flexibility to talk with one another – guided by a subject matter expert – about how these issues shaped their own lives.

“It’s a great way to meet new peers and a big plus was getting to meet a really cool faculty member – like Jay Hamilton – in such a close environment. It felt very personal,” Gibbs said.

Strengthening constructive dialogue

Civic Salons also grew out of ePluribus Stanford, a provostial initiative that collaborates with partners across campus to identify opportunities for critical inquiry and constructive dialogue.

“We’re finding that there’s a great thirst among students to have these kinds of open-ended conversations about pressing topics, where the goal isn’t to determine the correct answer, but rather to understand the complexities and nuances of a problem,” said Dan Edelstein, who is the Nehal and Jenny Fan Raj Director of COLLEGE and a faculty co-director of ePluribus Stanford. “Framing discussions in this way really helps students to minimize their fear of ‘saying the wrong thing.’ We’re all just thinking out loud, trying things out, and listening to others.”

Freshman Jose Vasquez, who attended Hamilton’s salon and took Citizenship in the 21st Century and Why College? Your Education and the Good Life in the fall, appreciated how constructive dialogue has shaped his first-year experience.

“Mutual respect for differing opinions is a really big theme in the class,” said Vasquez. “To express ourselves and to learn from each other is a really big priority – so many people are coming to Stanford from many different walks of life and from many different experiences. Being able to interact with people in a civil way is something I feel is really important.”