Brown students launch ideological diversity initiative

A coalition of students at Brown University has launched an initiative aimed at increasing intellectual diversity at the notoriously liberal institution.

The group, Speak: Brown’s Coalition for Ideologically Diverse Students, was founded last fall with the mission to promote “engagement with ideologically diverse ideas by advocating that the University expose students to a variety of beliefs.”

The coalition issued a report on March 21 that painted a dismal picture of the state of intellectual diversity at the Ivy League school.

Speak found that nearly 95 percent of the 237 speakers invited to campus last year were liberal-leaning. Only 10 leaned to the right.

Of more than $540,000 in lifetime political contributions made by lecturers invited to Brown last year, the report found that more than 97 percent went to Democrat-affiliated campaigns or causes.

And the lack of intellectual diversity isn’t limited to guest lectures.

The report found that not a single faculty or staff member at Brown donated to a Republican candidate during the 2016 presidential race.

And when asked which candidate they would vote for in November of 2015, more than 45 percent of Brown students selected Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont independent, and nearly 23 percent chose Hillary Clinton. The most popular Republican candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, came in at 1.6 percent, followed by Donald Trump and Ben Carson at 1.3 percent each.

The report claims that Brown’s “lack of diversity in ideological thought limits the worldview and future effectiveness of Brown students in the disparate communities they will one day serve.”

It recommends the Brown administration take steps to increase the proportion of conservative speakers invited to campus from 5 to 30 percent.

“It is easy to slip into the illusion of infallibility of judgment, which creates a mindset prone to assuming moral superiority and ignoring other views,” the report reads. “Only through a spirit of free inquiry, sparked by dynamic speakers, will students dare to examine their own ideas and the ideas of others.”