Diary: Peter Brooks on “Viewpoint Diversity”

Can compulsory ideas contribute to the pursuit of knowledge?

Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin, Still life with attributes of the arts (1724-1728, Pushkin Museum)

Among the more remarkable commands to Harvard University in the letter of April 11, 2025, signed by Josh Gruenbaum, Sean Keveney, and Thomas Wheeler (on behalf of the US Departments of Education and Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration), was that concerning “viewpoint diversity”: “By August 2025, the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse.” And then: “Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity,” admitting a “critical mass of students” as well.

I have noticed that a number of academics and their administrators seem to think “viewpoint diversity” might be a good thing. After all, they concede, academia skews heavily toward the liberal left. Writes Stephen Pinker in his widely read “Harvard Derangement Syndrome” in The New York Times: “Another area in which Harvard’s shortcomings are genuine … is viewpoint diversity.” There have also been proposals to create a “Center for Conservative Scholarship” within Harvard, comparable to the Hoover Institution at Stanford (though that is not part of Stanford University), which would attempt to rebalance values. And throughout academia, there appear to be many who think a greater representation of conservative thought could only benefit universities.

This is a complicated matter. There are studies that claim to show that too little diversity of viewpoints can lead to confirmation bias and the exclusion of valuable ideas. Yet a rule that universities must hire and admit in such a way as to assure viewpoint diversity as defined by the US government is deeply subversive of what the university is all about. Hiring, at least in major research universities, is largely in the hands of faculty, who choose according to their estimate of a candidate’s quality in research and contribution to the transmission of knowledge, in publication and teaching and mentoring. There is simply no other way to conceive the perpetuation of the university except through this continual quest to hire and promote those who have distinguished themselves in their fields. Administrators are charged essentially with making sure that faculties follow the rules: that searches for talent have cast a wide net, that prejudice and nepotism have not skewed the results. Those with expert knowledge must do the choosing.