All Beliefs Welcome

A new campus-wide initiative is championing free expression and constructive dialogue

Two people talking in front of an audience
Kody Kinsley, left, North Carolina's former secretary of health and human services, kicks off a new Independent Thinkers speaker series at Duke.

In his role as North Carolina’s secretary for health and human services, Kody Kinsley would often plead his case for health care equity.

But not with those words.

Instead, Kinsley would often use a compelling anecdote or factoid – like pointing out that Black women are twice as likely to die during childbirth than white women. He knew technocratic language was off-putting to some audiences – which he couldn’t afford given his position as a Democratic appointee working with a majority-Republican state legislature.

“Certain words and certain symbols can be hijacked in ways that become a symbol of you signifying which camp you’re in, and not communicating what you’re trying to get done,” Kinsley said recently during an appearance at Duke.

Kinsley had a lot of success with this approach. In 2023, the man one North Carolina media outlet dubbed “North Carolina Republicans’ Favorite Democrat” helped convince conservative lawmakers to get on board with Medicaid expansion that brought health care coverage to 600,000 North Carolinians. 

Kinsley brought his story of across-the-aisle civility to Duke recently to kick off the new “Independent Thinkers” series, a collection of conversations with public figures who defy reductive political labels. The series is one component of Duke Provost Alec Gallimore’s new Initiative on Pluralism, Free Inquiry & Belonging, which champions constructive dialogue and intellectual humility as remedies for widespread polarization. 

“There is a concern within the university and outside it that there are students, faculty or staff who refrain from engaging in conversations about difficult topics because they worry about how they are going to be seen, or they don’t want to offend people or be singled out for their views,” said Abbas Benmamoun, Duke’s vice provost for faculty advancement. “For us as a university, free expression and free inquiry are absolutely critical. They are important tools for learning and discovery, so we absolutely need an environment that cherishes those values.”

What Is Pluralism?

Benmamoun is co-leading the initiative with Associate Provost Noah Pickus with support from Deondra Rose, a public policy professor and senior fellow with the initiative. Launched in 2024 with $2 million in funding from the Duke Endowment, the effort in part will formalize, bring together and amplify a great deal of work already underway in various corners of the university. 

The initiative has a tongue-twister of a name, but organizers say its individual words matter. Pluralism is not just about diversity but about the practice of engaging across deep differences so that disagreement becomes a source of learning. Duke needs to be the best version of that, Benmamoun argues. 

“We all come from different backgrounds and places and hold different views, and we need to appreciate that,” he said. “We come to Duke with different lived experiences, and there can be apprehension about how to engage with others who may be different from us.”

And the free inquiry and belonging pieces of this initiative are linked, because you cannot have one without the other, Benmamoun said. The most difficult piece is making sure everyone belongs. 

“You can still have your own identity but it should not be an obstacle to sharing your views or engaging in all the educational and research opportunities we offer,” he said. “Belonging is the foundational step. When we make space for everyone we all benefit because we get to tap into all the talent that we have at Duke.”

Afraid of Getting Canceled

Across the country, universities have struggled to provide welcoming environments against the backdrop of a society fast becoming more polarized. Students speak often about cancel culture and the fear of voicing an unpopular opinion in class – lest they get shouted down or attacked on social media. A 2021 College Pulse survey of more than 37,000 students at 159 American colleges found that more than 80 percent of students self-censor from time to time, and at least one-fifth do it often. In the same survey, about two-thirds of students said it was appropriate to shout down a speaker they didn’t want speaking on their campus.

“What’s distinctive about Duke’s approach is that it acknowledges there will be tensions among pluralism, free inquiry, and belonging,” said Pickus, the initiative co-chair. “It focuses on both the skills needed to navigate them and the dispositions and habits – the desire – to want to do so.” 

Abdullah Antepli and Polly Ha in their Transformative Ideas course

In all of this, Duke isn’t starting from zero. Across campus, faculty and individual initiatives have been working on this conundrum for years. At Duke’s Polarization Lab, social scientists look for ways to create more productive social media discourse; the North Carolina Leadership Forum, another program of Gallimore’s office, brings leaders from different political persuasions together to work on issues central to the state. And in the classroom, courses like those in the Transformative Ideas curriculum challenge students to take on weighty, oft-controversial issues in areas like ethics, religion, philosophy and politics. Duke even has a residence hall specifically for students seeking a living/learning environment that might make them occasionally uncomfortable because of the programming and activities offered there. 

This new initiative will support these efforts and encourage more like them, while also offering opportunities for faculty interested in tweaking their courses to create inviting learning environments. It will create a “Faculty Fellows” program – professors enthusiastic about championing free thought and helping students become more confident in how they engage with challenging ideas in their classrooms. Organizers also plan to weave the themes of this initiative into broad university communications channels and at major university events.  And eventually, they plan to publicly showcase success stories.

We Aren’t All Ideologues

The speaker series is one way to give bold thinkers like Kinsley a platform. 

A Wilmington, N.C. native, Kinsley grew up in an apolitical home and a Southern Baptist church. His family did not have health insurance, so every scrape and broken bone was a financial burden. He identified as a conservative when he went off to Brevard College, where he majored in health sciences. But his interactions with new and different people challenged his thinking. He realized that government programs driven by Democrats had helped his family — like SNAP benefits and the free dentistry offered by the local health department, the only way a family member could get a cavity filled. 

“Most of us do not have a set of beliefs that conform exactly to one political label. In their own ways, none of the speakers are a neat fit for any political tribe and none tries to enforce an ideological dogma.’

Frank Bruni, Sanford School of Public Policy Professor

But as he moved more into Democratic politics, he also discovered that plenty of the political ‘elites’ he rubbed shoulders with could not identify with a hardscrabble upbringing like his. He didn’t have health insurance until his 20s; his parents went without until finally signing up via the Affordable Care Act, a key win of the Obama presidency. Kinsley was working in the White House at the time. 

When he told his story to a standing-room-only crowd at Duke, people nodded their heads and clapped enthusiastically.

“I was looking for speakers who in and among themselves are ideologically diverse and whose activities in the public square don’t target one political or ideological tribe, but fan out in different directions,” said Frank Bruni, the longtime New York Times columnist now teaching at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy. Bruni is the organizer and host of the speaker series. “Most of us are not really doctrinaire; most of us do not have a set of beliefs that conform exactly to one political label. In their own ways, none of the speakers are a neat fit for any political tribe and none tries to enforce an ideological dogma.”

Along with Kinsley, upcoming speakers include U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat; Katie Herzog, a journalist and podcaster; and conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. 

Bruni hopes the speaker series and rest of the pluralism initiative send a message to students that they’re free to engage. Many students, he said, are looking for a sign that all beliefs are welcome. 

“Many students do need that sign, and it’s incumbent upon those of us who teach to give them that sign,” Bruni said. “The way you make a culture the way you want it to be is by acknowledging where things need some work and encouraging everyone to do that work.”