Goal 3 Union of Academic Freedom and a Culture of Mutual Respect and Concern
All members of the Harvard community can, in a thoughtful and concrete manner, work to discover and develop teaching, learning, mentoring, and interpersonal engagement strategies that promote academic freedom alongside mutual respect and concern. This goal invites consideration of pedagogy, the structure of public programs, the norms and modes of interpersonal exchanges, and trust-building. This goal also calls for consideration of research into ways to support difficult conversations. While broader public conversations often cast academic freedom and inclusion as antagonistic goals or, at best, two distinct values that must be accommodated to each other, we propose a richer understanding. The values of academic freedom and inclusion and belonging provide each other with synergistic and mutual reinforcement. Academic freedom is necessary to help us fully realize the value of inclusion and belonging. It anchors the principle that heterodox views should be protected in their expression and that we should bring the best principles of academic debate — not ad hominem argument, not personal invective, not threats, not unwitting insult — to the work of evaluating those views. Similarly, inclusion makes the value of academic freedom real by ensuring that all voices gain from its protections. Fostering synergistic mutual reinforcement of these two values will require refinement of thinking and practice.