BY ERIC J. WEINER

Although Lisa Siraganian’s recent article ”Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity” includes important considerations for the heterodox academic community, her theses do more to distort the intentions and purposes of heterodoxical teaching and learning than to illuminate its potential conflicts and contradictions. Siraganian’s general critique of “viewpoint diversity” is that it is a thinly veiled ideological cover for radically “conservative” ideas—rather than, as advocates argue, a concerted attempt to democratize curriculum and pedagogies. Siraganian’s argument against viewpoint diversity rests on the assumption that the university is not dominated by a kind of liberal orthodoxy that has excluded perspectives on ideological grounds.

Siraganian argues that the call for viewpoint diversity is an excuse to include epistemologically incoherent perspectives into the classroom simply because they are aligned with Trumpism and other reactionary ideologies. From flat-earthers and Holocaust deniers to intelligent-design activists and climate-change skeptics, she seems to believe that a heterodoxical framework for curriculum design would have to present such viewpoints as if they met the same standards of epistemological coherence that constrain professional research in the “hard” and “soft” sciences. Her argument against viewpoint diversity conflates heterodoxy with relativism.

Siraganian’s theses about viewpoint diversity frame all heterodoxical thinking and the organizations that promote it, like Heterodox Academy, as conservative at their core—as part of an educational movement that hides its Republicanism behind appeals to diversity and democratization. She believes that heterodoxical educators are either naive dupes or self-identified gadflies operating under the false promise that the call for viewpoint diversity is actually a call for a radical democratization of curriculum and pedagogy. In the final analysis, the whole “crisis of viewpoint diversity” is simply manufactured by reactionary conservatives who are tired of having their views dismissed as incoherent and labeled as racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, and so on.

Let’s acknowledge right away that in the arena of heterodoxical teaching there are bad actors who are attempting to hide their radically conservative ideological agenda behind appeals to viewpoint diversity and a “balanced” or ideologically “neutral” curriculum. For example, it is true that when Christopher Rufo argues for viewpoint diversity in his critiques of “wokeness” and  diversity, equity, and inclusion, it is an attempt to weaponize the term against epistemological diversification. But in her theses, Siraganian ignores that one of the core principles of a heterodoxical education is an ethical demand that viewpoint diversity, multiperspectival analyses, and scientific research must be constrained by professional standards of coherence and justification. Although ideological warriors of all stripes will try to pervert this core principle of heterodoxical teaching, this does not mean that there is something rotten at its core. In short, intentional and purposeful heterodoxical teaching puts the radical back into democracy; it’s the antidote to ideological orthodoxies.

Another problem with Siriganian’s thesis is her assertion that heterodoxical teaching supports a kind of epistemological balance when it comes to curriculum design. As a dimension of critical thinking, it rejects false equivalences and “balance” in the production of intellectual work and educational practice. “Balance,” Stanley Fish writes, “is a political, not an academic requirement; it looks not to the intellectual interest of a proposed topic, but to the political interest of appeasing various constituencies.” Henry Giroux adds that appeals to neutrality are a way that established power “hides its code for not allowing people to understand the role that education plays ideologically, in producing particular forms of knowledge, of power, of social values, of agency, of narratives about the world.” Attempts to satisfy the demands for neutrality or balance make it difficult, he argues, to ask and answer essential questions, such as How is this knowledge produced and legitimized? Whose interests does this knowledge serve?

Before different viewpoints about an issue are included in the official curriculum, the teacher must establish one of two things: Either she has to determine if there is a general consensus in the intellectual community that the perspective being considered has epistemological coherence—in terms of its grounding in reality and its relative relation to truth—or she has to decide if the viewpoint carries enough power to influence how society is thinking about a specific issue. For example, even though there is broad consensus in the scientific community that global warming is caused by human activity, the viewpoint that it is not should still be considered because some of the most powerful people believe it’s not. Regardless of the epistemological incoherence of this perspective, it should be included because of the power it has to influence people’s thoughts and actions.

At a time when authoritarian power is trying to force knowledge to kiss its ideological ring, the need for heterodoxical teaching and learning couldn’t be more urgent. By exposing students to a variety of viewpoints about controversial issues—what Gerald Graff called “teaching the conflicts”—we can help them learn how to critically analyze and evaluate what is both true and false as well as right and wrong. They might learn that their assumptions and biases are grounded in habits of mind and habituated sociocultural practices that distort reality. But there are professional standards of knowledge, as well as standards of responsible teaching that must be upheld and revisited. At their best, heterodoxical teachers try to create authentic dialogical and dialectical spaces that support a kind of “brave” teaching and learning in their classrooms. Heterodoxical spaces are not “safe” in the traditional way. They are brave in that they encourage students to grapple with complex issues from a variety of perspectives, some of which will make them very uncomfortable.

The payoff for heterodoxical teaching is the impact it can have on disrupting the hegemony of an ideological education. Our students will learn how to think critically about how power works to harness knowledge in the service of its own interests, while also avoiding the cynicism that comes from relativistic thinking.

Eric J. Weiner is professor of educational foundations in the College for Education and Engaged Learning at Montclair State University (New Jersey). His email address is Eric.Weiner@Montclair.Edu.

See other responses, by Dale E. Miller and by Joan W. Scott, to “Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity.”