When it was announced a few years ago that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was going to create the School for Civic Life and Leadership, lefties on the faculty and student body went ballistic. SCiLL would be a terrible “right-wing” invasion of the progressive university. Nevertheless, it came into being, and somehow UNC has survived.
In today’s Martin Center article, UNC student Sarah Beth Syfrett writes about her experience with SCiLL:
SCiLL itself is intended to help students learn how to critically engage in civil discourse with people on different sides of the political aisle. This is a valuable life skill that many students come out of college lacking. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education found that at UNC, more than 50% of students self-censor at least several times a month. They also gave the university a failing grade for political tolerance. That’s where SCiLL comes in. Its role isn’t to indoctrinate or serve as a safe space, but to push all of us to engage respectfully with the hard questions and offer critically thought-out answers.
Sure, and that’s why the left doesn’t like SCiLL — it doesn’t want students thinking critically and examining all points of view.
I like Syfrett’s conclusion: “A school that seeks to educate students on foundational texts and encourage civil discourse seems to me like an asset for any university and benefit to both the student participants and the society that they will graduate and enter.”