Minced. If I had to describe the language I use when discussing politics as a progressive back home in the South, that’s the word I would choose. While I was never one to back down from a healthy debate, each word I spoke would be chosen carefully, so as to not cause an uproar in the classroom. When you feel as if you’re outnumbered 10 to 1, every political discussion puts perceptions of who you are as a person on the line.
When I arrived on campus two months ago, I figured that I would keep that same mentality: walking the line between progressive and conservative,and telling only my closest friends what I truly thought about political issues. I did not know, however, how different it would be living in a place where the majority of people share my same political views. The words I used to mince poured out like water breaking through a dam, and heads actually nodded instead of shaking vigorously in protest.
I rejoiced in finding those nodding heads the first few days. Never before had I felt so comfortable talking about my beliefs. Yet, I slowly began to realize that Stanford’s problems mirrored Alabama’s, only the tint reflected blue instead of red.
In Alabama, conservatives speak proudly and confidently about their beliefs because they know they will have the support of everyone around them. They know that no one will challenge their viewpoint, and that very lack of opposition makes them more steadfast in their beliefs. How can the views I hold be wrong if so many other people agree?
Suddenly, the nodding heads no longer comforted me: they disquieted me.
When views go unchallenged, we slowly but surely lose the ability to find middle ground with people who share differing perspectives than us. We villainize the side that we don’t understand because we’ve never actually conversed with them.
It is amazing the number of times I’ve been told how people completely misjudged me when I introduced myself as being from Alabama based on their preconceived notions about the state. They read that Alabama is highly conservative — Trump carried it by over 30 points in the 2024 election — or that the state ranks 44th in education. But statistics like these fail to capture the complexities of the Deep South.
These complexities manifest in places like my high school, which is named after a Congressman who voted against the Civil Rights Act but is also the place where incredible educators taught me about civic duty, equality and leadership. They can be found at the crossroads between the nearby shooting range built across from a local preschool and the public library whose stories served as the foundation for my own. Growing up in Alabama shaped who I am and not only taught me when to hold my tongue, but also when to speak up for what I believe in.
It’s so easy to fit what we’ve never experienced into a simple schema that influences one’s perceptions of a person before they’ve even said hello. Yet, my experiences with mistaken identity at Stanford represent only a microcosm of the problem as a whole. When students aren’t exposed to a wide variety of conservative voices, as I was in the South, they continue to perpetuate misguided schemas of what it means to be conservative or simply from the South without factoring the complexities that accompany it.
Thus, while I’m proud to hold progressive views that strongly differ from the state I left behind, I think that compromise is only possible if Stanford makes way for more conservative voices to add to the discourse.
To me, the beauty of dissent is that even if I don’t necessarily agree with a counter-argument, I find new strength in what I believe by weighing that argument against my own. When students don’t have the opportunity to debate their views and instead are met with a sea of nodding heads, they aren’t forced to challenge their beliefs.
If you would have told me two months ago that I would be playing devil’s advocate for the positions of many of my classmates back home, I wouldn’t have believed you. But, imagine the impact and conversation that could be sparked between two people debating differences in what they actually believe. Imagine the compassion and compromise we could find for our classmates and friends in hearing that their beliefs might not necessarily match our own.
Therefore, to not lose itself in an echo chamber of its own creation, Stanford needs more shaking heads and more dissenting voices.
Until that point, it’s important for students to truly challenge themselves by finding value and understanding in arguments they may not necessarily agree with, rather than disregarding them because they aren’t held by the majority in their community.
Simply put, students should take the words of John Stuart Mill’s 1859 essay “On Liberty” to heart: “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.”