Educators must counter hate and falsehoods by shining light on facts

The acts of violence in Charlottesville represented an assault on the very foundations of our democracy, and an affront to all people who believe the strength of our future as a nation hinges upon our ability to become a more tolerant nation, a nation that fully respects and includes all Americans, in all of our diversity.

An equally enduring threat to American democracy is the “myth of many sides” – the myth that all sides of an argument have equal value.

This is a unique time of false equivalencies, when real news is labeled fake news, and fake news is spun as the truth. So, the role of members of the academic community as sources of facts and context is more important now than ever. Public participation – public engagement – is a responsibility we in the academic world can and must embrace. All of us must do more to counteract misinformation, and outright bigotry.

Princeton history professor Kevin Kruse recently shared examples of false equivalencies in history, and suggested that educators invite their students to find others. Among the examples he cited were Governors Earl Long of Louisiana and Orval Faubus of Arkansas, who likened the NAACP to White Citizen Councils opposing the integration of public schools after the Brown v. Board of Education decision in the 1950s.

Conservative intellectual William F. Buckley Jr., the founding editor of the National Review, once described moral equivalence in these words: “To say that the CIA and KGB engage in similar practices is the equivalent of saying that the man who pushes an old lady into the path of a hurtling bus is not to be distinguished from the man who pushes an old lady out of the path of a hurtling bus: on the grounds that, after all, in both cases someone is pushing old ladies around."

Speech not rooted in facts is proliferating. It is increasingly difficult for the public to distinguish fact from fiction. And falsehoods undercut the role of science in society, as well as fact-based policy analysis.

We see the negative impact on public policy when the findings of climate science are denied, just as the denial of the connection between tobacco and lung disease delayed policies in the past that could have saved lives. And false equivalencies feed false expectations when we’re told that coal mining jobs will somehow reappear if we rewrite our environmental laws, rather than preparing workers for careers in alternative energy.

Pluralism is supposed to provide a solid foundation for a strong democracy. But false equivalencies are corrupting the underpinnings of democracy – eroding faith in our public institutions.

Those of us in the academic community share a responsibility to guard against falsehoods and false equivalencies. The ideologies of white nationalists and neo-Nazis do not represent the truth by any measure. There is no place in American democracy for white supremacy. Period. But because there will always be a place in America for freedom of expression, even when it’s hateful, we must counter the hate and falsehoods by shining a light on the facts.

Truth telling, of course, is the essence of both teaching and learning. Within the University of California community of students, faculty and staff, we can draw on academic expertise and shared values to speak out against intolerance. That might require only an email or a letter, published commentary or a call to an elected official. Whether it’s a professor illuminating forgotten episodes of our past, or students peacefully expressing themselves, it’s important that we muster the collective will to participate fully in the public square.

This is an undertaking that is a marathon, not a sprint. We have generations of work to do, and the next generations to educate. The stakes are high.

 This op-ed was originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle https://bit.ly/2wW4May