Inclusion Requires Free Speech

James Lane ‘92
Princetonians for Free Speech Original Content

I am a HUGE fan of the “I” in DEI. I will leave the “D” and “E” for others to opine. This essay is mostly a story of how multiple-perspectives critical thinking training by a compassionate classmate at Princeton University helped a first-generation college student become included in middle class America and why a university culture of free speech and open inquiry is so vital to upward mobility.

Multiple perspectives critical thinking can be defined to mean considering various sources and viewpoints to gain a deeper understanding of complex issues and help reach considered judgments. Learning from a Princeton classmate how to do that, and how wisdom comes from the airing of competing views, changed my life. 

I am a white male born into a formerly-redlined, blue collar town. Around the time I was born, redlining ended there and some white families left the town. My family stayed because of my parents’ Christian values, especially their belief in all people being born in the image of God. So I grew up privileged by the remarkable diversity that blossomed in the changing community that my parents embraced. Before college, I attended local, safe, disciplined Catholic schools where I was an “almost” straight A student. I then attended Princeton, where I started out as a C/D student. 

And then came the compassion and brilliance of the classmate, Gretchen, who had experienced a more sophisticated college preparatory education. She saved my college academic career, enabled a 15-year full time career in finance and investments, and enabled me to graduate toward the top of my class from Rutgers Law School and be a public school teacher for the past 15 years. THAT is social mobility, and that is “inclusion.” It was one conversation with Gretchen that drove my “I” in the middle class. Such social mobility through multiple perspectives analysis is much less likely in the absence of free speech prioritization. How else can a first-generation college, lower income kid gain exposure to more perspectives than just his or her small world provides?

In the fall of 1988, I got a D on my first paper for the freshmen Writing Seminar class. When I asked the seminar leader about the D, he explained “You did great research – if it was a research-based grade, it would be an A, but it is a writing class and you don’t know how to write an essay.” When I asked him to help me, his response was: “You’re supposed to know how to do that already.

I was at a loss. Unfortunately, the professor was right about my deficiency. My lack of ability to consider a set of facts from multiple perspectives started showing up more and more in my grades. I was VERY lucky that my blue-collar parents were just happy with me passing classes at all.  But it was miserable getting poor grades, until Gretchen stepped in.

During the pre-exam session in January 1989, I was chatting with classmates about how rough the start to college had been academically. And then Gretchen spoke up, “Can I see your last paper?” When she saw it, she agreed that I had no idea how to write an essay. Gretchen spent about 2 hours explaining that an essay requires seeing facts and sources from multiple perspectives in order to successfully develop and support claims with evidence, and then to explain why the evidence supports the claim.

Over time, I got it, and I never saw a C or D on a college paper again. Gretchen shared the formula, and it was simple, and it was powerful, and it really was not about the written words on the page. Rather, it was the thought process before the words went on the page. With her help, I was off to the races, professionally and academically and personally.

After college, I spent almost 15 years working for various financial services businesses and earning a law degree from Rutgers, before becoming a Social Studies teacher. Within a few years, I realized that public education needs Gretchen’s insights. A lot of instruction was basic and regimented; just like at the schools I had attended until college. The best memorizers were considered the academic leaders, as I had been . . . until college. While a good memory helped in college courses, it wasn’t a point of differentiation or a key factor in success. It is not much of a key success factor in real life either, whereas critical thinking skills are vital.

Real education only happens when open exchange of multiple perspectives is prioritized, and that only happens when students, teachers and others can freely speak their minds and disagree respectfully with one another without fear or rancor. 

Now, in my second career and my ongoing financial markets consulting work, I am ‘Gretchen’ to between 100 and 120 students each school year.  I look for them to “create” their own views, their own truths, and their own theories and to communicate those creations in the classroom. This works best when all views are welcomed and considered. The same is true of casual conversations, Power point presentations, podcasts, letters to the editor, job interviews, political debates, press conferences, business plans, and investment processes and planning.

We need to make the compassionate “Gretchen” approach a feature of our educational systems at every level if we want education to be the social-mobility inclusion mechanism that it has the potential to be. To be confidently passionate in our beliefs, we must be compassionately open to the passionate beliefs of others. Any unnecessary limits of free speech also preclude the inclusivity that so many institutions claim as a goal.

James (Jimmy) Lane ’92 is a public school teacher in New Jersey and author of the monthly publication, The Economic Realist. He was a member of the Princeton Men’s Basketball teams from 1988 through 1992, is a lifetime member of the Princeton Varsity Club and a past president of the Friends of Princeton Basketball.