DFTD Newsletter 8/19/2025 Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse is honored to announce a multi-year, major gift from Dr. William Winkenwerder. This generous commitment will ensure that the Davidson community can engage directly with leading voices who shape global affairs and national security policy. A 1976 graduate of Davidson College and former member of the Davidson College Board of Trustees (2015-2022), Dr. Winkenwerder is a nationally recognized physician and health care executive who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs under President George W. Bush and as a senior leader at the Department of Health and Human Services under President Ronald Regan. His long-standing dedication to public service and his commitment to robust, open discussion on critical issues of foreign policy have been a hallmark of his career. Dr. Winkenwerder’s support will bolster DFTD’s programs by creating the Winkenwerder Policy Series on the Middle East , allowing students to welcome distinguished guests exploring some of today’s most challenging global issues. In collaboration with students and faculty, this series of speakers will offer the Davidson campus and community the chance to hear firsthand perspectives from experts in US Defense Policy, Middle East relations, and international policy at large. This transformative gift from Dr. Winkenwerder will enable vital conversations that foster open discourse and inspire Davidson students and the campus community to explore global issues with curiosity and purpose.

By Hannah Fay '25 Dear Davidson Faculty and Biology Professors, I recently graduated from Davidson College in May with a degree in biology. For much of my undergraduate experience, I was on the pre-PA track, driven by a passion for helping people. However, during the fall of my senior year, I reevaluated my long-term goals, making a pivotal shift toward health policy, health reform, and politics. I decided to no longer pursue PA school when I got involved in Young Americans for Freedom and during an internship with Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse. While this did not change the classes I took in college, the lens from which I took them had changed. This transition led me to Washington, D.C., where I joined The Heritage Foundation — a prominent conservative think tank — as the Communications Fellow. I’m excited to contribute to the conservative movement and drive impactful change in health and public policy. My career aspirations shifted the moment I started asking questions. I’ve always been conservative. While it’s true that Davidson is not widely known for conservative voices, many of my peers quietly share my convictions. Yet, they hesitate to speak up in class or challenge professors’ perspectives out of fear of grave consequences and being ostracized by classmates. That said, my intent is not to dwell on this issue, but to address the Biology Department directly: I urge you to foster critical questioning and ideological diversity in biology, empowering students to become true critical thinkers. As a liberal arts institution, students attend Davidson to engage in critical thinking. Learning how to think is different from learning what to think. Many Davidson College students pursue biology to help and heal people while others pursue cancer research, probe the origin of life, or tackle pressing environmental challenges. Learning how to think requires engaging in rigorous, high-level discussions. These conversations go beyond one-sided opinions or theories; they involve deconstructing every premise, interrogating narratives, and exposing blind spots. This forges true critical thinkers, shapes our values, and determines facts. I realize professors bring established beliefs into the classroom — yet I urge biology professors to be facilitators rather than dictators over students’ beliefs. Reflecting on my time at Davidson, I grew exponentially in classes when professors played devil’s advocate — challenging arguments and demanding reasoning behind students’ positions. Though these courses were undoubtedly the most rigorous, that very rigor defines the challenging, growth-focused experience Davidson students seek. Students come to college at the impressionable ages of seventeen or eighteen, likely leaving the familiarity of home for the first time. Some students seek to escape the protective bubble their parents created, others rebel against those expectations, many search for a belief system to embrace, and still others wish to strengthen their existing convictions. Yet, to strengthen, one must be stretched. I've found that true growth often comes from being questioned — it's in those moments that I'm pushed to understand and articulate why I hold certain beliefs. If I can’t explain the reasoning behind my convictions, do I genuinely believe them? Some of my most meaningful conversations at Davidson were with people whose perspectives differed from mine. These discussions stretched me to defend my beliefs thoughtfully, which not only strengthened my convictions but also deepened my understanding of another perspective. At the same time, being open to questioning creates space for evolving perspectives. Thoughtful inquiry must begin with the professors. When faculty consistently question assumptions, it signals to students that intellectual exploration is not just encouraged — it’s nonnegotiable. Yet, from my personal observation, there has been a decline in students actively questioning, though I don’t believe this stems from a loss of curiosity (although this is a point worth considering). A study from 2021 revealed that only 4.3% of students ask questions ‘often.’ This study suggests that common barriers to asking questions include being afraid of judgement and not knowing enough to ask a ‘good’ question. Students hesitate to ask questions that challenge what they perceive to be their professors’ viewpoints. Students are more likely to speak up when they see their professors humbly wrestling with difficult questions, modeling the very curiosity and analytical rigor that higher education claims to foster. In an era when many young people feel pressure to conform or self-censor, inquiry from professors becomes a powerful tool: it legitimizes uncertainty. Moreover, ideological diversity has become a lost art at Davidson College. During my undergrad, I rarely encountered a balance of ideology in the classroom. Most — if not all — of my classes advanced the liberal agenda. For example, after the 2024 election, I had many biology classes cancelled the next day in response to President Trump winning the election. One of my professors spoke to the class as if everyone in the class should be mourning the outcome of the election, without any regard to the fact that many students voted for President Trump. If the outcome were the other way around, I am certain that not a single class would have been canceled. A close friend of mine went to her class the day after the election and found what seemed to be a funeral service being held in the classroom. The professor had turned the lights off, was crying, and gave each student a hug as they walked into the room. There were countless stories from professors all over campus of their reactions to the election and how they pressed their agenda onto their students — telling them that their rights were going to be taken from them and lying about President Trump. This is particularly disappointing given Davidson’s identity as a liberal arts institution, one that should celebrate intellectual diversity and the exchange of differing viewpoints. Differences in thought strengthen a community, not divide it, as they too often do in education today. I urge biology professors to actively foster ideological diversity in your classroom — even when those views differ from professors’ own. Professors — please take care not to silence conservative voices, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue, and help ensure that all students feel free to speak, question, and engage without fear of their grades suffering or facing rejection from peers. Please, when presenting a biologist’s research, do not declare, “Her research is important because she was openly gay in the 80s.” How incredibly insulting to her intelligence. Her ideas — not her sexual identity — should be the reason the biology department teaches her work. Do not tell students that if they get pregnant, they should come to you so you can “help them take care of it.” Parents are not paying $85,000 a year for a professor to tell their daughter to get an abortion, or for a professor to encourage their son’s casual sex. Not to mention, biologists, more than any other person, should understand that life begins at conception. Thus, termination — of any kind, for any reason — of a fetus after conception is murder. Moreover, educators are not parents and have no mandate to recommend abortion. And professors must face the fact: encouraging casual sex does not empower students. Professors should keep their political affiliations private: they must not impose an unsolicited agenda on students. Davidson College attracts minds full of brilliant questions. The biology department must become a crucible for genuine thought, not indoctrination. Welcoming diverse inquiries — subjecting each to the same scrutiny — models the open-mindedness at the heart of a liberal arts education. I hope biology professors do their own research before presenting information to students as “fact.” I hope office-hour conversations become a safe space for students to challenge and explore convictions, even when those convictions differ from their professors. Davidson students have the opportunity to learn from some of the best and highest-minded professors in academia – it would be a disservice to both parties to not welcome proper discourse. I hope the biology department considers my recommendations for balanced ideological thought in their classrooms. Thank you for your time and consideration. Hannah Fay ’25 Hannah Fay graduated from Davidson College in 2025 with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and currently serves as a Communications Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Please join us in congratulating the 2025-26 recipients of the Robert Murray Scholarship for Excellence in Free Expression! These three exceptional students, each receiving a $2,500 scholarship, embody the values of DFTD in promoting open inquiry and civil dialogue at Davidson. Robert F. Murray was a founding member of Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse (DFTD) and a central figure in shaping its mission. His belief in free expression, viewpoint diversity, and open dialogue was instrumental to the organization’s founding and early success. In recognition of his lasting impact, DFTD established the Robert Murray Scholarship for Excellence in Free Expression to support students who embody the values he championed: intellectual courage, respectful dialogue, and a commitment to expanding the range of ideas at Davidson College. We at DFTD are proud to support Stephen, Arshi, and Jonathan in their continued efforts to uphold these values in the Davidson community.

By Gabriel Russ-Nachamie ’27 and Stephen Walker ’26 The Davidsonian March 19, 2025 Davidson’s public commitment to free expression is admirable, but recent anti-speech actions by the College contradict its guarantees to students and set dangerous pro-censorship precedents. This paradox threatens to stifle the open discourse we as a community all grow and benefit from. For context, a 2021 press release announcing Davidson’s commitment to freedom of expression states the College intends “to build a culture where everyone can participate and be heard” and acknowledges that “freedom of expression can’t exist when some people are barred from the conversation” solely on account of allegations that their speech is seen as wrong or offensive. Davidson’s pledge in the free expression statement itself commits the College to upholding protections of student expression for all because “Dissenting voices cannot and should not be censored.” Recent actions against the College Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter and its president, Cynthia Huang ‘25, threaten to undo these efforts in ways harmful to each and every one of us. In a letter published by YAF’s Davidson chapter, the College accused Huang of “Harassment” for publishing political content online and distributing pamphlets that “allegedly includes misinformation” promoting “Islamophobia” and “Transphobia” that made students report feeling “threatened and unsafe on campus.” Davidson offered to “resolve” the matter by forcing Huang to either admit responsibility for the alleged violation and agree to an “Accountability Plan” demanding action to avoid further sanction or a “Code of Responsibility Council Hearing,” which is reserved for actions constituting “serious prohibited conduct in a single incident or a persistent pattern of less severe prohibited conduct,” according to Davidson’s student handbook. The content that triggered this response was political material responding to ideas and policies the YAF chapter disagreed with. It is wrong to classify disagreement as harassment simply because the disagreement “offended” students. The content in question was meant to spark discourse surrounding certain political policies and ideologies. According to Davidson’s own standards, this content should be protected speech. The content that Huang faces potential sanctions for did not explicitly or implicitly promote any action against specific people or groups on account of their identities. For example, the pamphlet from YAF notes the link between Islamic fundamentalist theology and Hamas. However, this is not “Islamophobic” but a historical and scholarly argument about justifications of violence that rely upon religious interpretations. In fact, Hamas is an acronym that stands for the “Islamic Resistance Movement” and the group uses Islamic theology to justify their actions. Discussing the impact of religion on violence, whether it be Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, is protected speech and not bigotry. The club did not in any way target students and the material was freely available for anyone to engage with or ignore. Serious political disagreement on issues always has and will continue to offend individuals who dislike competing opinions. However, a small group of students being “offended” never justifies institutional backlash against political speech. We are not the only individuals or groups concerned about this restriction on speech. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonpartisan national organization dedicated to protecting free speech for all Americans, recently sent a letter to President Doug Hicks ‘90. FIRE urged Davidson to drop the charges against the YAF chapter and change its policies to align with the Chicago Principles of free speech, commonly known as the Chicago Statement which Davidson has allegedly committed to upholding. Adjudicative bodies should not base their decisions purely on perceptions motivated by personal feelings and biases. These actions by the college against YAF risk violating Davidson’s commitment to ensuring free speech and robust debate among students. No threats or harassment against students were included in YAF’s content, and anybody who does not like what they have to say is not being forced to engage with their content in any way. The only discernible motivation for going forward with sanctions is that YAF is a political minority that has questioned political orthodoxies in a way that is upsetting to others. The College’s Commitment to Freedom of Expression was made to protect this type of conduct. The Commitment directly states, “Davidson College’s fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate, discussion, and deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even most members of the college community to be offensive or unwise.” Sanctioning YAF for political arguments violates our rights as students and has dangerous implications. The aforementioned press release announcing Davidson’s commitment identifies “self-censorship” as a problem for Davidson and a motivator for its creation of the Commitment to Freedom of Expression statement. When students see that the only person who has spoken out against the majority in a political debate is facing sanctions because others did not like the content that student shared, said administrative action sends a message that dissent is unacceptable. This potentially triggers more self-censorship among all those who may disagree with this and countless other political ideas. As the presidents of the Davidson College Republicans and the Davidson College Libertarians, we stand for the free speech rights of all Davidson students. As a leading liberal arts school receiving taxpayer dollars, Davidson has publicly committed itself to upholding free speech rights for students and faculty. We call on the College to uphold its proclaimed principles and reject punishing students and political clubs for speech that some might disagree with or find offensive. We call on the College administration to change the Code of Responsibility to align with the Chicago Statement, as FIRE argued is crucial for Davidson in its letter to President Hicks. Finally, we firmly reject the anti-intellectual, adolescent mindset that has motivated the support for YAF’s censorship. Unwillingness to coexist with peers you may disagree with is unbecoming of students at such a prestigious institution like Davidson. You can’t take away your peers’ rights just because people’s feelings are hurt. Gabriel Russ-Nachamie ‘27 is an economics and mathematics double major from Lincolnton, NC and can be reached for comment at garussnachamie@davidson.edu. Stephen Walker ‘26 is a political science and English double major from Philadelphia, PA and can be reached for comment at stwalker@davidson.edu. https://thedavidsonian.news/1063/perspectives/davidson-college-republican-and-davidson-college-libertarian-presidents-we-stand-for-free-speech-at-david son/

By James (Jim) Martin '57 The Davidsonian February 26, 2025 As a loyal alumnus, I love Davidson College. There are few things here that I don’t love. Perhaps you feel the same, for similar or different reasons. While privileged to teach chemistry here for twelve years, I got into politics as a Mecklenburg County Commissioner. For five decades since retiring from the faculty to become a member of the US Congress, I followed Davidson mostly in passive ways. My annual giving was modest until I was in a position to increase my donation and deliver a significant gift from Duke Energy while on its Board. This and generous friends endowed Professor Malcolm Campbell’s multidisciplinary Genomics Program and a chair in chemistry honored to support Professor Erland Stevens. While Governor of North Carolina, I received an honorary degree and spoke at graduation. All this is a self-aggrandizing way to say I’m part of Davidson College and fully committed to helping it become the best it can be. This was tested when our Trustees decided that the President and the majority of Trustees need no longer be Christian. I joined eleven other former Trustees in a statement objecting to what we believed would undermine Davidson’s tradition and Statement of Purpose. This angered some alumni, especially recent graduates. You might be amused at how many defended the change simply by denouncing us as “old white men.” This trifling trifecta of accursed identity was true, but ignored thoughtful reasoning. This drew me to an even smaller, unofficial group of concerned alumni, Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse ( www.dftdunite.org ). Since 2018, its founders had petitioned Davidson College to adopt the Chicago Principles on Freedom of Expression. Pleading from a conservative viewpoint, they got little respect. Even with support from hundreds of alumni representing a wider range of interests, ages and viewpoints, DFTD continued to be disregarded. In 2021, President Carol Quillen heeded a similar appeal from several faculty members, whose interests weren’t aligned with ours. She appointed me to a group of six chaired by Professor Issac Bailey to compose a Davidson vision for academic freedom of expression reflecting Davidson’s commitment to ideals of diversity. The resulting document containing every element of the Chicago Principles was deferred until the arrival of new President Doug Hicks. With his calm inspiration, earnest discussions among faculty won growing acceptance. In early 2023, “Davidson’s Commitment to Freedom of Expression” was affirmed by a nearly unanimous vote. DFTD found ways to support greater diversity of viewpoints on campus. A student chapter of Free Speech Alliance was founded and DFTD was pleased to provide funding for their and others’ invited speakers. This led individual students to entrust us with suspected violations of their academic freedom. Most alarmingly, we heard about several dozen academic courses with syllabi requiring students to confess themselves “oppressors,” repent and atone . . . religious conditions irrelevant to the subject matter. Ironically, DEI is Latin for “gods.” We learned from other students about an astonishing “mandatory” order that all Davidson athletes attend a one-sided, provocative documentary entitled, “I’m not Racist…am I?” Its message? If you are white, you are racist. If you’re non-white, you can’t be racist. Melanin matters. While we don’t object to anyone studying such controversial notions, we protested the coercive way highly partisan objectives were imposed as a condition for participating. After several months with no assurance that our concerns were taken seriously, we reported this to our subscribers. Our purpose was to bring about a remedy, not punish or accuse any individual as was making national headlines at other schools. We figured some may have felt they were doing what was expected of them. One of us mentioned this campus issue in an interview on Fox News. This exploded into far wider circulation than we had foreseen or intended. Faculty and administration were flooded with vile communications from hundreds of anonymous individuals. At the time, this threatened to damage the reputation of Davidson College as well as DFTD, likely among opposing factions. I see no consequent injury against the College today, and DFTD’s standing has become more respected or tolerated even among some who dispute us. We made a point to welcome Dr. Chloe Poston as DEI Vice President at Davidson. She listened to our encouragement to explore ways to reform those abuses. Was it fair, in the cause of including diversity, to blame students for past discriminatory practices for which they bore no personal responsibility? We were pleased to discover, not long after the fall term began, that every course whose syllabus had defamed students as “oppressors” had dropped the insulting indoctrination. To us, this was good news, reflecting a less divisive and more welcoming attitude on campus. We commend those among faculty, administration, and students whose thoughtful contributions led to these corrections. Other reforms may need attention. Do any departments still require DEI allegiance in ways that filter out conservative scholars? Do students or faculty still feel intimidated to self-censor their thoughts and questions? Will Davidson adopt institutional neutrality for ideological controversies? There’s now the question whether Davidson‘s more welcoming, less doctrinaire approach to inclusion of a wider diversity of attributes, cultures and viewpoints will survive the national backlash against DEI. The federal government has declared a campaign to eradicate any trace of it. Among our DFTD membership we’ve learned to respect divergent views among friends, but I can tell you there is division over this. Some are convinced the same old divisive malpractices will simply be continued behind new titles, concealing the enforcement of identity politics. Others trust that Davidson’s new approach can be a positive model for others. Davidson can demonstrate a standard of healthier assurance that every student, without regard to their culture, religion, attitude, politics or appearance, will be genuinely welcomed and encouraged to grow intellectually, socially and spiritually. Large universities with massive DEI staffing must choose to fold or fight. If Davidson can restore diversity’s original ideals without the partisan excesses, other elite colleges might choose to defend this more sensible approach. The Davidsonian 2/26/25 by Davidsonian - Issuu

You get an A! And you get an A! On campuses this fall, some students might feel like they’ve wandered into their own Oprah episode, except the prize is a transcript filled with top marks.

The school’s president keeps his job, for now, but the Board of Visitors votes to eliminate DEI programs.

A new book shows how the trick works—and how to fight it.

Internal documents reveal how administrators use “diversity checks” to influence the hiring process and engage in discrimination.

The Ivy League school has discussed an effort to ‘support viewpoint diversity’ with potential donors, says it ‘will not be partisan’. 

Internal documents reveal how administrators use “diversity checks” to influence the hiring process and engage in discrimination.

Some programs are being discontinued, while others are being broadened to include more students

National Association of Scholars By Kali Jerrard July 1, 2025 CounterCurrent: Week of 06/30/25 The past six months have made one thing clear: the role of college president is no longer safe from political or public accountability. Since the start of President Trump’s second term, a series of Executive Orders (EOs) and higher education reforms have put colleges and universities—and their leadership—under intense scrutiny. Institutions slow to comply, particularly with mandates to dismantle “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs, are finding themselves in the federal crosshairs. The result? A wave of resignations, stalled appointments, and mounting pressure on presidents and administrators to abandon progressive orthodoxies in favor of transparency, viewpoint diversity, and legal compliance. The recent shake-up at the University of Virginia (UVA) may be only the beginning. Last week , I wrote about UVA and its administrators’ apparent failure to comply with the EO to dismantle DEI on campus. To summarize, the UVA Board’s March and April Resolutions—which sought to discard DEI and increase viewpoint diversity—were “stonewalled” by administrators. The school is under federal investigation as well for failure to comply with anti-DEI directives. Now, different news out of UVA has made the top of the news cycle. On Thursday evening , news broke that UVA President Jim Ryan stepped down after nearly seven years as president, sparking a firestorm of debate over the circumstances. The Department of Justice (DOJ) apparently demanded Ryan’s resignation after UVA failed to entirely eliminate DEI on campus. This coincided with the DOJ’s investigation into the school. While schools like Columbia and Harvard are being publicly investigated, UVA has been quietly scrutinized by the DOJ for months. According to a New York Times article , The Trump administration has privately demanded that the University of Virginia oust its president to help resolve a Justice Department investigation into the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, according to three people briefed on the matter. While some at UVA rejoiced, others protested last Friday, accusing the government of overreach. Lest we not forget that as a public institution of higher education, UVA is beholden to the law in order to receive federal funding. Such violation of anti-DEI directives by failure to comply or by hiding DEI under different names on campus put UVA in the Trump administration's direct line of fire. What happens next at UVA remains to be seen. While some thought Ryan’s resignation was necessary to “protect the university’s core values of depoliticization and intellectual diversity,” others in the community have said “they will not go quietly.” In light of recent scrutiny directed at institutions like UVA, Columbia, and others now in the Trump administration’s crosshairs, a major question is circulating: Are more college and university presidents being positioned to resign? It seems increasingly likely. Since January, the administration’s heightened focus on higher education—particularly its push to confront anti-Semitism and dismantle DEI bureaucracies—has placed mounting pressure on campus leadership. With job instability growing and public demands intensifying, more resignations—or even forced removals—may well be on the horizon. The same trend could extend to other top administrators as well. Candidates looking to fill administrative vacancies may also run into more snags than in previous years. For instance, take Santa Ono, whose appointment as president of the University of Florida (UF) was blocked by the Florida Board of Governors in a vote of 10-6 after his track record of promoting DEI policies came to light. Ono’s effort to walk back his prior embrace of DEI and progressive campus dogmas failed to convince Florida’s political leadership that he was the right choice for the job at UF. Currently, UF is still on the hunt for a president, with Dr. Kent Fuchs filling the role as interim president. The school is also looking for five new deans —however, this search is somewhat predicated on finding a new president first. The rapidly changing higher education landscape is paving the way for much needed reforms. Ridding classrooms of DEI, reestablishing gender distinctions under Title IX protections, and removing animus-fueled ideology from curricula—to name a few—have leveled the ground for higher education to rebuild its commitment to providing an excellent education and educating virtuous citizens. Higher ed’s growing pains, though unpleasant, are necessary—including the reshaping of leadership at major institutions. Until next week. P.S. New positions have opened at Cleveland State University as part of its new Center for Civics, you can review the jobs by clicking here and here . P.P.S. Ahead of Friday, the National Association of Scholars (NAS) wishes you and your loved ones a Happy 4th of July! Be sure to follow Minding the Campus’s American Revolution Series , which—in preparation for America’s 250th anniversary next year—is tracing the key events that led to our independence. And keep an eye on the NAS website for upcoming events, articles, and updates.