About Us
DFTD Mission
Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse (DFTD) aims to help ensure a learning environment at Davidson College that is ideologically balanced and that promotes a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation.
DFTD seeks to ensure that a core value of Davidson is free inquiry, not indoctrination in any ideology or political viewpoint. We support a campus climate that is civil, respectful, tolerant of all, and grounded in Christian values. We exist to encourage Davidson College’s Board of Trustees, administration, faculty, and students to uphold the highest standards of a liberal arts education that fosters intellectual freedom, supports an unfettered search for the truth, and prepares students for productive and virtuous lives.
What We Do
Assist Davidson’s Administration, Students, Faculty, and Alumni/ae in Promoting an Ideologically Balanced, Free Speech/Discourse Environment at Davidson
Encourage the Davidson College Board of Trustees and President to Exercise Greater Vigilance on Campus Freedom of Speech and Ideological Balance and to Make These Issues Top Trustee Concerns
Participate in the National Alumni Free Speech Alliance
How We came To Be
DFTD was founded in 2018 in response to three interconnected distressing trends in American contemporary academia, all of which are evident at Davidson. The first is free speech suppression—be it direct or through self-censorship. The second is the ideological and political monoculture that increasingly characterizes elite American colleges and universities. The third is the associated declining pedagogical standards of these institutions amidst rising costs and increasing unaffordability
In recent years, Davidson College has experienced a marked decline in ideological and political diversity among faculty and administrators. The loss of viewpoint diversity has led to pronounced “group think,” a threat to creativity and individual responsibility in the conduct of the college’s affairs and to the intellectual ferment so essential to academic excellence.
During the 2010s, the campus became increasingly politicized, with the college’s leadership making strong public ideological statements and encouraging political activism by students. Those who do not share the prevailing ideological and political viewpoint were often intimidated and ostracized in discussions, with the result that freedom of speech and open discourse were discouraged.
While the group of loyal alumni who founded DFTD support the College’s push for increased diversity and inclusiveness, we believe that care must be taken not to put pedagogical standards at risk. We were also concerned that the emphasis placed on student activism and community engagement could lower academic expectations.
In 2018, DFTD wrote to President Carol Quillen enumerating specific issues of concern and proposed steps that the administration and trustees should take to address them. We urged 1) adoption and vigorous implementation at Davidson of the
Chicago Principles of Free Expression—the “gold standard” of free speech in academia; 2) corrective policy changes that would raise the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) free speech rating for Davidson from a failing “Red Light” score to its highest “Green Light” score; 3) a concerted effort to diversify ideologically invited external speakers; and 4) biennial independently conducted confidential surveys of students and faculty to assess the state of free expression, open discourse, and ideological balance on campus. We also urged the Board of Trustees to establish guidelines for on-campus political activism by the College leadership.
We produced in 2019 a petition to the Board of Trustees for Davidson that it adopt and vigorously apply the Chicago Principles of Free Expression, the core statement of which is “….the University has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.”
More than 250 alumni, across all class years and including 19 former Davidson trustees, signed the DFTD petition, and we were gratified that in October 2021, President Carol Quillen appointed a six person trustee-faculty-student-alumni task force to develop a Davidson version of the Principles. The task force included DFTD board member and former North Carolina Governor James G. Martin. We strongly supported the Davidson College Commitment to Freedom of Expression Statement produced by the group on December 1, 2021, and urged that it be formally adopted by the Davidson faculty and Board of Trustees. We were heartened that, with the support of President Douglas Hicks, the Statement was affirmed by both the faculty and Board of Trustees in the spring of 2023 and now look for its vigorous implementation throughout campus life.
On another front, DFTD worked with FIRE in 2019 to guide the College administration on the policy changes that would raise Davidson from the lowest “Red Light” free speech rating to the highest “Green Light” rating. The administration took no action until mid-2021 when it agreed to changes that moved the college to a cautionary “Yellow light” rating. We now urge policy changes that will bring Davidson to the green light status that any liberal arts college should have. We have seen no meaningful progress in the administration actively diversifying the ideological makeup of external speakers brought to campus.
In the fall of 2021, DFTD commissioned independent confidential surveys of Davidson students and major Davidson donors, to provide insights from these constituencies on the state of freedom of expression and viewpoint diversity at Davidson. The
online surveys of students and
major donors were conducted respectively by CollegePulse and Braun Research, and independent reports on findings were produced by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). The results of the surveys can be found
here.
On April 29, 2021, the Board of Trustees of Davidson College named religion scholar Douglas A. Hicks as Davidson’s 19th president. DFTD has since worked with Dr. Hicks in addressing the freedom of expression and viewpoint diversity issues at Davidson and look forward to continuing to work alongside the Davidson College Administration.
In our estimation, Davidson College is currently at the most critical crossroads in its history:
will it maintain its heritage as a non-political liberal arts institution dedicated to an unfettered search for truth and education of students trained to think critically and to lead productive lives; or will it go the route of so many American institutions of higher education that, in the name of social justice, are close-minded on ideological issues and increasingly focused less on educating youth for challenging jobs and productive lives and more on indoctrination and suppression of independent thinking and free expression.
Meet the Team
DFTD Board of Directors
Richard Hendrix '74
Emily Koons Jae '09
James McNab '66
Ross W. Manire '74
James G. Martin '57
Stephen B. Smith '66
In Memoriam
Robert Murray '78
DFTD STAFF
Kenny Xu '19
Executive Director
