Dear Friends of FAIR,
Last month, FAIR Executive Director Monica Harris joined a distinguished group of scholars, legal experts, and education leaders for “Building a Culture of Dialogue: A Conversation with Harvard’s Intellectual Vitality Initiative,” hosted by Harvard Alumni for Free Speech. Co-sponsored by FAIR and the Council on Academic Freedom, the conversation explored what it actually takes to cultivate intellectual diversity and open inquiry — on Harvard’s campus and beyond.
In addition to Monica, the panel featured Harvard faculty and institutional leaders Professor Danielle Allen, Edward J. Hall, Ari Kohn, and John Evangelakos. Together, they examined the state of free inquiry at universities, the institutional conditions that make genuine dialogue possible, and the challenge of building cultures where disagreement is not just tolerated but genuinely valued.
Watch the full conversation here:
Monica’s contribution to the conversation brought a dimension often missing from discussions about free expression in higher education: what students are bringing with them when they arrive. If universities are serious about intellectual vitality, the work has to start earlier.
FAIR’s Many Stories, One Nation curriculum is designed to give high school students the tools for exactly this kind of intellectual engagement. During the panel, Monica highlighted two key frameworks at the heart of the curriculum.
The first is logical fallacy identification. Students learn to recognize common errors in reasoning such as straw man arguments, false dichotomies, ad hominem attacks, and more. What makes this instruction distinctive is its direction: students are taught to identify these fallacies in their own thinking, not just in the arguments of others. This self-scrutiny is harder, and more important. It asks students to develop a habit of intellectual honesty that most adults have never been formally taught.
The second framework Monica discussed is one she describes as among the most powerful in the curriculum: the Competing Goods framework.
The premise is straightforward, but its implications are profound. Most genuine controversies, the curriculum teaches, don’t pit a good argument against a bad one. Instead, they pit two legitimate values against each other. Safety versus freedom. Individual rights versus community welfare. Tradition versus progress. Equality versus excellence. In each case, both sides are protecting something real, but the disagreement arises because people prioritize those goods differently, and that prioritization reflects deeply held values, not ignorance or malice.
FAIR’s curriculum encourages students to ask: What is the “other side” actually trying to protect or defend? What legitimate concern is driving their position? Can I understand why a reasonable person with different priorities might reach a different conclusion?
This reframing doesn’t require abandoning convictions or pretending that all positions are equally valid; students can still take sides. But the framework changes the nature of the disagreement. Instead of “my side is right and your side is wrong,” the question becomes: “How do we navigate a genuine tension between things we both care about?” This shift from winning to understanding is what makes productive dialogue possible.
As Monica noted during the panel, this disconnect is at the root of much of the divisive public discourse we see today. When people can’t recognize that the “other side” is protecting something legitimate, they default to assuming bad faith. The conversation degrades into combat. The Competing Goods framework gives students a way out of that trap. Instead of avoiding hard questions, they’re taught to approach them with greater intellectual sophistication.
Open inquiry doesn’t begin or end on a college campus. It’s a cultural challenge, and culture is built over time, through practice, and by equipping young people with the skills and dispositions that genuine dialogue requires.
For educators and administrators interested in bringing FAIR’s Many Stories, One Nation curriculum to their students, or for anyone who wants to learn more about our work to strengthen civil discourse in K-12 education, you can explore it here or contact monica@fairforall.org.
The conversation at Harvard was a reminder of what’s possible when we take seriously the work of building a better public square. We’re proud to be part of it.
With gratitude,
The FAIR Team
The Lost Art of Listening: Building Empathy Across Differences
Join FAIR Advisors John Wood, Jr. and Ilana Redstone for this upcoming webinar, moderated by FAIR Executive Director Monica Harris. We will discuss the need to develop emotional intelligence and perspective-enhancing skills and how deep listening strengthens democratic participation and community bonds. This theme also supports FAIR's commitment to respectful civil discourse, which is a foundational element of our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.
Read John Wood, Jr. on the topic of empathy for our Substack this week:
Rejecting the Rejection of Empathy
Empathy is an ancient moral instinct that is relatively new to the English language. From the Greek word Empatheia (meaning passion or emotion) and the Greek Pathos (meaning suffering and profound feeling), the German language produced the term Einfühlung somewhere in the late 19th century — a term describing the projection of one’s own feelings onto ot…
The Body-Mind Connection: Rethinking How Medicine Approaches Adolescent Development
Mood swings, difficulty focusing, disrupted sleep, irregular periods are all hallmarks of adolescence and not necessarily signs of disorder. Yet antidepressant prescriptions for teens have risen 66% in six years, ADHD diagnoses now affect more than 6 million children, and hormonal contraception is routinely prescribed to teenage girls for symptoms that may reflect normal development. Join FAIR and Dr. Kendra Kautz, DC for a candid conversation about what parents are often not told before a prescription is written and what questions they have every right to ask. Drawing on real cases and peer-reviewed research, this webinar will explore the physiological context behind adolescent symptoms and ask what informed consent should really mean before a family agrees to a prescription that could change a developing brain.
FAIR Educators Alliance 2025-2026
Join the FAIR Educators Alliance for the 2025–2026 school year to equip PK–12 educators with the knowledge, strategies, and community support they need to foster schools that are more enriching and free from bias for students and educators.
Each monthly gathering will open with updates and presentations from FAIR staff, fellows, Chapter Leaders, and occasional guest speakers. Together, we’ll explore strategies to support educators, communities, and local chapters—and to advance positive change at the local, regional, and national levels.
Following the presentations, participants will have space for open-forum discussions to connect, seek advice, and coordinate on pressing issues in their schools. Breakout rooms will be divided into PK-6 and 7-12 grade levels with experienced teachers facilitating those conversations.
Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom Duration: 1 hour
Note to readers: We have paused the FAIR News podcast. If you prefer listening, rather than reading these newsletters, an audio version is available directly on the Substack app. Thank you for tuning in!
I love the featured article's emphasis on Critical Thinking combined with Self-Reflection, as well as the call for seeing the goal of dialogue being mutual understanding and discovery of potential emergent "3rd ways" beyond the simple collapse pushed by the more common either/or framework.
These skills are easily accessible to high schoolers who are educated accordingly, and even though many won't become highly proficient in them individually, they nonetheless stand to gain a lot of appreciation for the process and hold it as something to be valued and encouraged.