The Herald’s Fall 2025 Poll found that two-thirds of Brown students believe sharing political beliefs is important when forming friendships. Among very liberal or progressive students, this rate is much higher. While it is undoubtedly easier to pursue friendships with people you relate to politically, such self-segregation stands in opposition to the mission of the University. How can we learn more about the world and reach new understandings if not through vigorous, open debate?
Last month, in an interview with The Herald, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explained how college helped her refine her political views. While most high schoolers adopt their parents’ perspectives, Clinton said, college forces students to learn how to “articulate (their) point(s) of view.” Brown should be similarly transformative for Brunonians, but this transformation cannot occur when students shield themselves from debate. When we only surround ourselves with like-minded peers, we remain ignorant of and unprepared to face the diversity of ideas and people in the real world.
The entrenchment of ideological orthodoxy, particularly in the last 15 years of American identity politics and cancel culture, created an environment where we focused not on what people said, but rather who said it and whether their identity gave them the right to make such a claim. On College Hill, we shouted down speakers and canceled debates. In essence, we on the left created conditions where we could ignore the perspective of the right.
But shame and ostracism do not extinguish ideas. It suppresses them and motivates the holders of these ideas to pursue retribution when they are in power. We see this playing out right now as the Trump administration targets the University. The president’s attacks are a reaction to the belief that conservative ideas are unwelcome in higher education and that conservatives are victims of discrimination.
In the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” the White House asked the University to commit to “abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” But in this fragile political climate we helped create, even principled policy disagreement may be misunderstood as belittlement. I fundamentally disagree with the notion that any idea is unimpeachable — conservative ideas should be constantly challenged. As should liberal ones. As should religious and secular ones, for that matter. While college must never feel physically unsafe, it should be intellectually dangerous.
We came to Brown to do what is hard, not what is easy. If a policy is debated in Washington, then it must be up for debate on College Hill. As students, we must reject the urge to view differences of opinion as moral failings. We should assume good intentions and try to understand perspectives beyond our own — perhaps we will agree on more than meets the eye. Diversity in all of its forms, whether it be place, race, class, religion or yes, politics, is valuable. Yet the benefits of this diversity are only realized when we form close friendships with those who are different from us. Thankfully, Brown has much of this diversity; we need only reach out and move beyond our self-imposed segregation.
The spectrum of disagreement in America is far greater than that on College Hill. If we fail to reach across differences and refuse to relate to one another here, a campus that is relatively safe and ideologically narrow, then we will be wholly unprepared to engage with the world outside of Brown. In other words, we will get nothing done.
“There’s much more to a friendly relationship than politics,” said Ben Marcus ’26, president of Brown College Republicans (and a good friend of mine). I could not agree more. Students must not allow themselves to write off friendships due to political differences. Those who do so risk ignorance and missing out on meaningful relationships that make college worthwhile.
Tas Rahman ’26 can be reached at tasawwar_rahman@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
Tas Rahman is an opinions editor at the Brown Daily Herald writing about issues in higher education. When he's not coding or studying biochemistry, you can find him hiking and enjoying the great outdoors.
