{"id":19495,"date":"2023-03-06T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2023-03-06T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=19495"},"modified":"2026-02-27T23:02:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T23:02:27","slug":"learning-across-the-aisle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2023\/03\/learning-across-the-aisle\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning Across the Aisle"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Laura Billings Coleman \/ Photos by David J. Turner<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sam Coppersmith is a former Democratic congressman from Phoenix, Arizona, who served one term from 1993 to 1995, as he sometimes jokes, during \u201cthe height of the fax machine\u201d era. Dennis Ross, a Republican from Lakeland, Florida, spent four terms in Congress, first landing in D.C. with the 2010 midterm Tea Party sweep. A quick glance at their legislative biographies might suggest the two former lawmakers share little common ground: Coppersmith has been honored as a champion of Planned Parenthood; Ross earned an A- rating from the National Rifle Association. But on an October morning in Professor Duchess Harris\u2019s American studies senior seminar, the pair sat side by side, fielding students\u2019 questions, and finding occasional points of agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both know the challenges of campaigning and navigating demanding congressional responsibilities. Both have tried to serve constituents who voted against them. And both are worried that in an era of unprecedented political polarization, the next generation may not be learning to engage effectively with opposing opinions\u2014a skill essential for the continuation of democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m very concerned that my generation has done a significant disservice to your generation for not teaching you the significant requirement that you be involved in the process of self-government,\u201d Ross had explained to an audience of Macalester students and faculty gathered the day before in Mairs Concert Hall to hear the former members of Congress discuss the Supreme Court\u2019s June Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization<\/em> decision, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat brought us here,\u201d Coppersmith said from the stage, \u201cis the idea that we can dialogue. What we hope to do here is show that one, we can disagree in ways that maybe are productive for ourselves and for you, and second is, even though we\u2019re going to walk away and still be 180 degrees from each other, maybe we can tease out something where we can agree, for the good of the country to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ross and Coppersmith visited Macalester through Congress to Campus, which aims to teach students to understand how politically charged topics look from both sides of the aisle. The initiative is the flagship program of the Association of Former Members of Congress, an alliance of 800 former US senators and representatives. For the past forty years, the organization has been sending Republican and Democrat former lawmakers like Ross and Coppersmith to more than 140 colleges and universities, modeling the importance of bipartisan dialogue through classroom visits and conversational forums. This fall, with financial support from two Mac alums, Macalester began a partnership with Congress to Campus that will bring new speakers to the college for the next four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the program is just one part of a growing conversation taking place at Macalester and at many other liberal arts colleges, exploring what higher education can do to help ease the fierce partisanship of the moment, and to create a campus culture that makes room for free speech and a full range of perspectives. \u201cAround here, we sometimes refer to the \u2018Mac Bubble,\u2019\u201d political science professor Andrew Latham says about Mac\u2019s tight-knit campus, and typically progressive student body. While topics like solving systemic racism, protecting abortion rights, and staging an urgent response to the climate crisis may rank highly on the political agenda for the strong majority of Macalester students, the general population students will encounter after they graduate may hold vastly different viewpoints. \u201cThat\u2019s why a liberal arts education has to prepare students for the world they actually belong to and inhabit,\u201d Latham says. \u201cThe \u2018Mac Bubble\u2019 is not the same as the real world, so these kinds of experiences can help us to accomplish our mission, part of which is to prepare students for lives of political and civic engagement beyond this campus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking out of the bubble<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Macalester has long had a reputation for left-leaning politics. It\u2019s an identity that also tends to reinforce itself in the admissions process. \u201cIf you take it back to the anti-Vietnam protests, Macalester is known for a certain political sensibility that attracts certain high school students to apply,\u201d says Harris. \u201cIt would be fair to say that Macalester\u2019s student body is disproportionate ideologically, but that\u2019s coming out of a history that tells [progressive] students they might be a good fit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For nearly a decade, Latham has been teaching a class on conservative politics\u2014but with few actual conservatives in attendance. \u201cThere are always a few who will come into my office, close the door, and confess,\u201d he says with a chuckle, \u201cbut generally the class is filled with liberal students who are hungry to understand how the other side thinks.\u201d Student-led GOP and conservative student groups have struggled to find their footing and new members in recent years, leading to complaints from some alums and right-wing media figures that Macalester has become a \u201cmonoculture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But today\u2019s college students as a whole lean leftward. Although 28 percent of the general population identifies as liberal, 50 percent of college students call themselves liberals, outnumbering both conservatives and moderates by two to one, according to the 2020 College Free Speech Rankings from RealClearEducation, the survey firm College Pulse, and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. At selective colleges like Macalester, those rates are even greater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, higher education itself has become a source of division among American voters, with white college-educated voters giving increasingly strong majorities to Democrats, as Republicans attract growing numbers of white voters without a degree. A recent poll for NBC News found that 46 percent of rising sophomores wouldn\u2019t want to room with someone who supported the opposing candidate in the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many students, the freedom to explore a more progressive worldview can be a major draw. \u201cPolitics weren\u2019t the main factor in choosing Macalester, but I was definitely interested in breaking out of the conservative area where I\u2019m from, and into a more progressive, liberal environment,\u201d says Emma Kopplin \u201924 (Redfield, S.D.). Starting with a first-year seminar in American studies taught by Duchess Harris, \u201cI got the chance to have a lot of conversations I hadn\u2019t had before, and to take some missteps and to understand my own biases. I\u2019m glad I had the space to have those kinds of experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there are times, she adds, when the pressure to agree with prevailing views infringes on free speech. \u201cThere are some conversations at Macalester that tend to get shut down, or people maybe don\u2019t say the things they\u2019re thinking because they\u2019re afraid of getting \u2018canceled,\u2019\u201d Kopplin says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018More speech\u2014not less\u2014is vital to learning\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As she wrote in a recent column for this magazine, President Suzanne Rivera believes that \u201cMore speech\u2014not less\u2014is vital to learning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the vision behind the Congress to Campus partnership. Macalester trustee emeritus Peter Fenn \u201970 P\u201905, who has spent his career in government and politics, recommended the three-day program to Rivera. \u201cI\u2019ve worked with Congress to Campus for some time,\u201d he says, \u201cand it\u2019s important that students have access to those who are in the arena, and can have a civil dialogue\u2014disagree without being disagreeable\u2014about the issues facing the country and the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latham and Harris eagerly agreed to initiate the program last spring in time for a fall 2022 campus visit. While the Association of Former Members of Congress selects the members it will send to campus, each college chooses its own discussion topic. Latham and Harris chose reproductive rights, a topic that would be relevant to college students (a 2022 BestColleges study found that two-thirds of current college students want to live and work in a state where access is legal). \u201cBut this program was put in motion pre-Dobbs,\u201d Harris said before the event. \u201cBefore we knew there would be a Supreme Court ruling, this seemed like it would be fascinating and timely. But now that we\u2019re here, I can\u2019t predict how students are going to react.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The announcement of the Congress to Campus event stirred immediate controversy. A student group met with administrators to voice concerns about the lack of student involvement in the event\u2019s planning, format, and execution. \u201cFor me it was an example of not practicing the inclusivity the college claims to value,\u201d says Bea Green \u201922 (Orford, N.H.), an anthropology major. \u201cThe college needs to invite more student perspectives into the creation of these events.\u201d An op-ed from Mac Weekly <\/em>editor-in-chief Kamini Ramakrishna \u201924 (Rochester, Minn.) argued that, \u201cAccess to reproductive health care is a real and pressing issue for many Macalester students, and seeing this access debated on a public stage is guaranteed to be traumatizing for such students.\u201d More than fifty students with protest signs gathered outside the Mairs Concert Hall prior to the event, and several more were escorted from the hall after interrupting opening remarks from former Congressman Ross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hour-long event was not a classic debate, but instead a question and answer session about how these two lawmakers arrived at their positions on the issue, and what they see as the future of privacy and reproductive rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rivera opened the event: \u201cIt\u2019s inevitable that we will not always agree on every issue, and it\u2019s important that we learn how to engage across those differences, how to marshal courage to have tough conversations, how to extend and receive kindness, and how to be informed and engaged voters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
From left: Dennis Ross, Duchess Harris, Andrew Latham, Suzanne Rivera, and Sam Coppersmith<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sarah Beth Hobby \u201924 (South Pittsburg, Tenn.), Austin Wu \u201923 (Chaska, Minn.), and Gabe Karsh \u201925 (Evanston, Ill.), students from Macalester\u2019s forensics teams, posed questions to the two former congressmen, while Director of Forensics Beau Larsen helped to frame why free expression is critical, for both sides: \u201cWe have to know what the common arguments are, how they are formed, and why they hold appeal in order to invigorate change. In the world of forensics, we believe that dialogue is an essential means of democratic participation and that to be scholars, thinkers, teachers, lawyers, citizens, and neighbors, we cannot just know, we have to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students who attended the voluntary event expressed a wide range of opinions on the experience. \u201cI think it was probably a mistake to make abortion the topic, because it\u2019s not that controversial on this campus,\u201d says Karsh, a member of the Policy Debate Team. \u201cBut it\u2019s still being talked about on campus, so if the goal was to start a conversation, I think it was successful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tara Weber \u201925 (Sun Prairie, Wis.) an American studies and Asian studies major, says that she appreciated the opportunity to hear how abortion rights opponents think and speak: \u201cI surround myself with people who have the same worldview, and many are unwilling to listen to an opposing viewpoint. I don\u2019t think the goal is to empathize with the other side, but to understand what they\u2019re saying in order to counteract it.\u201d With abortion now effectively illegal in her home state, \u201cYou can\u2019t say that women\u2019s bodily autonomy is not up for debate\u2014it shouldn\u2019t be, but it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fenn says the dialogue made him \u201cincreasingly proud of the college. It took courage for Mac to choose such a controversial topic for the first forum, but we have always been a college that doesn\u2019t shrink from diversity and difference\u2014we continually try and embrace a society that is inclusive, and accepting, and tolerant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latham and Harris say they hope they can build on the lessons learned during the inaugural Congress to Campus, invite more students into the planning process, and look for more ways to bring students into closer contact with challenging ideas, speakers, and topics. \u201cThere are relatively few in-built mechanisms that encourage students to get together and talk across differences,\u201d says Latham. Congress to Campus is just \u201cthe beginning of something, of building these kinds of moments into a general education program [that teaches] openness and engagement across these big and serious differences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Paul writer Laura Billings Coleman is a <\/em>frequent contributor to <\/em>Macalester Today.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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