Q&A with Steve McGuire | The state of civics education and free speech on American college campuses

Dr. Steve McGuire is a former political science and American government professor and serves as the Paul & Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). McGuire writes, Podcasts, and speaks on free speech and academic freedom on college campuses.

His writing has appeared in outlets including The Philadelphia Inquirer, Inside Higher Ed, RealClearPolitics, and Political Science Reviewer.

McGuire sat down with Colorado Politics to discuss the gaps in American history and civic education and the state of free speech on college campuses. 

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Colorado Politics: ACTA recently released a survey called “Losing America’s Memory 2.0” in which 3,000 college students were asked a number of questions about civics and US government. The introduction to the survey results states ACTA found that “significant numbers of college students graduate without even a rudimentary grasp of America’s history and political system.” For example, the study found that only 27% of students surveyed were able to correctly identify the President of the US Senate, and nearly half incorrectly identified Thomas Jefferson as the Father of the Constitution. What can we conclude from these results?

Steve McGuire: This is a drum that ACTA has been beating for a long time. We need to improve civic education for the sake of our country, and there just seems to be very little progress in terms of doing that. We’re not blaming the students. The students know what they’ve been taught. I think we need to look at the people who are designing the curricula, both at the K-12 level and in higher education. The questions we ask are fairly basic questions. Just about anyone who’s eligible to vote, you would hope would know these things, and certainly college graduates. According to ACTA’s project, What Will They Learn?, Less than 20% of colleges and universities require their students to take a course in US history or government.

CP: What kinds of things do you think all college graduates should know about American government and history by the time they graduate?

MCGuire: In my view, it comes down to setting priorities and what the administrators and faculty who are involved in designing the core curricula think that students really need to know. Primary source documents, documents that are widely recognized as being critical to the development of the American political system or American history, are essential so that students come away with a fairly broad grasp of the key events that have shaped America throughout its history and explain where we’ve come from, what our principles are, and why the country’s been able to last as long as it has. So, documents like the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, some of the Federalist Papers, key Supreme Court cases, Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, are just a few that come to mind.

CP: Many states, including Colorado, require students to take American history and US government in order to graduate high school. Is ACTA saying that these requirements aren’t enough, and that these courses should also be required at the college level?

McGuire: We have to recognize where we’re at, which our survey reveals is that a lot of students just don’t even have basic knowledge of our political system or our history. So what ends up happening in college is the courses are almost remedial in that they’re covering things students should have learned in high school. So we’re not really in a position where we could say, ‘well, look, a large percentage of students already have a pretty good sense of history or mastery of the basics of our political system, so maybe asking them to do this in college isn’t necessary.’ We’re kind of in the opposite situation, but I think even if we were in a better set of circumstances, understanding our history and our political system is so important, and it’s one of the critical functions that our university should serve that we would want to continue to sort of build on and layer the knowledge and the understanding that the students have.

Certainly if we were in a situation where students were coming to college already possessing a fairly firm foundation in the basic facts about our history and our political system, then you could move into more advanced topics and questions and you could dig deeper into, say, debates about how our political system works and that sort of thing. Ultimately, as a country we want to have leaders who don’t just know the basic facts, but they have an understanding of some of the nuances and the debates and arguments that have shaped our political development over time.

If you talk to a lot of history and political science instructors, they’ll tell you that they spend a lot of time just covering basic things that under ideal circumstances they would just expect students to know, and then they could build on that. So instead of just going through and saying, here are the three branches of government and what they do, you could read more of the Federalist Papers and introduce the anti-Federalists and sort of go into that. But right now, most professors aren’t even close to being able to do that with most freshmen today because you have to start at such a basic level.

CP: Did you experience this first hand when you were a professor?

McGuire: Yes. A lot of the time in class was spent just walking through the basics of the political system. Students just clearly didn’t understand the basics, so you assign them what you assign then, and then you go in and kind of see where they’re at.

CP: What would you say to a student who doesn’t feel like they need to take courses on American history or government because it has nothing to do with their major? Why are these courses so important to all students, regardless of major?

McGuire: That’s a great question. I think this goes back to how we think about the purpose of a college education and how we frame and talk about it in our society. I’m actually quite sympathetic to students and parents who say, ‘look, I’m spending a lot of money to send my kid to college or university, and the primary reason that we’re doing this is because we want them to get an education to help them get a better job.’ I used to survey my freshmen on first day of class, and one of the questions I would ask them is, why did you come to university? and invariably, the number one answer I got is ‘so I can get a better job’ or something along those lines.

When you look at it from that perspective that obviously makes a lot of sense. But I think we also have to do a better job of talking about our universities as places that have multiple purposes. Yes, they are places where people go to get an education and training and skills that will help them in their future careers, but they are also places, historically, where people go for things like civic education and liberal education in general. I like to think of it as a place where you go so that you can have a successful career, be a good citizen, and live a good life. Your college years are also a hugely formative part of your life and they’re a rare opportunity where you have the time and space to think about other important things in your life, like what kind of a person you want to be, what kind of character you want to have, and what kind of citizen you want to be. Having these courses is a critical opportunity to reflect on those kinds of questions.  

CP: Let’s switch gears a bit and talk about free speech on college campuses. How would you describe the state of free speech on college campuses right now in America?

McGuire: It’s not great. To put it bluntly, we’re seeing fairly high levels of self-censorship paired with fairly high levels of intolerance, and those two things I think sort of mutually reinforce one another. If you survey students, for example, maybe 40% or higher will say that they self-censor, at least occasionally. But then you turn around and ask them, is it ever okay to shout down a guest speaker because you don’t like what they’re going to say? And a large number of students will say yes, that’s OK. Then you’ll ask them if it’s OK to use violence to stop a speaker, and the number who say yes is obviously much lower, but I’ve seen schools where it’s as high as 10%. That’s the other thing, we have this idea that speech is harmful or even violent. If you blur that line and you think that words are actually harmful in a way that is comparable or equivalent to physical violence, that’s obviously going to diminish your tolerance for hearing speech that you don’t like.

CP: In your view, what is the best way for students to deal with speech or speakers they might not agree with? Do you think it’s possible for students with opposing views to have a civil discussion?

McGuire: I think there is a small but vocal minority of fairly intolerant students who drive a lot of the intolerance that we see on college campuses. I think there’s a broader group of students who actually do want to hear different points of view. Some of my colleagues at ACTA run a campus debates and discourse program with debate-style events where everyone gets to have their chance to speak and express their views, and every time I hear somebody come out of one of these events, it’s an amazing success. The students love it. Even if they don’t agree, it’s not necessarily about convincing the other person. I think that’s another actually really important point, is to think about it as not being about winning the argument all the time or convincing the other person, but it can also just be about understanding the other person and where are they coming from. Even if you may think somebody has absolutely crazy political views, is it not in your interest as a fellow citizen to try and understand them better, even in those circumstances? Maybe you’ll find out that we’re never going to agree on A, B, and C, but actually on X, Y, and Z, we, we maybe think the same, or we have grounds for compromise.

I think at a college campus especially, we have to take into account, what kind of an institution is this? It’s a place where people come to ask crazy questions, to engage in debates, to explore arguments wherever they lead, and to pursue the truth and innovation and new research. So I think we need to have a fairly libertarian approach to speech and inquiry, on college campuses especially, because these are institutions that are specifically designed for people to have those kinds of opportunities. I mean, nobody should be compelled to go to a guest speaking event if they really don’t want to hear what that person has to say, but at the same time, if you really disagree with someone, instead of shouting them down, why not go and ask a question or offer a counter-argument during the Q&A? It seems much more productive overall.

CP: It’s such an important skill to learn in college, because you’re going to encounter people who disagree with you throughout your entire life, and the sooner you learn how to get along with people who don’t have the same views as you, the better off you’ll be in the future.

McGuire: Exactly. For a lot of students, going to college is one of the first times in their lives where they’re meeting people from all different backgrounds and all different experiences. Maybe you come from a small town somewhere, and it’s not like everyone thinks the same, but everyone kind of is in a certain range and understands one another, and then you go to college and you meet people who have totally different experiences in life.  

CP: How can schools balance First Amendment protections while ensuring they’re providing an inclusive, safe space for students? As you mentioned earlier, some students can view certain speakers as violent or harmful to certain groups. So how do colleges and universities ensure those students feel like they belong while making sure no one’s rights are being infringed upon?

McGuire: I think one of the problems that we’ve seen is that the ways colleges have tried to respond to the need for belonging and inclusivity is that they have sort of fed students some of these ideas that if you hear an argument that you don’t like, that means you’re unsafe or that words can be harmful or even violent. A lot of it depends on how you understand inclusivity and belonging and that sort of thing: does inclusion mean that you’re in a space where you never hear people who say things that you personally find difficult? Well, when you go out into the world, there are going to be people who think things and say things that you find personally difficult.

I think colleges should try to find a way to say, look, you belong here, we want you here, you are welcome here, but being here doesn’t mean that you’re not going to be challenged. It doesn’t mean that you’re not going to encounter people who profoundly disagree with you even about things that are vitally important to your life or your identity, and by exposing you to those things and not shielding you from encountering them at all, we’re actually actually doing you a service because you’re going to encounter that in life. Of course there are things that are just out of bounds, like discrimination and harassment, and these things are illegal; they’re not acceptable.

We saw some of that with the protests and encampments that we’ve seen in the last year where there were reports of harassment of Jewish students, and now the Department of Education is looking into harassment of Palestinian and Muslim students as well. So if there’s a legitimate instance of discrimination or harassment, colleges have a responsibility to act. Colleges can also provide students with certain resources and let them know that there are resources available to them that they can turn to if they need help. It’s totally reasonable for a college or a university to send out a message to students and say, look, we’re not taking a position on this, but here are offices and resources that we have available if you feel like you need to reach out to somebody. But I think we have swung too far in the direction of a certain kind of view of what’s required to make people feel like they belong or included, at the expense of free speech, and I think also at the expense of education. 

CP: Can you talk about the history of free speech on college campuses? How did we get to where things are now?

McGuire: Obviously, there’s a long history of protests on college campuses, and the quad is often treated almost like the public square where people can go out and protest, and there is some debate about what role protests should have on a college campus. Some people will argue that it’s an academic space, we’re supposed to be reading books and engaging in research and protest isn’t really part of that, but the much more dominant historical practice is that protests are a fairly common occurrence on college campuses. Students are often very passionate about various political or social causes, and they’re on campus, so it would make sense that they would go out do something at a place where many of them live right.

I think there’s a good argument to be made that engaging in this kind of activity on college campuses is a great educational experience for the students. It’s almost like a kind of laboratory where they can practice engaging in this kind of citizenship and this kind of behavior, with maybe less potential consequences than going out and doing it in the streets or in front of the White House. 

At the same time, colleges and universities are allowed to set things like time, manner, and place restrictions. They also have a responsibility to ensure that the rights of everyone who’s at their institution are properly respected. So if a protest is disrupting a class or the library, then all of a sudden the college has competing rights that they need to somehow regulate and negotiate. Generally, our view at ACTA is that colleges and universities should have solid time, manner, and place restrictions on the books that sort of show when and where you can engage in this kind of activity, and it’s totally legitimate for them to say that you cannot disrupt academic spaces.

With the recent protest encampments, in addition to some of the harassment, we also saw activities that cross the line in terms of disrupting the rights of others. I saw one video from the University of Michigan where the protestors went down the hallway in an academic building and actually flipped the doors of classrooms open and were chanting as they were going down. So you saw a professor sitting on the desk, cross-legged, probably talking about philosophy or something, with a bunch of students there, and all of a sudden their experience is disrupted. That’s not really a legitimate expression of free speech. So I think the general rule is that colleges and universities should recognize and protect free speech, but they also need to point out when lines are being crossed. So if a university has a rule that you can’t set up tents on the quad, then you can go out every day and protest there, but you have to go home at night.

CP: What role do you think social media plays in this whole debate?  

McGuire: I think this has had a massive effect, and one of the areas where it’s had a really big effect in terms of academic freedom specifically is what we call extramural speech. So according to the American Association of University Professors, there’s freedom of research, there’s freedom in the classroom, and then there’s extramural speech, which is what a professor says outside the classroom. So if a professor is on Twitter or Facebook talking about the election or something like that, generally, the AAUP’s position is that they should be allowed to say whatever they want, just like any other citizen under the First Amendment. 

The one catch is that as an academic, you have a position of authority or responsibility within society. So let’s say you’re a biology professor and you’re on social media all the time talking about anti-evolution views or something like that. People might say that that starts to reflect back on the question of fitness, like are you fit to teach in the area that you teach in? Recently, with the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, we’ve seen professors say things on social media like, ‘why did he miss?’ or, ‘I wish he hadn’t missed’, and obviously I personally find these comments abhorrent. I don’t think we should in any way encourage that kind of political violence, even just joking about it is so bad for our politics. But it raises the question of whether someone should be fired because they made an offensive joke, and there’s certainly a debate to be had. 

I think there’s more of an argument for it for people who are in positions or areas of society where they have responsibility or authority that relates to politics and that sort of thing. We saw this with some of the anti-Israel comments that professors made in the wake of October 7, and it raises questions like if they’re teaching Middle Eastern politics or Israeli politics, are they really doing this in a way that is based on their expertise as opposed to their own ideological biases? I’m not saying they should necessarily lose their jobs, but it does raise interesting questions about the relationship between these kinds of extramural utterances and what the person might be teaching in the classroom.

So I think social media has had a huge effect because Facebook or Twitter, what would you have done? You would’ve mentioned it over coffee to some of your friends who maybe agree with you, or maybe they’d call you on it, but it would probably die there. But now anybody can go from totally obscure to infamous because something they say gets picked up and shared on social media. We’ve seen students get admitted to places like Harvard and have their admission revoked because somebody went and dug up tweets that they sent out when they were 14 years old. Yeah. I mean, who among us hasn’t said something stupid when we were a teenager?  think now obviously students, professors, and everybody needs to be more savvy about these things and more aware. I think we need to develop ways of thinking about these things and responding to these things that are still conducive to a free speech culture. Like if somebody says something you disagree with, part of free speech is you get to argue with that person. But calling for them to be fired is different than arguing with them.

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This interview appeared on The Gazette on August 5, 2024.