For the 2023 Samuel L. and Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture, Dame Louise Richardson sat down with Center Director Melani Cammett for a conversation.
November 8, 2023 at Loeb House
MELANI CAMMETT: [I’m Melani Cammett, professor] of Government here at Harvard. I'm delighted to see all of you here this afternoon. Today, we are most honored to have to present the Jodidi Lecture. And let me tell you a little bit about the lecture itself before introducing our distinguished speaker. The Samuel and Elizabeth Jodidi lecture series is among the most prominent lecture series of the Weatherhead Center of International Affairs at Harvard, and also of Harvard University itself.
Established in 1955, the series was created to support lectures by eminent and qualified persons for the promotion of tolerance, understanding and goodwill among nations and peace of the world. And I think we would all agree that those are very worthy objectives, especially in the current moment. Recent speakers have included human rights activist Nadia Murad, epidemiologist Larry Brilliant, and His Highness the Aga Khan.
Today, it is our distinct honor to welcome Dame Louise Richardson, a renowned academic leader and distinguished expert on terrorism who recently concluded a seven year term leading the University of Oxford in England. On June 2nd, 2022, Louise Richardson was appointed a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British empire in recognition of her service to higher education by Queen Elizabeth II.
A native of Ireland who came to this country as a university student, Dame Louise Richardson has lived a life of firsts, including being the first in her family to attend university, so that would make her a first gen in contemporary speech. She was the first woman to lead Oxford as Vice Chancellor from 2016 to 2022. The first to serve as Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland from 2009 to 2015. And as of January 2023, she is now the first woman to serve as President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
I'm also very honored to know that I am a member of a department that she previously taught in. So that's really wonderful to be part of the same department many years ago. Without further ado, let me welcome Dame Louise Richardson to deliver the Jodidi lecture this evening. Thank you so much.
LOUISE RICHARDSON: Thank you very much Melani. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for being here. It's a real pleasure to be back at Harvard and especially at the Weatherhead Center where I was a graduate associate many, many years ago. And I'm honored looking around the room that people from my past have taken the trouble to come here. And I'd especially like to thank Bob Keohane for being here. But also for everything he's done over many years for the field of international relations, and particularly to advance the career of women in international relations.
And my theme tonight is how universities can help address the crisis in democracy. And it may disappoint you to know I wrote this about a month ago, so prior to recent events—happy to engage with them as we chat later—but that's not my theme this evening. And although my new professional role at the Carnegie is at the Carnegie Corporation, as you've heard, universities will always be magical places for me.
When I was a child growing up in rural Ireland, one of seven children, university really was a dream destination. A place where Cinderellas could dance with ideas from all over the world and return transformed, empowered to leave their old shoes behind and step into any profession they chose. University offered me a ticket to a new world. A social sphere not defined by religion, or region, family income, race, or gender. A world that held out a different model of belonging. An expanded vision of my own possibilities.
It also offered a newly complex and safely disputed vision of national history, politics, international relations. I loved the way university made me doubt. It challenged my preconceptions, it robbed me of my servitudes. I arrived at university schooled in a version of Irish history entirely at variance with the one I would encounter there, a worldview that attributed blame to Britain for all of Ireland's ills. The irony of this in light of my subsequent career is not lost on me.
My education enabled me to make the journey from County Waterford to where I am now. And it's perhaps because of these beginnings that I tend to think of education as the solution to most problems. Before I begin, though, I'd like to invite you to answer a question in your own mind. What was it you learned at university that changed you the most? I'll come back to that at the end.
And tonight, I'm going to consider the question of how universities can address the crisis in democracy. I'll be making various suggestions. But fundamentally, I'll keep coming back to the ideas of openness, and mobility, and transformation. Universities are, or should be, models of what participatory democracy looks like. They bring people together from all walks of life to learn, reflect, debate, and think through how we move forward together.
They are places of encounter: social fora as well as research institutes, labs, and libraries. The health of the university, in this sense then, is already a major contributor to the democratic commons. I'd like, if I may, to plant an image in your mind. I think of universities as like rainforests in an overheated political landscape. They are vibrant, complex ecosystems that support diversity of thought that can help clear the air of the toxic emissions of false rumor and support a cooler climate of reasoned debate.
Just as we need to maintain rainforests to help biodiversity loss and climate change, I believe we need to maintain and support our universities to help fight democratic decline. But first, why is democracy declining? And what are the symptoms that we need to check when we pronounce it to be in failing health? When I speak of a crisis in democracy, I have in mind both the global decline in democratic governments and the national decline in democratic politics in the countries I know best.
The heady days not so long ago when American presidents spoke of exporting democracy around the world are long gone. According to the VDEM Democracy Report of 2023, the advance and global levels of democracy made over the past 35 years have been wiped out. 72% of the world's population now live in autocracies.
The report demonstrates that freedom of expression is deteriorating in 35 countries. Government censorship of the media is worsening in 47 countries. Government repression of civil society organizations is worsening in 37 countries. And the quality of elections is worsening in 30 countries. The Economist Democracy Index of 2020 recorded similar results. Indeed, the worst since the global score—since the index was begun. So I think it's in this global context that we witness a decline of trust in politics, both in the UK and in the US.
We've witnessed increasing inequality and increasing polarization with the erosion of norms of political accountability. I'll spend a little time considering these factors in turn. But of course, they're linked problems that collectively undermine democratic structures just as acid rain, increasing heat, and novel disease can undermine our trees. I've been very struck, while living in the UK but remaining closely connected to the US, how the patterns of polarization have altered recently.
Prior to the pandemic, political polarization was acute in both countries, as evidenced by the vote for President Trump and the vote for Brexit. But I think it has accelerated in the US and declined in the UK. And I attribute this difference, now this is a hunch I can't prove it at all, but I attribute it to two institutions: the BBC and the NHS.
Through the BBC, for all its failings, the country came together daily to hear the latest updates on the pandemic. The struggling NHS brought the country together too through its rigorously fair distribution of vaccines and uniform treatment of the sick. Volunteers in the thousands came together to help the NHS help the public. There were no similar unifying institutions in this country.
Now in the UK in particular, one key factor in declining faith in democracy has been declining trust in politics and politicians. Sleaze and corruption scandals have abounded, such as the VIP lane through which lucrative public contracts were handed to favored private firms. Meanwhile, Partygate has clearly left a lasting bruise on public feeling and a sense of trust being abused.
At the same time, honors are bestowed in official appointments made that are transparently matters of political favor rather than earned by public service or fitness for office. So one shouldn't be entirely surprised when the public starts to detect something rancid on the greasy pole and disengage.
In 2021, the IPR report warned that the decline in political trust is undermining liberal democracy in the UK. The poll carried out by YouGov replicated the historic Gallup poll of 1944, which asked people across Britain whether they thought politicians were out for themselves, their party, or their country. In 1944, 35% of British people saw politicians as merely out for themselves. By 2014, that number was 48%. And in 2021, 63%.
Now the decline in public trust is not, of course, limited to Britain. In America, the Pew Research Center reported in 2022, that 2% of Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right just about always; most of the time—19%.
As Robert Maynard Hutchins once argued, the death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. When we fight the decline of democracy, one of the key factors with which we have to contend is public apathy. People tend to feel that they can change things. They don't if they don't believe that government is anchored in public concern and committed to the public good, then naturally turn to protecting only the people closest to them seeking influence through private channels or supporting antidemocratic charlatans claiming to speak for them.
In the anger and mistrust that many feel about politics and the effectiveness of their vote or their voice in driving political action, there has been increasing polarization with a visible move away from the centrist or bipartisan politics, and increasing normalization of what would once have been considered extreme positions. We've seen this with Le Pen in France, Meloni in Italy, the Vox Party in Spain, the Freedom Party in Austria, Law and Justice in Poland, Pacification in Greece, and so on and so on.
Recent electoral retreats for what were the outliers in Spain, Poland, and even the midterm elections here, don't undermine the general trend of the extremes becoming mainstream. As Yeats wrote at the end of the First World War and on the outbreak of the Irish War of Independence, "Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. The best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with passionate intensity."
This does not seem like an exaggerated description of American politics at the moment where the polarization of political opinions have deteriorated into what's called effective polarization, where one actively dislikes those with whom one disagrees. As we know, what happens in the US reverberates around the rest of the world. In 2022, 2/3 of Americans believe that political divisions in their country had gotten worse since the beginning of 2021. More disturbingly, few saw things improving in the coming years.
62% expected an increase in political divisions. Now while only 14% of Americans said that a civil war was very likely in the next decade, 43% said it was at least somewhat likely. Where people foresee a future of struggle rather than adventure, they will be less likely to invest in bridges and more likely to invest in fences, or worse, guns. US institutions survived—badly weakened—one Trump presidency, it is difficult to have confidence that they would survive another.
My first initiative on becoming President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York has been to launch a Carnegie Fellows Program, in which we will select 30 scholars each year and support their research for two years as they conduct research on political polarization in the US, and make recommendations to us on how it might be ameliorated. And we then use their ideas and insights to inform our future grant making.
We badly need to rebuild the forces of cohesion and return to a politics in which people can listen, talk, negotiate across party political divides and find common ground, even while respecting each other's differences. We're certainly not the only foundation trying to step into this yawning space. We have joined with a number of other foundations and two other collaborative initiatives, one to invest in local news and another to invest in local civic infrastructure in an effort to redress the collapse of the center ground in local politics too.
The background to this increasing polarization of political views is entrenched and deepening inequality in most Western democracies. In 1989, in Britain, a rich person had 6,000 times the wealth of the average person. Today, they have 18,000 times the wealth of the average person. In 1965, a typical corporate CEO earned about 20 times the salary of a typical worker. Guess what the ratio is today? It's 278 to 1.
Today, the US ranks towards the bottom of industrialized countries in terms of social mobility. Young people in both the US and the UK feel the intense heat of the property market and the uncontrolled fire of global warming as threatening to scorch their life ambitions before they've even had a chance to bloom. Where people perceive fault lines hardening in financial terms, they're less likely to come together ideologically to perceive their fortunes as linked.
They may participate less often in democratic fora, both locally and nationally, whether it's joining a community board, a trade union, or voting in an election. The crisis in democracy is then underwritten by a growing sense that shared interests and mutual decision making are less powerful than the actions and personalities of key players who hold the most valuable political cards and will play them according to rules of their own making.
There are signs in more than one country that norms of accountability that once governed democratic processes are beginning to be eroded. Politicians and lawmakers are withdrawing from long-established treaties and laws protecting human rights, seeking to strengthen their own hand and weakening that of anyone challenging them. Client journalism is replacing open public interrogation of political policies by a free press and opposition parties.
Often the picture that emerges reflects the fact that many democratic institutions—can't help thinking of the electoral college or the Supreme Court here—were created in an earlier era and are now like tall ships creaking at the seams to navigate the 21st century reality of digital democracies. The US Supreme Court, for example, as is, tied to no formal code of ethics—it's above such petty limitations.
For once, there were gentlemen's agreements and politics. There need to be better laws protecting democratic rules and norms, limiting the power of individuals and cliques, regulating money in politics, and ensuring that all votes really do count. If not, democracy becomes a mere flag flown by a ship that to many people seems rigged by pirates to whom they have no connection and who do not have their best interests at heart.
Now what can universities really do in the face of this multifaceted crisis in democracy? Surely, we are Canutes before the rough seas of political power and the winds of global change. Well, my talk is now going to take a slightly less gloomy turn, which will probably relieve you. For I really do believe that universities have a greater ability than they realize to alter outcomes and secure positive change when it comes to our democracies and how they function.
But it will require courage, and determination, and wherever possible, a united response to external pressure in order to leverage the full power of the sector for good. One measure of a university's power is what is called the diploma divide. In the US, it has become clear that in addition to securing between 65% and 70% higher income, educational attainment is increasingly the best predictor of how Americans will vote.
If an American has a college education, they are more likely to vote Democrat. Those without a college degree are more likely to vote Republican. Crucially, the more educated are also more likely to vote in the first place. They are also more likely to volunteer and to participate in civic society. Interestingly, exactly the same effect has been studied in both Britain and France, in both general elections and in the Brexit referendum in 2016.
In these countries, the college educated tended to swing towards more liberal views and those without a college degree to more conservative ones. One can posit many theories why this is so and of course, there will be socioeconomic factors at work too but financial stability and social class don't in themselves explain the diploma divide. Whatever the active ingredients in the mix, higher education is a mind-altering substance.
Certainly, education has a major effect on democratic outcomes. It's not altogether surprising that this should be so. Education exposes us to difference and ideally makes us more open to diversity of origin, of skin color, of belief, religion, gender, sexuality. It doesn't surprise me at all that college graduates in the UK voting in the Brexit referendum were keen for Britain to retain membership of the EU. They were likely to have traveled and studied in Europe and shared classrooms with Europeans. Their feelings about Europe were, on balance, likely to be more positive than those of voters who resented governance from Brussels or who feared a dramatic influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe.
Now, before you cry foul, I'm not suggesting here that universities should pack in more students in order to obtain any specific political outcome. I'm merely noting that college education does have a potent political effect, and that one of the effects seems to be to increase participation in democracy in the first place. Another effect seems to be to increase liberalism in its broadest sense of support for social inclusivity.
If we are looking for a way back from polarization, extremism, and mistrust in politics, to build a new platform for openness and democratic thought where a wide range of ideas can safely be tested, then we could do a lot worse than look to universities as spaces that have a proven record in fostering belief in the possibilities of political participation and civic discourse. When we make the benefits of a university education as widely available as possible through increased accessibility, digital outreach, part-time study options, and so on, we shrink the diploma divide, which seems such a potent source of mistrust and polarization.
It's also very likely that we will be expanding the views of those who have studied with us. That expansion includes equipping people to understand political ideas and systems, and to participate better in democracy at a local and a national level, whatever their political sympathies, and with greater access to a wider range of ideas. In view of the fragile state of our democracy, I think universities must confront our responsibility for the diploma divide. In light of the grave difficulties and differences rather, the grave differences in life trajectory, in income, in health, even in longevity between those who do and do not have a university degree, is it legitimate to continue to ignore those who do not benefit?
Arguably, quite aside from ethical considerations, it may well prove to be in our self interest to assume some responsibility for these outcomes. The declining trust in universities, as you probably know, a recent Gallup poll has indicated that confidence in higher education institutions has dropped by 21% in this country since 2015, by 37% amongst Republicans. This suggests that we could well be harmed by public policy, and playing to those who have not benefited from a university education and seeing themselves as subsidizing.
Universities, then, are already key nurturers and preservers of democracy. They are, as I've suggested, complex ecosystems, in which a diverse group of people can find habitats that support their intellectual and imaginative growth. They are, from an ideas point of view, species rich. Just as rainforests are essential sites of biodiversity that help us to conserve and generate a host of life forms, some of them new to human eyes, so universities are essential sites that help us to conserve and generate living knowledge to the greater benefit of humankind.
We need to preserve them. And more than that, to preserve their health, to resist attempts to destroy their long-term benefits for short-term gain. Just as rainforests sequester carbon helping to support our atmosphere, removing toxins, and making air breathable, universities too are crucial to supporting a healthier atmosphere in civil discourse based on facts, reasoned debate, and broadmindedness. But to achieve this, universities need—consciously—to foster tolerance and encourage participation.
In their teaching, particularly their insistence on teaching respect for global histories, the legacies of peaceful protest, and the evolution of democratic thought, universities can educate students to a wide arc of cultural traditions and a less Western-centric idea of development than was once the norm. They can train students to see issues from multiple perspectives, to practice shifting viewpoints, to argue from one side and then the other. They can help students to develop their mental flexibility as well as strength. They can foster understanding of different political practices and consider how to improve democratic systems. They can teach students how to dispute civilly and well.
We need to be nimbler at creating more welcoming, less gladiatorial spaces, and better constructive models for debate where there is room for more shades of opinion, more diverse faces and voices to be seen and heard. If we are to be convincing in this endeavor, we need to have more ideological diversity amongst our faculty, and a greater willingness to engage publicly and respectfully across different perspectives.
Universities can also consciously help students gain experience of thinking together collaboratively as well as individually. Students benefit from learning how to negotiate, how to make concessions, how to change their minds and enjoy doing so, how to find a workable solution to a problem where many different actors have different priorities. Not merely scoring points, but building consensus.
Students who have this experience in university will surely translate it into political participation post university, and arrest the escalating rise in youth disillusionment with politics. Universities can model democracy, the good society, the fair workplace, the well run debating chamber where everyone feels welcome speaking. They can also model equal rights and fairness, particularly in being inclusive and committed to policies that allow access to higher education on the basis of merit and potential, rather than the advantage of social class, prior educational privilege, family connections, or sporting prowess.
Universities also need to make it easier for disadvantaged students to get there and to get on once they are there. We need to see this as an investment in democracy in its widest sense. It is part of how we keep our institutions and public spaces open, fair, and inclusive. If we want a more representative parliamentary democracy or any kind of democracy, universities are a really good place to affirm equality of opportunity and help to create a more diverse cohort of leaders, managers, and voters.
It goes without saying that universities as wealthy as this one are in a position to be extremely generous, but the numbers Harvard touches are relatively small. But the question is whether institutions like Harvard have a responsibility to those beyond our gates. In addition to being accessible, universities also need to be safe. They have a long and proud tradition of acting as sanctuaries for scholars suffering from repressive governments and political threats to their safety, and for those who've been forcibly displaced by war, famine, or other forms of social collapse.
Many universities during the Second World War took in eminent scholars fleeing from the Nazis. Some of the most generous American colleges in accepting Jewish refugee scholars were historically Black universities. Teachers who are themselves known to discrimination stretched out a hand of friendship to those of a different skin color who had also faced repression.
So resisting tyranny is another important way in which universities address the crisis in democracy. They enable voices to be heard and research to progress that would otherwise be silenced. One of my most uplifting experiences at Oxford was watching the Central University and the colleges come together, which doesn't happen very often, but coming together to support Ukrainian students and scholars.
We decided to offer up to 20 full scholarships to Ukrainian students, and we did this in the confident assumption that we'd get a handful of applications. And we got over 800 applications. Over 200 of them were qualified and took 20 students. And at Carnegie, we are supporting some programs, including one based here at Oxford, to help both Ukrainian and Russian scholars who are displaced by the war. Here, our efforts are focused on supporting scholars to remain in the region in order to facilitate their return post conflict to rebuild their universities.
And then freedom of speech. I believe that universities should be places where freedom of speech is practiced daily, for students and staff have the right to challenge one another intellectually in open forum and to offend one another. There are naturally well established legal limits to all freedom of speech and I'm not suggesting for a moment that we violate them. But I do believe that we should facilitate the expression of all legal speech.
Surely, it is better to hear an extreme view expressed openly and robustly challenged than for unpopular speakers to be canceled before they can say a word, or for zealots of any hue to speak only behind closed doors to a loyal following. The British government, as you may know, has recently appointed a free speech czar to regulate universities. Personally, I find this difficult to see as anything other than a populist move in the culture wars and an effort to undermine the autonomy of universities.
It comes from the very same government that gave us the prevent legislation which prohibits the expression of views antithetical to British values at British universities. I fear the UK government's commitment to freedom of speech, and they are very far from alone in this, is limited to speech with which they agree. Recently in Britain, free speech has become a weapon in the arsenal of the right against the left. But we must never allow freedom of speech to be owned by left or right. All universities, I believe, should see it as their mission to uphold it.
It's also the privilege of universities to keep open channels of academic communication where international conflict or dispute mean that other forms of diplomacy are narrowed or closed. Never underestimate the power of universities to continue intellectual and social dialogue that benefits democracy and diplomatic relationships. Brexit, as you know, has threatened relationships between Britain and Europe in the worlds of commerce and politics. But British and American universities continue to exchange ideas with colleagues, students, fewer students, but still students, providing wildlife corridors that allow, I know you're getting fed up of this metaphor, but allow free movement and collaborative projects to thrive. It's imperative that they continue to do so.
Major threats to future human peace and security transcend national borders. From climate change and biodiversity loss to invasive species, new diseases, microbial resistance to antibiotics, hostile developments, and AI warfare, we need the open knowledge sharing and the trusted partnerships that universities provide to respond quickly and effectively. As threats to peace and security are typically also threats to democratic function, universities could probably be regarded as circuit breakers for sudden global shocks. In strengthening their international partnerships and soft diplomacy, they protect our global commons.
I tend to think that a good example of this is the COVID vaccine developed by Oxford University during the pandemic in collaboration with global partners in business and research, including the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, research centers in Kenya and Thailand, testing centers in South Africa and Brazil, and manufacturing centers in India. Universities are also reliable knowledge banks that stay open even during an international crash. They provide remarkable services, often at cost again, the Oxford COVID vaccine, which was distributed at cost, in this regard is both a literal example and a metaphor. I think universities can help us to vaccinate people against disease but also against the viruses of misinformation and hate speech.
Universities are or should be havens of research, reasoned debate, knowledge-based evidence, and planning for the future. This research serves many ends that actively supports democracy. It can show us how to understand our world, how best to alleviate poverty, and enhance public health, explain voting patterns, democratize digital access to information. It can help the world to predict the energy needs plus the likelihood of pandemics and other catastrophes, and protect them from their worst effects.
In addition, of course, the curiosity-driven research that belongs in and is nurtured by universities often has unintended but significant benefit through technological and scientific discoveries from batteries to radio waves, not to mention gene editing. Universities also investigate and disseminate the truth—of history, of identity, of culture—making it less easy to spin false narratives. This has never been more important.
Conspiracy theories are rife and the digital attempts to confuse and manipulate the public with misinformation and conspiracy theories has been far too successful. We've all read reports of the percentage of the American and British population who believe things we know to be fanciful such as that COVID was a hoax. The pernicious and widespread effect of this toxic rumor mongering via social media includes fanning climate change denial, and equally worrying, spreading the message, apparently believed by 1 in 7 British people and 1 in 5 Americans, that violence is a fair response to these government conspiracies.
These days, investigative journalism is underfunded and media control is in too few hands. In many countries, journalists fear for their lives when they report on politically contentious issues. Even in the heart of Europe it is possible for journalists to be murdered in cold blood. Journalism is further undermined when important stories, such as those about the climate crisis, simply don't run because they are blocked by editors—it's too risky, too downbeat, or too offensive to powerful patrons.
At Carnegie we have a program called Bridging the Gap through which we fund the policy-relevant work of academics in an effort to ensure that public policy will be informed by the best academic work available. We're also supporting efforts to encourage American universities to follow their British counterparts by incorporating political impact, or sorry, public impact into criteria for academic promotion, and to move away from the view still widely held in the social sciences that applied work is somehow less worthy.
I would love to see universities step up and help supply the gap in the digital newsstands with reliable, fact-based long- and short-form takes on subjects of public importance. We need to get better at communicating our research on climate on science and new technologies to a wider public readership, not just in journal articles, but in accessible digests and thought pieces. It goes without saying that to be credible, this has to be objective and evidence-based. You can imagine funded research fellowships and partnerships with trusted journalists where evidence is properly peer reviewed, for example.
Universities have been in the habit of using their communications teams largely to disseminate information about their own achievements, prizes won, goals met, gifts received, buildings opened. Nothing wrong with that of course. But what if we regarded our media potential differently and became, instead of self advertisers, trusted advisors whose readers turned to them for weekly information without a party political agenda or audience numbers to keep up.
We can become staunch bastions of truth holding the eroding line of balance and accountability, preventing the flood of misinformation from overwhelming the digital commons.
So these issues I have discussed together constitute a crisis in democracy and clearly are a great deal more than universities alone can tackle. But I persist in believing that we have a key role to play as there is everything to play for. To return to Hutchins’s quote, "the death of democracy is not likely to be assassination from ambush, but a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment."
In a way, this is actually quite empowering. The more we care, the less likely that extinction becomes. The more we nourish its roots, the more likely it is that democracy will continue to spread and shelter us. Democracy isn't a totem. It takes no pleasure from our belief in it or our worship of it. It won't go on working like a charm whether we notice or not. It is rather like all relationships, something we have to keep committing to. We make it afresh each day in each generation. We have to keep choosing it, advocating for it, strengthening it. We have to be politically present, actively engaged, even when things are far from perfect.
Supporting democracy is also a continuous process. It's about being willing to speak up and be heard, about holding politicians to account, and improving the systems that force them to negotiate, to serve all their constituents fairly, to adhere to national and international rules and norms, to accommodate a wide range of public voices. Democracy isn't just what happens at the polls every four or five years. It is government by the people on the principle that political authority stems from them, and the ground up, as a tree is held fast by its roots.
Clearly, no one university can solve the crisis in democracy, but perhaps many universities can. I think together we are greater than we allow, and wiser than we think, and stronger than we know. Our universities have knowledge that all governments need. Our research shapes the future. Our staff and students are among the best minds of every generation.
We can advocate for the democratic systems we need to thrive. We can channel our work into preserving, promoting, and enhancing democracy. We can be models for the fairer and more representative society that we want and sowers of the seeds of the rainforest of the future, both academic and literal. These outcomes won't be handed to us. On a planet in crisis, sudden unforeseen stresses, tipping points, and abrupt political changes are likely, as we have seen in the past few weeks.
But I think we ought to see it as part of our job as universities conceived in its widest ethical dimension to be ahead of the curve, staunchly to defend experts and the deep knowledge they represent, to keep the public well informed, the policy options visible, and the channels of communication between the many different actors who participate and benefit from universities open, clear, fair, and tolerant.
We must above all be democratic ourselves and true to the highest ideal of what the university represents. We're more than research centers. More than businesses. More than factories producing well-trained future employees or saleable patents or generous alumni. We are, as the etymology of the word “university” suggests, whole, entire-encompassing multitudes. We offer a space where all different forms of knowledge, all manner of different people from all over the world can come together to think, study, share, write, debate, and come closer if they and the system are working together, to becoming their best selves.
Inherent in that citizenship of learning and sharing of knowledge is the pathway to a more sustainable democracy. It's a path we urgently need to find and to follow. In closing, let me return to the question I posed at the beginning, what is the thing you learned in college that changed you the most? I know what it was for me. When I went to Trinity, I learned that to see Irish and English history separately purely as that of colonized and colonist was to draw a line through an intellectual map that ignored the interplay of ideas and cultures that had formed our shared heritage.
I began to integrate myself intellectually to be able to see from both sides. Never has that ability been more important than it is now. At a time of international conflict where ideological battle lines are drawn, the specter of global shortages hovers over the future. Extreme nationalism and resistance to freedom of movement is growing. Higher education and the literal and figurative mobility it enhances is crucial to a more hopeful broader sense of belonging, a curiosity about other languages, other histories, other cultures.
Thank you again for so kindly inviting me and for listening so attentively tonight. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
MELANI CAMMETT: Thank you so much. Hard to believe you as you said at the opening you wrote that a month ago very timely I think across time but particularly in the moment we're living in now. So I'm going to open up with a few questions, and then we'll turn the mic over to you, the audience. So we'll have a microphone placed here in the center and people can come up and pose their questions.
So this is, on the one hand, really encouraging. Here we are in a university. You're making us feel that we can actually make a difference for good. And that is very uplifting and hopeful in these times. I want to ask you more about how you think we can do that in light of several things. One of which you mentioned, which is that there's rising mistrust in universities. And also this phenomenon of motivated reasoning, whereby people seek out information that confirms their prior beliefs, making it more difficult to persuade and engage in dialogue.
So I'm wondering, given the flood of misinformation out there and the potential role that you've highlighted that universities can play to help people distinguish between fact and fiction, misinformation, and so forth, how can universities actually do this in the context of declining trust in the context of motivated reasoning, and not just to their own students but to a broader audience?
LOUISE RICHARDSON: Thank you. Well I think the first step has got to be to understand why the trust in universities is declining and to arrest that decline. And from what we know about it, 80% of Republicans say that university professors bring their own politics into the classroom. And there, I think the distrust is linked to the fact that universities are not seen to represent a broad range of ideological viewpoints. And I think if we're honest, we have to concede that there is some truth to that view.
There is a consensus. It's a consensus I share but there is a liberal consensus in most universities. And so I think we need to understand what the distrust is. And we need to ensure it doesn't get any worse. And we need to if we want to influence people we're going to have to build trust. And I think we do that by demonstrating that we are genuinely open to diverse ideologies, giving space to views with which we agree.
And Timothy Garton Ash, a colleague of mine, describes the atmosphere a university should have as one of robust civility. And I think it's a wonderful concept, and I would love universities to be places of robust civility. So I think if we need to model our best selves by being objective, by not ourselves making arguments or the term you use is not one, I'd heard but I understand, I recognize the syndrome, well and looking for evidence to confirm one's point of view.
We can't afford to do that. We have to be—our information has to be—other directed, objective, and we need to represent—we need to be open to a broad range of ideologies. And I don't think we are yet.
MELANI CAMMETT: Great well, thank you. Let me just ask one more question before opening it up. And I can't resist given the moment we're living in right now, the highly polarized moment around Israel-Palestine, the war that's going on now, and turning to how that's reverberated here on campus. We've seen at Harvard that it's been very polarizing. That's hardly unique to Harvard. It's across the entire country and elsewhere.
And I'm wondering what role you see for university administrators here, how they should be engaged in these kinds of conflicts or not, and also how we as educators at universities should grapple with this. I've been struggling to think about how you bridge these divides and not just—we can organize events that will bring people that already agree with each other together, but how do you reach people that are really on very opposed sides and claim they don't even want to talk to each other?
LOUISE RICHARDSON: And well the first rule of former university presidents is that you never comment on your successors. So nothing I say should be construed as commentary on any current and former University presidents. And look, this is a very difficult issue, but it's hardly a new one. And this is a situation where universities should come into their own. And let me tell you, I'll answer by telling you how I handled these situations in Oxford.
First of all, I required every single student who registered at Harvard to listen to a lecture from me. I had to give the same lecture eight times because we had no space big enough to hear them all. And in that lecture I said, you have no right not to be offended. You are going to hear views you don't like. This is a university where your job is to understand where those views come from. Think about where they come from. Think about why you disagree. Be open to changing your mind. My mantra was the Augustinian precept, Audi Alteram Partem, hear the other side.
So I think first of all, you've got to assume that this was there before they took any classes they had to endure this lecture. So they knew that they were coming into a place that they had no right to claim that somebody couldn't say something because it was offensive to them. So you're trying to create a culture from the beginning. When, as inevitably these things happen, where you get and I got many vituperative middle of the night emails demanding I comment on some atrocity that took place someplace, and if I didn't, I was as bad as the people perpetrating it.
And I tended to resist making a statement on the grounds that it felt like virtue signaling to me to make an empty statement. In the case of Ukraine, I said, let's wait, let's convene, think about is there something practically we can do and then let's announce that, rather than from the comfort of our homes pronouncing on some global atrocity. The one there was one significant exception and that was Brexit because that was something we felt had a deep impact on the university. 25% of our students were European and 25% of our staff were European, non-British European.
So, but in that case I went to the university council and I forced a vote. They don't normally have a vote. But I said I wanted there to be a vote on our issuing a statement saying the university believed that a Brexit would not be in the best interests of the university. Some people thought that was a terrible thing to do. There was a real political price to be paid for it but we did it in that case.
So, in something as charged as today's events, I think the university should be coming into their own and inviting people from different points of view. There's no point speaking to the converted to come. And they're free—the rules it seems to me—people are free to protest but not free to prevent somebody else from speaking. So if somebody wants to come and protest fine but the event has to continue.
And I think our academics who have different points of view should be modeling in front of these students how they disagree and how they argue. And our students should be strongly encouraged to attend these events. This should be a really important teaching moment. And sadly it's not.
MELANI CAMMETT: Yeah. Great. Thank you so much. So let me open it up. And do we have a microphone? I think there's a microphone coming. We have a lot of questions. Wow. OK. Let me start. Why don't we start. Kim, would you like to?
AUDIENCE: Thank you so much. That was lovely and hopeful. I study parts of the world that, I'm Kim Scheppele by the way, normally at Princeton and delighted to be here with Weatherhead. I study parts of the world where universities themselves are under attack. Hungary, where Viktor Orbán has fake privatized all the universities. India, where some colleagues have had to leave universities in order to save them.
What do we do under those circumstances? Both if you're in the attacked universities and in the university community as a whole, because we're not just above the debate. We're now in the crosshairs of it.
LOUISE RICHARDSON: Thank you. Well I was on the board of the Central European University. So I'm very familiar with Orban's tactics. And as you know, we picked the university up and moved it which was a tragedy that we had to do so. And I think the university was extraordinarily well led by Michael Ignatieff during that period. He did everything he could to mobilize popular and international support.
But in the end, it wasn't enough. And it certainly didn't move Orban. And so I think we're powerless in the face of an autocrat. I mean powerless to reverse their actions. Not powerless to voice dissent and refuse to allow ourselves to be muzzled. So in that case to have to pick up and leave. Is your question more what should other universities do to support those people?
Well again, I think we should open our doors if they need. Programs like scholars at risk or universities of sanctuary as we became on my watch at Oxford, we should be absolutely open to academics who need a place to work. And we should absolutely speak out against this action. In those cases, if you're dealing with an autocrat, all one can do is play for the future. And I mean, some of the things we did by appealing to the EU ended up the EU did declare Orban's action illegal, which was some minor victory. It didn't reverse his actions. Yeah.
So we're not always going to win but we I think that's actually a model of how a university under stress with good leadership stands true to its principles and manages to survive but is clearly very damaged.
MELANI CAMMETT: OK, in the very back. Yeah. I'll just go back and forth.
AUDIENCE: Thank you. It's very interesting and timely talk. I'm Pradeep. I'm a research fellow at South Asia Institute, and I am a young teacher in a University in India Jawaharlal Nehru University Delhi. My point is I have two small points. One is when we talk about this student union and elections in the university campuses. That is considered as an entering point to the politics and democracy.
But that is being discouraged in many universities, particularly in developing countries, student Union and student elections within the University campuses. So how you are connecting that? Student, student union, and election. Like student elections happen, student leaders are being made and they take a decision among students, and also they influence the university decisions. That was a practice so far in many countries.
So that is being I think diluted nowadays that is being discouraged. And that is one of the issues like that I see a greater point where we are I would say that is we demoralizing or even since we are declining, the democracy within university settings. That is point number one. Point number two, when I see about the university leaderships, So University leadership is changing a lot. The landscape is changing. And that is very why I would call it very elite and discriminatory.
If you see for instance, women leadership in higher education. We don't find even the university I am located we are getting this is one of the oldest public University in India and we got the first women leader now in two years back, the women vice-chancellor. So we have 1,000 universities we have only three to four women vice-chancellor. So far so you see the kind of leadership that is happening there. So that is also impacting a lot the kind of discourse that we are generating within university campuses. So how you are looking at it? Thank you.
LOUISE RICHARDSON: Thank you. And on your first point it is a striking difference, I think, between American universities and certainly European ones, certainly British ones, and how little role students have in the governance. I mean in British universities the half a dozen students are paid for a year, take a year off of college or are paid for a year and they become full time representatives. They sit on all the university committees, have extraordinary experience, the finance committee, the audit committee, the vice chancellor selection committee.
And I think that's an entirely positive thing. I'm surprised American students don't lobby for it I think they ought to and they learn an awful lot from it if they did. I don't know that there's been suggest there's been a trend that that's declining. I certainly haven't seen that in Britain, and I don't know if it's declining here. But I think the bar is pretty low here. On the women vice chancellors, what can I say? I mean it took Oxford almost 1,000 years to appoint one so.
[LAUGHTER]
Not in a position to say anything about their paucity in India. Look, I think this reflects broader societal norms. I think as with all things to do with women, we've come a long way. The pace is slower than any of us imagined it would be. Certainly people who were present when women started attending university at mass levels in the 70s, the trajectory is clearer, the pace is slow. I, as you have detected, am an optimist. So I think I like to celebrate the things we've achieved rather than bemoan the things we haven't.
But I think change is occurring it will occur. I hope in India too. I can't really say much more than that but it has been slow and coming.
MELANI CAMMETT: Great. Michele?
AUDIENCE: Thank you so very much for your presentation. It was very inspiring to think of democracy as something we need to enact every day. So I have a comment and then a question. The comment is that here at Harvard, there's a lot of work that Dean Rakesh Khurana is doing to get our students to think more in terms of moral complexity that two groups could be suffering deeply at the same time, even if their recognition may be viewed as zero sum.
So moving students with these tools or the notion of ethical democracy, I think, which means that really learning to understand how people come to have the experience they have as opposed to thinking what are the five things that we should do now the issue of understanding as a pedagogical tool is so crucial. But my question to you as someone who taught here for many years, I really am curious about what your experience as an IR scholar how it has influenced your thinking about the current challenges now?
LOUISE RICHARDSON: Interesting. On your first point as you were speaking, I was thinking, gosh, you know, Oxford, Harvard has an extraordinary opportunity with the terminology has probably changed since my day. But the core curriculum whereas one could imagine designing some of these courses that would be required for every student coming in here to have to take the kind of course you describe. I think that would be a hugely positive thing and the structure, unlike a British universities where I just had to require people to listen to this lecture completely outside any because they had to register so, and but outside any classroom, but you have the flexibility here with the classroom.
So as to my studying IR, where do I begin really? I studied terrorist movements and particular interest in political violence, and how people manage to have a bigger impact than their any objective assessment of their capabilities would warrant. And so until I came to Oxford, I'd always run small institutions. I worked at Radcliffe, Saint Andrews, always small institutions, and learned a lot from how small organizations managed to have an outsized impact.
In fact, Paul Cohen wrote an article many, many years ago called "The Big Influence Of Small Allies" as I recall, which I remember reading in this context. And the other aspect of IR is, I think especially if you're a student of American foreign policy, which is, of course, I used to teach here, it is such an asset to train yourself to try to understand how American policy is perceived at the recipient end. I think there is a tendency in this country across a whole range of areas to assume the purity of our motives are self-evident, and if somebody doesn't perceive them they are somehow malign and the perspective from the other side can be very, very different.
I had a very interesting experience this summer. I was asked by the Irish government to chair a commission on the future of Irish security, international security policy. And the government wanted this to be a wanted to use it to educate the public as well. So we went around the country having open discussions and many protests. I was called all kinds of nasty things in Irish and people assumed I was described as an apologist for American militarism and a bastion of the British establishment, clearly by people who hadn't read anything I'd ever written.
But the point, whoops, the point about this was that I was so struck by the negative views of American foreign policy, even in a country as much of an ally as the US. And so I think my main lesson is just the imperative of trying, which feeds into the other conversation trying to understand how power is perceived by those who are less powerful.
MELANI CAMMETT: OK. Yes.
AUDIENCE: Thank you so much for sharing these relevant, very relevant views with us. Well I think few would disagree with you that a university should be a place for free speech. Should a university speak freely? A question has come up whether in a corporate sense, the university should take a position on current events, most likely I mean right now the Hamas-Israeli war. Previously Harvard took a position on the murder of George Floyd and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But seems not to have taken a position on the war.
Some universities take the position that it is not our business to speak freely about things. We're just a place for others people speak. Other universities have taken a further view. And if such if they should speak freely, should the president alone make that decision or should it be a corporate board decision? If you could enlighten us on that, I'd appreciate it.
LOUISE RICHARDSON: Well reasonable people differ on this. But my perspective is that by and large, no it's not for universities to give running commentaries on global atrocities. Because in part where do you stop? Any time there was an atrocity, I was under pressure to comment. And my line was always no. With the exception of Brexit where we felt there was real university interest at stake, and in that instance, we did get the board to speak.
And so by and large, I think it's very difficult for a university to hold a consistent position. I mean atrocities are taking place on a daily basis in Africa that never get commentary. Are we thereby assuming that those African lives that are being shattered are less valuable than lives of people who live closer to us? And you know I was asked, I was under enormous pressure to come at the time that somebody shot up a gay nightclub in the US, and accused of homophobia because I wasn't prepared to do it. And it just seemed to me that this was something that happened in another country, a ghastly atrocity. But it was not for me to comment on it.
So no, I think individual faculty I hope will absolutely be free to say whatever they like. But unless the interests of the institution are deeply involved in some way as I would say I did speak on the independence referendum in Scotland as well, which would I felt have been deeply damaging to the university, but again, and because universities were under pressure not to speak. So if so you can establish criteria if the university's interests are somehow very concretely at stake.
But what universities need to do is ensure that their faculty and students and everybody else are free to say whatever they like. But not the institution as a corporate entity unless their interests are so clearly involved.
AUDIENCE: Thank you Louise for a very fine talk. Let me come back to the theme of what universities should do in fostering liberal discourse, what was the main theme of your talk. The more we do that, the more we'll come under attack from right wing politicians, I think of the governor of Florida, and the more controversial it will become. So by attempting to resist polarization, we will actually promote it and become objects of polarization. Do you have a strategy in mind for what we do when that inevitable attack comes?
LOUISE RICHARDSON: Thank you. Well here I go back to my point about there not being many loud articulate conservative voices in American universities. And I think that's part of the problem. And people who do hold conservative views don't feel safe expressing them. And I think this happens in British universities too. But I do feel it's more acute here. So I think we need to elevate discordant voices, if you like, and not the scientists of this world, but thoughtful conservatives, even ones we disagree with totally.
In Oxford, there was a case you may know of Nigel Biggar, a historian, a very conservative historian, has written in defense of empire, and hugely controversial. Many of his colleagues, good liberal colleagues wanted to shut him down. And you know I came out in his defense. And so I think universities, that's one thing we can do elevate, demonstrate that, in fact, we believe what we say that we really are committed to the expression and defense of a wide range of views.
And I think we have a problem here because there is such a consensus on most of our universities. As I say, it's a consensus I share but I'm acutely conscious that it doesn't get much challenge except from the, I'm just going to use an impolite word, probably an exaggerated, well, let's just call it charlatans, like DeSantis.
MELANI CAMMETT: OK, so I think we have a few more minutes? Correct. Yeah, so let me turn to Mohammed.
AUDIENCE: Thank you so much for that insightful comment. I was wondering, what do you think is the limitation of universities in fighting misinformation? Because within a polarized society, I think provocative ideas or misinformation are more appealing. And in that case, to what extent can their reasoned arguments could really be heard by those who are affected by provocative reasoning or by misinformation?
LOUISE RICHARDSON: Well, I think part of the reason this spreads so well as the algorithms that run the social media companies will tell you, yes, of course, you're right. This is more attractive but we've got to stand for the opposite. And there's some indication that people, individuals are not as polarized as we think. There's a group called More Perfect who just did a study on American views on history and what history should be taught at schools.
And it turned out that there was an enormous consensus around the center. But there was about 7% at each extreme who were the irreconcilables, if you like. And but what was so evident amongst those in the center was the and huge convergence around the center most people felt that it was appropriate to teach critical race theory. It was appropriate to teach about abortion, all of these sensitive issues.
But there was enormous misunderstanding amongst Democrats as to what Republicans thought was legitimate to teach. An enormous understanding amongst misunderstanding about among Republicans than what that Democrats thought should be taught. So there was far more consensus than anybody believed but huge misunderstanding. So the more we can elevate studies like that, elevate factual information, elevate a sense for people to feel that actually their views may be widely shared, and just constantly provide an alternative.
We're not going to reach everybody but you know it's our job to reach I think it's our job to reach as many as we possibly can.
MELANI CAMMETT: Great. Max.
AUDIENCE: Hi. Thank you for the lecture. My question is, you mentioned briefly the implications for a potential second Trump presidency on democracy. So how would you potentially reason with somebody who thinks Trump could get a second bid or even get elected when like January 6th or he's currently indicted for meddling in the election, which both are directly opposing democracy.
So how would you argue with somebody who at the same time paradoxically in their ideology continually hearkens back to early American ideals of democracy of the founding fathers, how do you argue with somebody who kind of doesn't understand that mismatch between the two things that they are representing?
LOUISE RICHARDSON: Well I think with any argument with somebody with whom you disagree you first try and understand what's the, if their position seems hard to fathom, you want to understand where it came from. So you ask lots of questions to figure out why they feel what they do, and you present them with counter arguments. But I think if you do this in a respectful way, that you're not trying to score points, that you're not trying to win the argument. You're just trying to sow doubt in their minds about the position that they hold and encourage them to change it, and demonstrate that you're willing to shift your position too.
There's nothing that gets, don't treat this as a zero sum game. That's the case in any argument. I think—try to understand where somebody’s coming from and take it from there. And do it in a respectful, friendly way.
MELANI CAMMETT: Yes. Yeah.
AUDIENCE: So as everyone was speaking I had this thought as a former competitive debater. So as you said a few minutes before any argument it needs to come any conversation about a disagreement needs to come to a place from understanding. So debate, not only as did we understand the other side, it also puts the pressure upon the individual to argue for the other side. And I would say that that's useful, not only in the sense of trying to see the weaknesses of the other side and using that to solidify your a-priori arguments, at the same time it can even change how one perceives the issue.
So to turn this comment into a question, I would ask is, do you think debate as a useful strategy or maybe having a course in debate as a useful strategy for universities to indulge students in different arguments, and to put it bluntly, force them to argue for something that they disagree with? And then my second question that ties back to this, although I feel I know the answer is, have universities done enough to promote intellectual diversity as they have done to promote this other types and aspects of diversity? Thank you.
LOUISE RICHARDSON: Well on your latter point, no is my answer. And as you probably picked up from my other comments on debate, well, there are various different ways of doing debate and various different cultures of debate, which I didn't realize until I came to this country. And I have spoken to the Oxford Union and entreated with them to adopt a less gladiatorial approach to debating without any success.
But yes, your point about encouraging people to argue from the other side I think that's a very healthy thing to do. And again, I think if Professor Lamont's course that I'm now imagining constructing in the core curriculum, this might be a part of or essential part of that would be having people try to argue from the other's point of view. I mean there are various debates one for Model UN I think and so on, there are various mechanisms which do this.
I think it's a very healthy approach. But as I say, not simply to understand the weaknesses in their arguments so you can score points about them, but to try and empathize with where they're coming from. So yes. But debate generally can be very good training. It's good enough to get most of the British, current members of the British government came through the Oxford Debating Society. In fact, all of them.
MELANI CAMMETT: Well that's great. You're giving me ideas for assignments for my course next semester. So yes. Donna.
AUDIENCE: Well I echo everyone else who's been up at this mic. Thank you so much for such an informative and insightful talk. I was struck by one of the things you said early on in your talk about why democracy here has eroded. And what I'm really interested in as a scholar and practitioner of international conflict and conflict in general is accountability and the erosion of accountability. And I wonder if you would say more about that.
Because it's happening before our eyes, whether it's politicians, or people of influence and authority, not to mention the Supreme Court here. So could you say more about what you think we need to do as a country to resurrect that sense that accountability is key to our democracy?
LOUISE RICHARDSON: Thank you. Well I certainly agree with you on its erosion. Not exclusively here, elsewhere as well. And I think in the case of Britain, I think it's actually the press, more robust press than here has been much better at holding the government to account or at least at exposing the behavior of the government. And because this policy here at this point is so polarized, anything one tries to do will be seen as a one-sided action.
But if, as one hopes, Mr. Trump is convicted of some crimes, that I hope will be a sign that there are limits to what can be done. But we've come a long way down this road of people operating with impunity and it's going to be very hard to get back. And so I wish I had some we can't end on this note because I want to end on such a hopeless negative note of what we can do to impose accountability. I think we need our press, we need our courts. And we need to be constantly, universities need to be constantly saying this is not acceptable. This wasn't done 20 years ago.
People need to know that this behavior that they're seeing now in a very short time ago was considered completely illegitimate. I don't know. Do you have better suggestions?
AUDIENCE: Please I was hoping. Sorry I'm failing miserably on that one.
MELANI CAMMETT: I'll take two more questions. So two in the back and then.
AUDIENCE: Thank you for such an interesting speech. And also thank you for putting into practice so much of what you spoke about today at Oxford. I had a particular admiration for a lot of the resistance you showed towards the Chinese government when you were leading Oxford. My question is about how we can reconcile this idea that you spoke very eloquently about the transformative impact of an education at a place like Harvard or at Oxford with universities admission procedures.
Because we see you gave a lot of evidence that going to a good university can make you far more engaged with civic society. And yet universities seem to go to quite extensive lengths to keep out the vast majority of people that want access to these opportunities. So I'd give the example, for example of the college here that demand for undergraduate education at Harvard has ballooned. And yet the size of the undergraduate cohort at Harvard has stayed roughly the same since the university was founded.
How do we reconcile these ideas that-- how do we reconcile these ideas between the benefit of a university education and their restrictive admissions procedures? Thank you.
LOUISE RICHARDSON: Well, I think there was some muttering because I don't think it's entirely fair to say there were always 1,600 freshmen admitted. But you're quite right that there have been 1,600 for I have no idea how long, but certainly decades. And yet if Oxford or Harvard were suddenly to admit 25,000 students, Harvard wouldn't be Harvard. So I think there are and one of the-- I then-- when we're in elite institutions we tend to assume there are only elite institutions.
There are many great universities in this country and people get a great education in a large number of universities. One doesn't have to come to Harvard to have the kind of experience that I've been advocating, extolling, if you like. And so yeah, I don't think there is an argument for growth necessarily. I just think there I think our societies get too fixated on a handful of universities and there are vast numbers doing—providing wonderful educations.
MELANI CAMMETT: OK, so one last question from Ann.
AUDIENCE: Thank you Louise for a wonderful talk. I just wondered if you would like to make a comment on the other phenomenal female Richardson, Heather Cox Richardson, who I read every day that she publishes and I find her quite an extraordinary phenomenon in America. So I just wondered what you--
LOUISE RICHARDSON: Well, I can tell you a funny story about Heather Cox Richardson. She was a freshman proctor when I was. And her husband called me up one night and asked me to go out to the movies. And I said no, I had work to do. I couldn't. And he said do you know this new proctor, Heather Richardson? Because I called her by mistake, calling you.
And I said no. And he said, well, do you think I should call her? Maybe she'd go to the movies.
[LAUGHTER]
So I said go ahead. I've got too much work to do. So he called Heather and they subsequently married. And I'm afraid I don't read her blog. So everybody says. And they then moved to a house we looked at about 200 yards away from us in Winchester. So but sadly I don't. I'm afraid I can't comment. I have been told it's wonderful, yes.
MELANI CAMMETT: Wonderful. Well, I think we are out of time. But it has been a real honor to host you and to have you deliver the Jodidi Lecture.
[APPLAUSE]