Protecting Open Inquiry on Our Campuses
Heterodox Academy (HxA) is the leading nonpartisan membership organization for faculty, staff, and students who want to ensure that our universities are places where intellectual curiosity thrives.
We connect thousands of HxA members to build communities on their campuses and within their disciplines where a culture of intellectual curiosity thrives.
Join todayProvide ResourcesWe produce policy models, reading guides, tools, how-to guides, and more to equip campus leaders to create change on their campuses.
Access our libraryConduct ResearchThe Segal Center for Academic Pluralism produces resources to guide academic norms and policies.
Great Minds Don't Always Think Alike
HxA president John Tomasi explains why viewpoint diversity is essential to education and how we can foster a campus culture that encourages it. In an era of increasing polarization, universities must remain spaces where students and professors can discuss controversial topics without fear. Discover how Heterodox Academy is leading the charge to bring open inquiry and viewpoint diversity back to higher education.
Heterodox Academy’s mission is to advance open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement across higher education – the foundations of our universities as truth-seeking, knowledge-generating institutions. HxA empowers members to organize on their campus and within their disciplines, educates academics on the importance of our principles, and advocates for policies to protect open inquiry across higher education.
Heterodox Academy was founded in 2015 by Jonathan Haidt, Chris Martin, and Nicholas Rosenkranz, in reaction to their observations about how the absence of viewpoint diversity was reducing the quality, reliability, and integrity of research and scholarship. What began as a conversation among social researchers about the challenges facing their disciplines and institutions, grew into a community of thousands of faculty, staff, and students seeking to improve the academy from within.
The name “Heterodox Academy” was chosen to capture this purpose — a reminder that truth-seeking depends on dissent, curiosity, and the breaking up of intellectual orthodoxy. HxA’s first blog post in September 2015 invited scholars from across disciplines to recognize and repair the effects of ideological uniformity on research. In the years that followed, as the climate on campuses shifted toward increasing polarization, HxA evolved from a small online blog into a nonprofit institution dedicated to defending and modeling the norms of open inquiry and constructive disagreement.
Today, our membership extends from large research universities to community colleges in the US, Canada, and around the world, and represent nearly every academic discipline. HxA members are dedicated to advancing the principles of open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, the free exchange of ideas, and constructive disagreement as cornerstones of academic and intellectual life. Through its evolution, HxA has remained grounded in its founding vision: that free inquiry and fearless scholarship from diverse perspectives are essential to enlivening the pursuit of truth, knowledge, and progress.
Over the past decade, while HxA has changed as the world has changed, we have always stayed true to our founding principles, holding to a nonpartisan defense of open inquiry. Under the leadership of President John Tomasi and Executive Director Michael Regnier, we have published resources and articles both online and in print, hosted hundreds of events and national conferences, produced research through the Segal Center for Academic Pluralism, and fostered Campus Communities where members model scholarly virtues and build cultures of open inquiry.
Our thousands of members represent the full political spectrum, more than 2,100 institutions world-wide, and nearly every academic discipline.
Meet Smriti Mehta, Postdoctoral Scholar at UC Berkeley
Mehta sat down with HxA to discuss threats to open inquiry in the
academy, noting that many of the threats to open inquiry in the academy
originate from the discipline of psychology. Mehta and her colleague
decided to start an HxA Campus Community at Berkeley to push back
against pressures that prevent people from speaking out on policies that
limit academic freedom.
Meet Mary Kate Cary, Adjunct Professor at UVA
Cary sat down with HxA to discuss her work on UVA's campus to teach students how to speak up in class - and disagree with their professors. She is the founding director of Think Again at UVA which helps students thrive through such events as Disagree with a Professor, Free Speech Fridays, Braver Angels Debates, and the annual UVA Student Oratory Contest. Mary Kate Cary is also the recipient of the 2024 HxA Open Inquiry Award for Leadership.
Meet Matt Burgess, Assistant Professor at University of Wyoming
Burgess (previously at CU Boulder) sat down with HxA to discuss his work with his prior Campus Community Co-Chair at CU Boulder Peter Newton. They wanted to improve practices in their own department by getting rid of DEI statements in faculty hiring. Instead of simply spotlighting the problems with current practices, they also proposed a new idea.
Open Inquiry
Open inquiry — the ability to ask questions, share ideas, and challenge popular views and assumptions — is essential to the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. Colleges and universities should be places where such ideas can be discussed, debated, and rigorously tested, not stigmatized and stifled.
The Free Exchange of Ideas
The free exchange of ideas is the mechanism by which the university discovers truth, demanding that every claim survive the rigorous, evidence-based contestation of a flourishing intellectual marketplace. It guarantees that scholars and students are free to articulate any idea, finding, or conclusion that they believe to be true, without fear of censure, social sanction, or professional retaliation.
Viewpoint Diversity
Viewpoint diversity keeps the frontier of scholarly inquiry open in a lively way by enabling hypotheses to be challenged, disfavored but important research to be pursued, and knowledge to grow. When scholars and students engage with people who think differently — across moral, cultural, and theoretical lines — they encounter new evidence, question assumptions, and sharpen their own reasoning.
Constructive Disagreement
Campuses must invest in constructive disagreement by encouraging curiosity, humility, evidence-based reasoning, and charitable engagement across all aspects of campus life. Constructive disagreement fosters intellectual humility and critical self-reflection, allowing us to discover where we might be mistaken and enabling a nuanced understanding of complex truths.
Defending the University as Gardens for Curiosity
President John Tomasi speaks with HxA co-founder Jon Haidt about the next era of Heterodox Academy. “I want to give our members something that they can bring to their campuses that will make them proud to be part of HxA. Where ideas are being pursued seriously, intensely, bravely, and with humility, together.”
Our team brings together academics, non-profit professionals, and curious minds to drive change within our universities.
We encourage our members to embody a set of norms and values in all of their professional interactions — and insist on them for anyone publishing on our platforms or participating in our events.
“I support open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in research and education.”