“Abandoning politics” is neither desirable nor possible for universities. Here is why:

Young people attending institutions of higher education are curious about the world and coming into adulthood. They are seeking purpose and meaning. They want to understand why things are the way they are and what they can do to make the world a better place. They want to understand how to make trade-off decisions about different things they value.

These are naturally political questions. Students are there to understand what a just society looks like; what a good life could be; and to explore the tension between owning their past and building their own future.

Universities that take strident stands about policing speech, whether that is speech of a specific political point of view or “political” speech as such, do violence against the process of becoming that students are already living. What is needed are not draconian restrictions on speech, but faculty and administrators who do a better job nurturing student curiosity and care. That does mean making the University a “safe space”—but a safe space for disagreement, for conflict, for failure, and for the magic of forging solidarities that would otherwise not emerge.

This requires a real commitment to the principles of free inquiry, free speech, and free association. Such a commitment will no doubt alienate some students, parents, and donors. It may make some politicians and voters angry. So be it. Leaders of institutions of higher education must accept that their mission is first and foremost a mission of care for students, and that means that occasionally other objectives—political palatability, capital campaigns, prestige, and enrollment must be sacrificed. People’s feelings will be hurt. People will feel unsafe. People will be angry—even outraged. The skillful leader, the skillful educator, understands that that is part of the mission of pedagogy. That is the developmental work they signed up for.

Finally, and importantly, University students are not children. They are adults on the verge of entering the adult world. That means they should be treated with respect, not coddled. They should be exposed to difficult information and learn to have difficult conversations—also in respectful ways. It is only when young people are treated as morally autonomous beings, capable of coming to their own conclusions about an often ambiguous and indeterminate reality, that they can truly grow and mature.

All too often, Universities have created a culture of “knowing better” in which faculty and administrators manipulate and dictate to students what they should believe and where the bounds of inquiry are. This culture must be changed in any University that wishes to be more than an expensive ersatz rite of passage.

The solution to conflict on campuses is therefore not to stifle it, but to accept it and to help students navigate it in a mature and autonomous way. This requires faculty and administrators themselves to model maturity and autonomy. And that can only happen bottom-up, over time, as a result of broader culture change in American society.