By now, readers of The Mac Weekly are surely aware that this Monday, two former members of congress will be on campus for a day and a half to participate in classroom discussions and speak to the broader campus community on the politically charged topic of reproductive rights. Indeed, there can be little doubt that most members of the broader Macalester community are now aware that on Oct. 10th at 4:45p.m., the college will be hosting a Congress to Campus event in which former representatives will be engaging with each other and the audience on this topic in Mairs Concert Hall.

What seems to be less well understood is why such an event is taking place on our campus in the first place and why it could be constructive. Why, some have asked us, are we hosting a Congress to Campus event that provides a platform for at least one of the speakers to broadcast views that are so antithetical to our values that they are simply beyond the pale of acceptable discourse at Mac? Isn’t this a settled issue on this campus? Why open it up for discussion when some in our community feel harm and trauma can result from doing so?

Our response to these questions is twofold. First, we are hosting this event in order to help students understand how legislators — on both sides of the aisle — understand and experience the politics of a controversial issue such as reproductive rights. Our goal is not to provide a platform for toxic viewpoints. Nor is it to stage a debate among equally valid perspectives. And it is certainly not to inflict harm and trauma. Rather, it is to provide insights into the real world of politics that are sometimes unavailable to Macalester students with the ultimate goal of better equipping them to thrive in a world defined by viewpoint multiplicity and political diversity.

And second, our motivation in bringing Congress to Campus to Macalester is to better educate our students about the world as it really is: full of people who simply don’t share our views or values. In other words, our goal – entirely in keeping with Macalester’s mission of providing a liberal arts education that actually prepares people to enter the real world of politics – is to help prepare our students to engage with others across sometimes radical difference. It is to help equip them to understand how “the other side” thinks, perhaps in order to better challenge them politically, perhaps merely in order to avoid dehumanizing or demonizing them. It is to enhance students’ political agency in a world where that matters.

On the reverse side, it is perhaps worth pointing out that our goal in bringing Congress to Campus to Macalester is not to change anybody’s mind. It is not to host a debate in which one side will prevail, presumably convincing people of the correctness of its perspective in the process. Nor is it merely to promote freedom of expression in some abstract or politically insensitive sense. Freedom of expression is of course important, but its promotion for its own sake is not our goal here. Rather, our motivation is more specific than that: to enhance the learning environment at Mac by providing students with an opportunity to engage with ideas that they might consider anathema but which are politically consequential and must therefore be understood – especially if they are to be challenged.

At this moment in this nation’s history we need more than ever to cultivate the capacity to listen thoughtfully to those who happen to be on the other side of what has become a dangerously widening ideological chasm. Reassuringly, we have heard from many students and faculty who understand this and welcome the opportunity to hear what the “other side” might have to say about such a polarizing issue as reproductive rights – even though they might not agree with them. Our hope and belief is that this Congress to Campus event will help prepare our students to navigate this polarized environment in ways that better prepare them both to understand their own political commitments and to advocate for them more effectively.

We would love for you to attend (though, of course, attendance is entirely optional). Perhaps once you have listened to these viewpoints, you can wake up Tuesday morning and direct your righteous discontent to an organization like FamilyTree Clinic, Gender Justice, UnRestrict Minnesota, Our Justice, or SPIRAL Collective.

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