Universities must not avoid genuine engagement with difficult issues

I had been looking forward to the recent LGBTIQA+ training workshop I attended. I hoped it might reveal new ways to support talented people to thrive at my university, independent of race, socio-economic background and – specific to this workshop – sexuality and gender identification.

We started by reviewing the terms to describe gender and sexual orientation in ways that respect the identity of all individuals who make up the diverse society I consider myself lucky to be part of.

As a cisgender, heterosexual white male I have, like many members of majorities, typically defined myself according to other traits. These attributes may differentiate me from the crowd, but are also far less fundamental to my identity. In doing so I have had a luxury that I did not earn. Specifically, I have been able to avoid revealing my vulnerabilities to the world and exposing myself to the related risk that my differences might highlight questions about my place and belonging within it.

Perhaps because of this, I appreciated the way the workshop revealed new ways to openly discuss and think about sexuality and gender. It also reminded me of the critical coupling between the language we use and the actions it precipitates. I suspect these lessons were neither unique to me nor controversial in universities more generally.

However, a moment about 90 minutes into the session gave me pause – not because of its content but because of the effect on our discussion. It happened when our trainer showed a photo from their own social media account and then highlighted a related comment asserting that the image showed a strong confident woman. Our trainer, as somebody who did not identify as female regardless of their mode of self-presentation, had found this statement offensive. Their point was that people do not owe us conformity to our expectations: it is our responsibility to identify our own underlying assumptions and to refrain from imposing them on others.

These arguments were well made. However, they were perhaps less well received by the workshop group. It may have been my imagination, but the subsequent questions and discussion seemed to pivot away from the quest for genuine understanding to a primary focus on how to stay on safe ground. Open and rich engagement – with all its risks of trying and failing – suddenly seemed much more fraught than simply retreating to a refuge of avoiding any acknowledgment of gender at all.

Avoidance of meaningful engagement with difficult issues is common, but the unfortunate result is a paralysis in academic or public debate as the majority simply sit on the sidelines, watching polarised minorities shouting at each other from what each claims is the higher moral ground.

My concern is that this dynamic reduces the likelihood that an individual might ask questions that help address the ignorance that always accompanies any genuine quest for understanding. Or they may decline to engage in the types of public conversations that help increase collective comprehension and empathy and ultimately galvanise the actions that will create a better society.

While such discussions are important in society at large, they are particularly critical in universities – and very much at the core of our raison d’être. The long attention span of the university and its valuing of the diversity of expert opinion make it uniquely equipped to host discussions on difficult topics – not just gender and sexuality but also topics such as vaccine effectiveness, climate change, the relationship between indigenous and Western knowledge systems, and the pervasive and perhaps nefarious influence of technology. The university should be an environment where uncomfortable ideas and otherwise unforgivable ignorance is actively welcomed into a safe haven, so long as it is accompanied by a willingness to be exercised via respectful and evidence-informed debate.

Leaving the workshop, I felt we had lost a great opportunity to expand understanding. Reflecting further, I resolved to talk more with an LGBTIQA+ colleague, who, when introducing the trainer, had alluded to some of their own challenges in the university. Following that conversation, that colleague agreed to come and share these experiences at my next executive meeting.

This session was raw and challenging but was also presented with incredible courage and grace. Vulnerabilities, perspectives and difficulties were revealed, and our ignorance and misunderstandings were not only tolerated but actually welcomed as essential precursors to learning and understanding. The discussion closed with an open and enduring invitation for all of us to raise any topics or questions, no matter how uncomfortable.

In the context of the always long, sometimes urgent and often detailed agenda items that we typically cover at those meetings, I can’t think of another subject that has felt remotely as important.

Nic Smith is provost of the Queensland University of Technology.