“The white man is the master of agriculture,” writes Alexis De Tocqueville in his book “Democracy in America.” The 19th-century political philosopher and historian includes this line to justify the displacement of Indigenous people in the United States: The white man possesses the land, while the Indigenous man just occupies it. Tocqueville’s loophole reappears in the Doctrine of Discovery, a 15th-century legal doctrine that gave European nations the right to colonize land on the basis that Indigenous people had not cultivated it.
But this is bullshit. Indigenous people did cultivate land; in fact, the Indigenous people of Mesoamerica domesticated corn about 10,000 years ago.
I stated this fact in response to Tocqueville’s argument during a class discussion recently. Shortly afterward, another student in my class raised their hand and simply stated that they actually do think the white man is the master of agriculture. They told me that I was talking about Mexico, but that was just an example. How was this unsubstantiated and hateful statement allowed to be said unchecked by anyone but me?
In 5C classrooms — as I have especially seen in my more political classes — bigotry is still allowed to be the subject of debate, as if in the year of 2026 we are genuinely unsure whether colonization was a justifiable offense. These unproductive conversations take away from the limited class time we have to discuss real issues. People impassionately debate falsehoods, and no voice in the room comes to the aid of the marginalized groups being attacked. It feels like my tuition is being spent on classes where I must explain to other students the basic human rights I learned as a child. But after reading more, I’ve found that billionaires are spending more than I am to keep this kind of distracting rhetoric alive.
Earlier this semester, TSL covered a report linking four Claremont Colleges to uncivil discourse programs, and the thread connecting my political classes and billionaire influence began to pull itself. The article unpacks an investigative report published by Uncivil, a collective of scholars and researchers whose mission is to expose “the private- and State-funded ‘civic thought’ centers and the booming campus initiatives focused on ‘civil discourse,’ ‘depolarization,’ and ‘viewpoint diversity.’” Those researchers call this the “Civility Industrial Complex,” and find that it has overwhelming ties to conservative and pro-Israel donors whose real mission is to delegitimize progressive activism. I can’t help but be impressed by these donors’ cleverly named goal of “viewpoint diversity” — taken at face value, it almost sounds like a good way to bring together our diverse student body.
As an American, I believe in the complete freedom of speech, and so I also believe in the right to hold as stupid an opinion as you want and the right to voice it. Everyone should have their voices heard, but opinions must also hold up when fact-checked. The purpose of a college classroom is to learn not only from professors, but also from other students. I understand that sometimes we say things we think are true but aren’t, with no malicious intent, and that’s normal. The classroom is the perfect place to be corrected, learn more and elevate our thinking by making intellectual errors. With professors’ help, we can refine our opinions to ensure they’re grounded in reality. I suppose this means I am aligned with the Federalists on checks and balances.
But when there is no professor or authority figure in classrooms to give basic fact checks on opinions I’ve heard firsthand, like “the white man is the master of agriculture,” and even “the patriarchy is natural,” we enter a dangerous territory of conflating freedom of speech with treating every opinion as equally valid. We must fight back against conservative donors’ attempts to pacify and flatten political issues. The dialogue-based method they push normalizes questioning the knowledge of marginalized people and parading it as simply freedom of speech.
The great thing about living in the present, in 2026, is that we have the benefit of hindsight, of analyzing and learning retrospectively from civic fights like the Civil Rights Movement. Our ancestors fought so that we could have the privilege of looking at these events as historical fact. Yet, the Civility Industrial Complex calls into question the basic equalities that are supposed to be written in stone.
Allowing someone to speak, unchecked by a professor, in a way that subordinates my rights as a woman, a person of color and a queer person takes away from the learning of those who are being targeted by these antiquated dogwhistles: Dog whistles that hold claims our hard-won histories have already disproven. Pretending that hate has equal footing with other opinions does a disservice to the entire classroom and, dare I say, creates an environment of violence. This environment is only exacerbated by professors’ inaction: In a classroom, the professor is the authority figure, and students are equals under that authority. A professor’s lack of objection can be mistaken for endorsement, leaving other students feeling unsafe.
Professors need not impose their worldview or specific beliefs on a student body. However, amid the crisis of partisan polarization, it seems even proven facts are treated as a stance on either side of the political aisle. We need to return to believing in facts as a non-partisan issue. My solution is to ask professors to act as fact-checkers — this verification wouldn’t mean telling students what to think.
At some city council meetings, for example, city staff is present to verify information, and no one would suggest this infringes on freedom of speech. The Civility Files prove that harmful dialogue is baked into the fabric of our classrooms; to fight back against uncivil discourse, we need professors on our side to keep classroom conversations grounded in reality.
As a political studies student, I have come to realize that most problems in my life can be explained by the private-money paper trail. We must follow that trail to question what ‘civility’ really means, or we risk mistaking purchased silence for open debate. I am definitely feeling the effects of unregulated upper-class wealth in my 5C classrooms, and it’s time to combat inhumane opinions with the historical facts we know to be true.
Elena Gutierrez PZ ’27 is the first blue-haired non-liberal to attend the 5Cs. She instead prefers a politics in which there is only a Dictator, if the Dictator is Her only.
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