Simmons addresses intellectual diversity on campus - Brown Daily Herald

"Simmons began by telling the audience that one of the questions she receives most frequently when visiting Brown alums and parents around the country is, 'What is the University doing about the lack of diversity of opinion on campus?' She said that students on campus of all political stripes have told her of 'a chilling effect caused by the dominance of certain voices on the spectrum of moral and political thought.'

"Such a chilling effect is detrimental to education and intellectual inquiry because 'we are often creatures of habit when it comes to learning,' Simmons said.

"'Familiar and appetizing offerings can certainly be a pleasing dimension of learning, but too much repetition of what we desire to hear can become intellectually debilitating,' she said."

Indeed.