In juxtaposition, Sullivan’s and Coates’ pieces provide a miniature history of how a certain variety of self-congratulatory openness to inquiry is in actual fact a barbed thicket of power relations. What Sullivan depicts as a “different time” when “neither of us denied each other’s good faith or human worth,” is, in Coates’ understanding, a time where he was required to “take seriously” the argument that “black people are genetically disposed to be dumber than white people” as a price of entry into the rarified heights of conversation at the Atlantic. The “civility” and “generosity of spirit” that supported “human to human” conversation is juxtaposed to Coates’ “teachers” who didn’t see him “completely as a human being.” What was open and free spirited debate in Sullivan’s depiction, was to Coates a loaded and poisonous dialogue where he could only participate if he shut up about what he actually believed.

In the protests at Mizzou and Yale and elsewhere, students have made it clear that the status quo is unbearable. Whether we agree with these student protesters or not, we should be listening: They are articulating a vision for a better future, one that cannot be reached with complacency. … We cannot ignore what is truly being said by both groups of protesters: That not all students experience Yale equally, and not all students experience Mizzou equally. These conversations were happening well before these protests, and they will continue to happen until students are guaranteed equality of experience. They are still being forced, however, to first prove that it is worth opening a conversation about either. … Student activism is widespread, because some students are making the most of their college experience. They understand that this may very well be the last moment in their lives when they can confront real issues in an environment where they are forced to encounter people who don’t look like them, who don’t think like them, environments where change is still possible. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and protestors at campuses across the country including Yale and Mizzou are part of a robust, vital tradition that we should not overlook. Today’s student activists are doing the necessary work to ensure that the next generation that participates in the tradition of student activism will be fighting different battles. Or, perhaps, they are doing the necessary work to ensure that students, of all identities, might have a fighting chance to experience college and life beyond more equally than those who came before them.