“Do black people come from apes?” a high school friend of mine asked, looking me in the eye. His dad had told him about Charles Murray’s book The Bell Curve, which links intelligence to race and class in America. “You know, black people are always good at four things,” my friend continued, “running, jumping, stealing, and shooting.”



At the elite private school I attended, which took two hours to get to by public transportation, I sometimes heard these types of comments. These same students would call the neighborhood I grew up in poor, and though it was dangerous and considered by some to be one of the city’s rougher areas, it was where my father worked harder than anyone I’d ever met. So when race came up, either subtly or overtly, his image was the one I carried of my neighborhood and my blackness. “Zach, why are black people so athletic?” they asked me.

Other times, they insisted that I impersonate Obama and complained that my nose wasn’t big enough for me to really be black. Did I like this? Of course not. But did it faze me?

Please. I had been learning how to adapt to difficult circumstances since before I could remember. Sometimes I debated race with these students; other times it seemed futile. No matter the case, I always tried my best to show through my own actions that the things they believed about black people weren’t true. But I knew that I could make a bigger impact by going to the source and learning every facet of their arguments so that I could ultimately take them on. I filed away Charles Murray’s name, but not in order to avoid it. Rather, so that I could seek out his books and educate myself about exactly what he was saying, and why.

I tried explaining I wasn’t secretly a conservative, self-hating black man. I was sick of living in an echo chamber

Only three years later, I had an opportunity to do just that. As the president of Uncomfortable Learning at Williams College, I had the job of bringing speakers who would offer different viewpoints from those we were typically exposed to on our liberal campus. First, I invited Suzanne Venker, a self-described anti-feminist who claims that feminist women are waging a war on men. Within minutes of announcing the event, my inbox, phone, and Facebook page were flooded with negative comments, insults, and even implicit threats. “Zach Wood, you’re a filthy misogynist,” my peers said. “You’re a sellout, a traitor to your race. You’re worse than Ben Carson.”



I was shocked. Many of these comments were coming from students who knew me. They’d engaged with me on campus, and some were even my friends. Yet, based on this one event, they were characterizing me in a way that went against everything I stood for. But I was determined not to back down. When we eventually had to cancel Venker’s appearance due to concerns about her personal safety, I followed up with an invitation to John Derbyshire, a divisive pop-math author and opinion journalist who’d publicly defended white supremacy, advised readers to stay away from groups of black people, and, like Murray, claimed that blacks had lower IQs than whites.

This time, the backlash was even worse. Now the topic was race. A note was slipped under my door that read, “Your blood will be in the leaves,” next to a picture of a tree. A comment on Facebook read, “We need the oil and switch to deal with him in this midnight hour.” A few student activists came up to me in the cafeteria and insulted me to my face. Others whispered about me behind my back.

I tried explaining to my fellow students that I wasn’t doing this because I was secretly a conservative, a self-hating black man, or an anti-feminist, men’s rights activist. Rather, I was sick of living in an echo chamber. At Williams, most of my professors taught their perspective on any given issue as if it were fact instead of delving into opposing views to create well-rounded lessons. Around campus, progressive ideas were lauded while conservative ones were shut down for being insensitive. The few conservatives at Williams were largely scared into silence, knowing that if they went against the status quo they would be labeled as biased and wrong.

I wasn’t satisfied hearing only one side of things, even if it was the side I agreed with. I wanted to use the education I received at Williams to create positive change in the world one day. How would I do that if I shut out the voices I disagreed with instead of engaging with them? My curiosity led me to examine issues from all sides, trying to find understanding and hopefully some common ground. It wasn’t about letting a racist convince me that I was wrong or that I was less intelligent than he was. Instead, I sought to stand firmer in my convictions and become better able to defend them by thoroughly understanding the logic of my opponents.

My explanations made little difference. When the president of Williams College, Adam Falk, canceled Derbyshire’s talk, I was disappointed but not deterred. Charles Murray had reached out to me, saying that he’d love to come speak at Williams, and I decided to invite him. While some students continued to protest, this time the event went on as planned.

In his book, Murray attributed IQ disparities and achievement gaps to the genetic inferiority of blacks and the behavioral impediments holding back black communities. One of Murray’s contentions was that there are cultural problems in the black community that no amount of welfare or government spending can possibly correct. As he was explaining some of his ideas over dinner, I realized that the IQ discussion was just a distraction. If I focused on the actual issues, maybe we could find some common ground. So I started by acknowledging his side of the argument head-on.

“I am not discounting cultural problems,” I told him, going on to describe them better than he could: the emulation of rappers, the glorification of hip-hop culture and violence, the broken families, and so on. “But,” I continued, “we need to address the structural issues first. You do acknowledge that they exist, right? So how can we increase social mobility and economic opportunity for Americans living below the poverty line?”

Murray engaged thoughtfully but continued on undeterred.

After the event, a friend approached me to say that my argument had resonated with him and had even made him think differently about racial disparities in America. For me, Murray’s visit to Williams was a successful example of Uncomfortable Learning. Neither of us changed our opinions or switched sides, but that wasn’t the point. Instead, by listening to and challenging Murray, my classmates and I were forced to think more deeply about our own beliefs and even question them.

In my mind, this type of debate is valuable and would not have been possible if we did not give Murray an opportunity to share his perspective, but my critics felt that by giving him that opportunity, I was bolstering his misguided and often hurtful views.

Hurtful. That’s the word that campus activists and others who opposed Murray’s invitation to speak at Williams used to describe why they were against it. As I sat down with some of them to hear them out, just as I’d heard out Murray, they explained why it was so painful and triggering for them. They discussed incidents of sexual assault, police brutality, and growing up in poverty, and they explained that, to them, Williams wasn’t just a learning institution – it was their home.

As the topic of free speech on college campuses has continued to cause controversy, protests, and even bursts of violence across the country, the criticism most often levied against campus activists is that they’re too sensitive. On campus, their feelings are coddled. Class materials that may be upsetting are given a trigger warning. Speech codes restrict many college students from talking about certain subjects. And controversial speakers such as Venker and Derbyshire are kept away.



The result is millions of college students who have little tolerance for healthy debate and view someone voicing his or her opposing view as an attack on their very personhood.

Make no mistake – these subjects are extremely difficult for me to grapple with, too. But I don’t want to give someone like Derbyshire the satisfaction of writing me off as too sensitive when I can rise to the occasion and challenge him instead.