Washington University faculty members and students discussed dissension and its role in a healthy democracy on Wednesday evening.

Adrienne Davis, vice provost and a professor in the law school, hosted the Election 2016: Democracy and Disagreement panel with fellow professors in the Law, Medicine and Sociology departments and was joined by juniors Shayel Patnaik and Kayla Reed.

The panel was held amidst the lead-up to the debate as students and faculty across the country, and particularly at Washington University, not only deliberate over which candidate to cast their vote for, but on the fundamental ideas of what this dissent and disagreement should look like.

Davis, a key organizer of the panel, said she believes that a government by the people requires a certain level of difference of opinion and vocalization of those differences.

“I think most Americans believe that disagreement is fundamental, it’s an imperative of democracy,” Davis said.

Davis’s statement was for the most part in accordance with what the other panelists conveyed throughout the discussion. Professor of sociology Adia Harvey Wingfield, whose research focuses on minorities in the workplace, explained the importance of discord in society.

“We don’t really see any social progress without this type of dissension and without this type of disagreement,” Wingfield said.

While in agreement that dissension is necessary in a democracy, Patnaik and Reed noted that our government and society limit the opportunity for protest and opposition of opinion.

“What we’re seeing on a local level are simple legislative policies being passed that compromise our ability to disagree where people are facing felonies for acts of protest that in previous times would have been considered patriotic,” Reed said.

Reed brought this up as an active Black Lives Matter activist who has seen fellow protestors arrested for “violent” protests of standing in the streets of Ferguson. Addressing the students more directly, Patnaik discussed social media’s impact on millennials’ views of social issues.

“Users are involuntarily placed into echo chambers and we have to navigate a landscape that more often than not promotes quarrels instead of longer forum arguments,” Patnaik said.

The panelists also discussed what healthy disagreement looks like. Law professor Gregory Magarian recognized the fact that it is difficult for civility and dissent to coexist.

“The more we push for and value the freedom to dissent, the freedom to disagree, we’re pushing against the idea of civility norms,” Magarian said.

Associate professor of clinical pediatrics Will Ross, a founding member of the St. Louis Regional Health Commission, referenced the Constitution directly when declaring civility is not necessary in disagreement.

“The Constitution states that if our government doesn’t work we have a right to alter or abolish it. That’s being very uncivil,” Ross said.

Reed gave her own idea as to why protesters are told to be civil as it relates to current times.

“I think that it is one of those things that is often used to silent a certain group of people, and I think that this never is required of the dominant group that holds the power,” Reed said.

Magarian poses that civility does have a place in our society—just not in the way Reed described it.

“Civility is desirable, that it is worthwhile, that it is constructive, we should all stipulate to that collectively and that we should all try to internalize it and make that demand of ourselves rather than make that demand of others,” Magarian said.

While Magarian believes civility should be something an individual implements onto him or herself, she recognized that society often doesn’t follow that understanding. Patnaik went even further than Reed and said that civility is often directly forced upon college students.

“In general, I think a lot of energy is being spent trying to eliminate any possibility of conflict or hurt feelings, and in the process we’re shutting down dialogue altogether and that’s bad because university is the place for the democratic exchange of ideas,” Patnaik said.

According to Patnaik, college students are often restricted from unadulterated discussions that elicit more emotional responses from participants.

Freshman Ella Shlonsky said she attended the panel as forums such as these are some of the only places to openly listen to and discuss controversial issues.

“Living in any city I think it’s important to understand the surrounding community, but I think it’s especially important in St. Louis, considering what has gone on in Ferguson over the last few years,” Shlonsky said.