In a time of disinvestment and other budget pressures, these programs are too often the first to be cut. But they are where students learn to have difficult conversations in an atmosphere of free inquiry and expression.

Disinvestment and other financial challenges leave leaders at public and private institutions with hard choices. But where universities respond by denying students access to humanities and arts disciplines — to the broadest array of ideas and perspectives — they are making a dangerous decision. Heated campus controversies over the current war in Gaza are throwing into stark relief the dire need for students to learn to productively debate across differences in perspective and world views, to develop understanding and empathy. These are precisely the skills the arts and humanities foster.