Events

Difficult Conversations Initiative

The "Difficult Conversations" initiative began in spring 2025 as a model of respectful disagreement, offering students examples of engaging with challenging topics, and demonstrating effective techniques for navigating complex dialogues. The broader aim was to create a campus culture where difficult discussions are approached constructively, thoughtfully, and respectfully.

Speaking Across Conflict workshop

November 3, 2025

Current Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students were invited to participate in the workshop: Speaking Across Conflict, part of the BLI Difficult Conversation Series.

The workshop offered communication skill-building for charged conversations and a forum for dialogue across disagreement. Participants exchanged views and personal experiences, surfaced differences and commonalities, and practiced communication skills for addressing differences directly and constructively.

‘It’s about respecting otherness’: UC Berkeley hosts May Day Conference on Free Inquiry

May 2, 2025
Sumaya Azhar

UC Berkeley hosted the May Day Conference on Free Inquiry sponsored by the Berkeley Liberty Initiative, or BLI, on Thursday. The discussion focused on academic freedom, threats to free inquiry and trust in universities.

Among the speakers and panelists was Sean Gailmard, campus professor in the political science department, who claimed that one theory that explains President Donald Trump’s recent attacks on universities is that faculty tend to lean “further left” than society while Trump is on the right of the political spectrum.

Tom Ginsburg, a professor at the University of...

https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/academics/it-s-about-respecting-otherness-u…

Deliberative Polling Event - Standardized Testing

The first event under this series, held on April 15, 2025, was a Deliberative Polling event on the use of standardized testing in University of California admissions. We partnered with the Deliberative Democracy Lab to host this event. Students were surveyed before and after the deliberation to gauge their engagement with the event and to assess any change in their beliefs about the use of standardized testing in college admissions. An expert panel responded to students’ questions and engaged in discussions about the admissions process, a UC-specific test, and California policies.

...

How the Berkeley Liberty Initiative champions free speech in divided times

September 16, 2024
Jessica Ballardo

Over a decade ago, in the years leading up to UC Berkeley’s 50th anniversary commemoration of the Free Speech Movement, Frank E. Baxter led an effort to ensure that diversity of opinion remained a cornerstone of campus life.

Baxter, a Berkeley Social Sciences alum and former U.S. ambassador to Uruguay, wanted to create a space at Berkeley for dissenting voices to participate in the marketplace of ideas. To do so, he established what has since been named the Berkeley Liberty Initiative — a series of lectures and campus activities promoting freedom of thought and diversity of...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2024/09/16/how-the-berkeley-liberty-initiative-champio…