Civility Blog

  • Civility Linkblogging: Accountability, Gemeinschaftsgefuehl, and Bush 41

    ByAdam Zolkover

    This post is part of our ongoing effort to highlight discourse about civility around the web. Our articles for civility linkblogging come from a wide cross-section of blogs and newspapers, magazines and other websites, from the United States and abroad.

    This week’s post features a story about the civic consequences of uncivil words. After Frazier Glenn Cross shot and killed three people outside of two Jewish community institutions in Overland Park, KS, Marionville, Mo. Mayor Dan Clevenger spoke out in the killer’s defense. And in the process, he made his own anti-Semitic views clear. But the Marionville town aldermen would have none of that. And standing up for a culture of civility and respect, they forced Clevenger to resign.

  • Ranked Choice Voting and Civility?

    ByAdam Zolkover

    A new study, conducted after the 2013 elections by the Eagleton Poll at Rutgers University, suggests that ranked choice voting (RCV) may offer some positive potential in generating more civil outcomes in American elections. In a report released by FairVote [PDF], a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that advocates for electoral reform (including RCV), municipal voters in cities with ranked choice elections were significantly more likely to perceive candidates’ campaigns to be less negative than in previous years. And candidates were significantly less likely to perceive themselves — or their opponents — as having propagated negative personal attacks.

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    The Importance of Congressional Student Forums

    ByInstitute Staff

    Some people think it never happens. They think that Republicans and Democrats cannot work together, or even have a civil conversation. But those people are mistaken. It does happen – and could happen more if more people would speak out for civility.

    For years the Institute for Civility in Government has sponsored Congressional Student Forums. These bring two members of Congress from opposite sides of the political aisle together on college campuses around the country in order to model civil and respectful conversations with students and faculty on whatever issues the students bring to the table. The conversations are lively and informative. And they are critically important to our civic process.

  • Two Congressional Student Forums, This Week

    ByAdam Zolkover

    This week, the Institute for Civility in Government is holding two Congressional Student Forums: one will be today (Monday, April 21) on the campus of the University of Missouri, Kansas City; and the other will be tomorrow (Tuesday April 22) at the University of Texas, San Antonio.

    For those who do not know, Congressional Student Forums are hour-and-a-half programs featuring two U.S. Representatives, one Republican and one Democrat, who dialogue (not debate!) about current issues. In this format, it is the university students who set the agenda through their questions to the members of Congress, allowing them a particularly empowering opportunity to interact directly with their elected officials.

  • Civility Linkblogging: City Government and Bangladesh

    ByAdam Zolkover

    This post is part of our ongoing effort to highlight discourse about civility around the web. Our articles for civility linkblogging come from a wide cross-section of blogs and newspapers, magazines and other websites, from the United States and abroad.

    This week, we delve into civic politics from Tallahasse, Florida, to Buffalo, New York, to Columbia, South Carolina, noting especially a thoughtful piece by Columbia mayor Steve Benjamin, who begins with the story of an old man’s words to his grandson:

  • Civility Linkblogging: The (Mostly) Canada Edition

    ByAdam Zolkover

    This post is part of an ongoing series that highlights discourse about civility online. We glean the articles for civility linkblogging from a broad cross-section of blogs, newspapers, and magazines, from the United States and abroad.

    This week, our linkblogging segment focuses primarily on Canada: on Rob Ford’s ongoing stewardship of Toronto; on increased polarization in the national legislature; on the poor influence — the polarizing influence — of political culture imported from the United States; and on one grade six class that has had just about enough of name-calling, and will no longer visit Alberta’s provincial legislature meetings.

  • Beyond Convicted Civility

    ByGuest Blogger

    Is convicted civility the best we can do?

    Even asking the question seems petulant — like scolding a friend who traded in her gas guzzler for a Prius. After all, she could have bought an electric car, right? Many of us have no patience for such quibbling over degrees of self-improvement, and with good reason.

    Convicted civility is our Prius. Its champions include two celebrated intellects in U.S. seminaries: Lutheran scholar Martin Marty and evangelical thinker Richard Mouw. Indeed, Marty’s quote in the 1990s both described the landscape for convicted civility and hinted at its definition: “People who have strong convictions these days aren’t very civil, and people who are civil often don’t have very strong convictions. What we need is ‘convicted civility.'”

  • Civility and Cybercivility in Schools: Two Updates

    ByAdam Zolkover

    In December of 2013, Joshua Starr, superintendent of schools for Montgomery County, Maryland, faced a distinctly uncivil snow-day situation online. According to Washington D.C.’s NBC 4, as the weather worsened, and as he decided whether or not to cancel school, he began receiving tweets from students that ranged from snarky to “offensive and disturbing.”

    According to NBC, Starr said that some of these tweets were clever, funny, and respectful, pleading for me to cancel school so they could sleep in or have more time to do their homework. But not all. They also included rampant use of racial epithets and curse words, and threats to himself and to his family.