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Houston’s Furr High School Wins $10 Million XQ Grant

Does civility matter? Yes it does. In 2001, Dr. Bertie Simmons came out of retirement to become the principal of Houston’s Furr High school when no one else wanted to take the reigns. Six years later, concerned that gangs were ready to take over the school, Simmons called on us at the Institute and asked…

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - The Danger of a Single Story

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and David Brooks on the Dangers of Single Storyism

New York Times columnist David Brooks offered his readers a gift, recently, when he pointed out a 2009 TED Talk by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called “The Danger of a Single Story.” In that talk, Adichie discusses globalization, colonialism, and the mutual cross-cultural misperceptions brought about – as Brooks puts it – by what…

Point Taken from PBS Offers Debate with a Side of Civility

Point Taken from PBS Offers Debate with a Side of Civility

Television reviews are not usually within our purview. But this month, happily, something interesting is happening in public broadcasting that invites some civility discussion. PBS, together with Boston’s WGBH, have premiered a new show called Point Taken that’s a version of a panel debate. But far from the Crossfires of the world, this debate isn’t…

Reflecting on Civility on Our Eighteenth Anniversary

Reflecting on Civility on Our Eighteenth Anniversary

On April Fool’s Day of 1998, we launched the Institute for Civility in Government by walking the halls of Congress and introducing ourselves and the newly-formed organization we had been planning since the previous fall. We were met with laughter, puzzlement, bemusement, confusion, politeness, and in some offices – real interest. While some people who…

A Note On the Passing of Justice Antonin Scalia

Opposites attract they say. And having an opposite also pushes us to better understand our own positions. That’s the truth for us as the two co-founders of the Institute. We initially believed we were supporters of the same political party. We were wrong. The day we realized that we thought differently is the day we…

Five Civility Considerations for a Better Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is Thursday, and even at the best of times, it can be a seething crucible of potential political strife. Every year, newspapers around the country opine about ways to avoid political conflict with distant (and sometimes near) relations, and to keep the holiday cool, and calm, and genial for all involved. Two years ago…

Putting Our Uncivil Presidential Race in Historical Perspective

There’s a sub-genre out there of news articles about civility that focus on its decline and impending demise. The most recent, perhaps, is an August column in the Jewish Journal that begins with the austere pronouncement that the last quarter of a century has witnessed the decline of civility in U.S. politics. But it is…