Does a Stanford University initiative reinstating a century-old tradition of American civics learning offer a roadmap for the future of higher education? In this installment, Josiah Ober, a Hoover Institution senior fellow and a Stanford professor taking part in the Stanford Civics Initiative, discusses the path forward in citizenship education with Volker Senior Fellow (adjunct) “Checker” Finn, one of the nation’s preeminent authorities on education policy and innovation.
Recorded January 9, 2025.
ABOUT THE SERIES
Educators across the land are preparing for Civic Learning Week in mid-March—with the capstone National Forum at the Hoover Institution on March 13—as the nation also gets ready for next year’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In anticipation of both—and recognizing the urgent need to rekindle civic literacy via our schools and colleges—Renewing Civics Education – Preparing for American Citizenship, a five-part podcast series, takes on the challenges of citizenship education: why it matters, what it needs to do differently, what shortcomings it must overcome. The series features distinguished members of Hoover’s Working Group on Good American Citizenship, led by Volker Senior Fellow Chester Finn.
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>> Chester Finn (00:09):
Considering how polarized and politicized our college campuses have
become, is there any point in even tryingto teach civics to today's undergraduates?
>> Josiah Ober (00:19):
So I think, Checke, that there are really two choices here.
Either we can say that thisis a hot culture war and
we can engage at the levelof real conflict, or
we can say that it is a situation inwhich there's a lot of disagreement,
a lot of problems on campus, and ourjob is to try to lower the temperature,
(00:43):
try to use our skills aseducators to reset and
therefore try to get back toa time in which it's possible for
us to speak civilly to each other ascitizens engaged in a common project.
>> Chester Finn (00:59):
Whoa, that's Professor Josiah Ober of Stanford University,
known to his friends as Josh.
And I'm Chester Finn ofthe Hoover Institution,
known to my friends as Checker.
And it's pleasure to betalking about civics and
civic education in highered with Josh Ober today.
But I want to follow up.
(01:19):
You pioneered, you reborn civics atStanford as a subject for undergraduates.
I believe you've even made it compulsoryfor all undergraduates to get a taste of.
How on earth did you do that?
>> Josiah Ober (01:32):
Well, it took a little bit of doing.
We're still not compulsory for 100% ofour incoming students will decide or
the faculty senate will decideon that in two years time.
But it is compulsory for two thirdsof them and we're well on our way.
So how did we do it?
Well, basically it began becausea group of faculty about seven
(01:56):
years ago decided that Stanfordwas really derelict in its
duties to the citizens ofthe United States, to its citizens,
and in fact was in violationof its founding charter,
which calls for civic education orsomething very like it,
as well as education in the ordinarytopics of science, humanities and so on.
(02:21):
And so we sent a basically request,a demand to the president
as part of a long term planningprocess saying Stanford is derelict.
Do something about it.
We have a plan.
It would involve mandatory course forincoming freshmen and
then a lot of other coursesthat we would develop.
(02:42):
We kind of thought thiswas a shot over the bow.
Didn't know that anythingwould really come of it.
But in fact it turnedout the time was right.
So the university eventuallybegan to grind through
the process of formalizing this.
It took a lot of work on our part tobring a lot of faculty on board who were
(03:04):
initially suspicious about it.
But ultimately we were able to do that.
We lined up some outside donorswho were very keen on basically
moving forward with they helped usbecause we were able then to show
the university that there reallywas donor interest and we were able
(03:25):
to bring on board some terrific teachers,showed what could be done.
And after a few years timeit had some momentum.
And by now we really have what is, I thinkthe leading project in civic education,
at least at the kind ofuniversity Stanford is.
>> Chester Finn (03:47):
A few years time indeed.
You said seven years, andyou're not quite universal yet.
I mean, I know you're a studentof ancient Greece and
Rome, somaybe that's made you a patient man.
It sounds like a lifetime, you persevered.
>> Josiah Ober (04:01):
I think that when you're trying to think about how you change
an institution like Stanford interms of its basic commitments,
what it's doing, what Stanford is, andhow it's perceived as a university,
it's simply not possibleto turn on a dime.
In Stanford,like I think other universities,
(04:24):
is basically an aircraft carrier.
If you're going to turnthe aircraft carrier, you can, but
it takes a long time.
If you're going to slow it down orspeed it up, it takes a long time.
>> Chester Finn (04:35):
So did this ignite a culture war in the Stanford faculty?
And if not, how not?
>> Josiah Ober (04:41):
So it did not.
In fact, the proposal to begin the processseems to you a leisurely process,
seems to be a surprisingly quickprocess of getting this approved.
Was unanimously approvedby the faculty senate, and
things usually don't get unanimouslyapproved by our faculty senate.
(05:07):
That was the result of a lot of work.
There were a number ofus involved in this.
We spent a lot of time trying tobring people on board with it.
And I think ultimately the people whowould be fundamentally opposed to
any sort of civic education just decidedit wasn't a hill worth dying on.
(05:29):
They were going to lose.
They were going to lose prettybadly if they tried to oppose it.
And ultimately, ultimately they decidedit wasn't worth exposing themselves
to that kind of sort of shameful failureat a moment when I think an awful lot
of people really across the spectrumrecognized that really we need to do
(05:50):
something about improving civic education,civic engagement in the country.
>> Chester Finn (05:56):
Well, I surely agree with that, but
say a little bit about what's actually init, because one way to build consensus,
of course, is to be so vague and genericthat there's nothing to argue over.
>> Josiah Ober (06:07):
So this was one of the really important things in terms of
getting some donor support to bringon board some postdoctoral scholars
to bring on board a couple of lecturerswho could help us do the really
full time work of syllabus designin a committee, and it had to be
a committee that brought in facultyfrom various parts of the university.
(06:33):
It's generally true, I think,in this kind of environment,
that those who are willing to dothe most hard work, who will always be
there at the meetings, who are alwayswell prepared at the meetings,
are going to get to have a biggestsay in how the thing is designed.
In this case, it was the syllabus for
(06:55):
the course that's now taken by twothirds of Stanford's incoming students,
and I hope in two years timewill be taken by all of them.
So we were able to really put somespine into this course to make it
a really serious course rather thana bit of everything for everybody.
Of course,nobody ever gets exactly what they want.
(07:17):
This isn't my dream coursein civic education.
It's probably nobody's dream course,but I think it actually is
a really good course that does reflecta lot of what one might hope that at
the university level students wouldbe exposed to in their first year,
have then potential for building onthat in the rest of their college.
>> Chester Finn (07:40):
Can you give an example or two of the actual content?
I take it this is not your traditionalhigh school civics course.
>> Josiah Ober (07:46):
No, it certainly is not.
And we very decisively chose not to
try to do remedial education.
So this isn't how many people are inThe US House of Representatives.
It isn't three branches of government.
Rather, we thought that we would centerit around problems of cooperation.
(08:10):
Basically saying that civics or
government in a democracy requiresa lot of cooperation among
people who disagree prettyfundamentally about a lot of things.
It requires the possibility orthe potential to engage in bargaining
(08:30):
as well as just asserting what yourdemands are or what your rights are and
expecting everybody else to simplyaccept your non negotiable demands.
So it's basically a setof cooperation problems.
And there's a good literatureon this in social science.
(08:51):
Economists are interestedin cooperation problems.
And it basically allowsthe students to think about
the problem of citizenshipin terms of their own lives.
Because indeed cooperationproblems are common
to all forms of purposeful organization,including a university.
(09:12):
So we were able then to build out fromthat to some of the literature on
cooperation andthen begin to show them how, for example,
the American founders were facingbasically a set of cooperation problems.
How are we going to get theserepresentatives from 13 states with very
different interests to agreeon a common constitution?
(09:36):
That was a matter of hard bargaining andultimately recognizing that
the bargain on the table wasthe best one that was available.
And so once again,we could integrate with,
integrate history,American history with the background.
General question ofproblems of cooperation.
>> Chester Finn (09:57):
I hear you using the word cooperation, not compromise.
Is that on purpose?
>> Josiah Ober (10:02):
Cooperation often requires compromise.
Basically, compromise means thatin a negotiation I recognize
that I'm not going to geteverything I want and
you're not going to geteverything you want, you want.
And there's going to be some pointin which I'm better off inside
(10:23):
the bargain that we ultimately strike,and so are you.
But neither of us have gotten everything.
So in a sense that's compromise.
It doesn't have to meancompromising your ideals.
It doesn't mean having to compromise yourbelief in what would be the best outcome.
But it does mean the understanding thatif we're going to do something together,
(10:47):
if we're going to pass a bill,if we're going to decide on new rules for
whatever our organization is,we're going to have to recognize that
we do have diverse preferencesover particular outcomes.
And there is potentially anywaya bargain that is available that will
make all of us better off than wewould be outside of the bargain.
>> Chester Finn (11:11):
Yes, I think people hearkening back to that hot summer in
Philadelphia a couple hundred years agotypically would use the word compromise
for most of the assembly ofthe Constitution for example.
Why the House of Representativesis population based and
the Senate is too per se,regardless of the size of your state.
(11:31):
But anyway, the fact that you'renot doing a remedial civics course
says to me that you're taking forgranted, but tell me if I'm wrong,
that an incoming Stanford studenthas already learned how many members
there are of the House of Representatives,that high school has done its part.
(11:52):
Is that a fair assumption?
>> Josiah Ober (11:54):
It is at least an assumption.
I hope it's a fair one andindeed our choice not to simply try to
recapitulate what I kind of imagine as 9thgrade civics, since that's when I took it.
>> Chester Finn (12:09):
12th grade in many.
States, but go ahead.
>> Josiah Ober (12:12):
All right, well, yes, this was some years ago.
So the notion was to try toassume that Stanford students
do have at least enough basic knowledge orcan get it,
and that we can showthem where to get it so
that we can begin to considerthe whole question of civics
(12:35):
education as something that isactually intellectually exciting.
So they're learning a whole domainof understanding and of inquiry, or
they're entering into that domain ratherthan just learning a bunch of rote facts.
Now, without any rote facts,
you're going to have a hardtime entering into any domain.
(12:57):
You'd have to have someknowledge to begin with.
But we didn't want to make thisfeel like your introduction to
Stanford's idea of civics educationis just recapitulating for
those of you who did have this background,what you already had learned.
That's, I think, going to be a way to sortof make people decide that this is drab,
(13:19):
dull, in no way the kind of excitingeducation that they came here to get and
that presumably they are gettingin many of their other courses.
>> Chester Finn (13:28):
As you know, it's in the civics education in the elementary,
secondary world today.
It's a time of great ferment and anxietyabout whether the schools are doing right
by civics, by U.S. history,by the whole swath of issues.
From your perspective,
as somebody that teaches collegeundergraduates at an elite college,
(13:50):
what would you like the K12 system to havedone before you get them in this realm?
>> Josiah Ober (13:56):
Yeah, I would like them obviously to have prepared students with
the basic background knowledge of howthe American constitutional order works.
I think that's a prettygood place to start.
I would like them tohave had an experience or
been engaged with Americanhistory in a serious way.
(14:19):
In a way that neither triesto whitewash everything and
sets the founders on a pedestal.
And imagines that somehow,at a certain moment, unique genius was
brought to us and that we ought togenuflect to that genius forever after.
I think that's a mistake and
(14:40):
I think a lot of students willsimply recognize it as a mistake.
On the other hand, I think it's equally amistake to try to teach American history.
And once again, what would I want for
a high school backgroundin American history?
I think it's a mistake to teachit as simply a vicious power
(15:01):
game that was foisted uponalmost everybody else by a small
body of viciously self interested elite.
>> Chester Finn (15:09):
The litan of failure and victimization.
>> Josiah Ober (15:12):
Exactly.
So I think there's, you know,there's really quite a broad middle
ground between recognizing thatindeed there are lots of moral
flaws in the way in which thiscountry was founded and developed.
By our current standards,slavery is just simply a wrong.
And I think we can all agree on that.
(15:35):
But at the same time,the fact of moral flaws in
a country's history doesnot equate to making
the entire history thatone of wickedness and
of evil plots by bad minded people.
So I think that there isa way to teach history.
(15:56):
What would I like them to have known abouthistory that actually Actually allows them
both to be critical about the historyof America and also to be admiring of
the remarkable things thatactually have been achieved here.
>> Chester Finn (16:09):
I want to bring you back to the college level, Josh,
because you've recentlycreated an alliance
involving a number of colleges anduniversities in the civic space.
Can you say a bit about what it is andhow you see it working?
>> Josiah Ober (16:23):
Yeah, we recently launched an alliance for civics in the academy.
We have a charter membershipof about 130 members.
These are all individualswho are engaged in civic
education at the college oruniversity level.
(16:44):
Most of them are teachers whoare working at the coal face,
that is they're actually teachingreal courses to students on a regular
basis with civic content, whether ornot it's a part of an organized program.
Some of them are administratorswho are engaged in setting up or
(17:06):
trying to foster these civics courses,civics programs.
A few of them are peoplein NGOs that are interested
in supporting civics inthe higher education.
But for the most part it's meantto be a body of people who
are in engaged in the actualpractice of educating students
(17:31):
at the higher education levelin some area of civics.
>> Chester Finn (17:36):
That means are all sorts of different colleges?
>> Josiah Ober (17:38):
All kinds of different colleges.
We have state universities,we have private universities,
we have large, small, very well funded,like Stanford, not very well funded.
And at the moment we don't havea membership in the community
(17:59):
college two year programs justbecause that's a different world.
We're hoping to be able toexpand a membership there.
But for the moment we're thinking aboutmembers in four year colleges and
universities.
But yeah, these are verydifferent kinds of institutions,
(18:20):
very different resource bases and
very different backgrounds interms of who is driving who is
driving the mission of increasingcivic education at their institution.
>> Chester Finn (18:34):
So it's just like a support group, a committee
of correspondence, how would youcharacterize the reason for having this?
>> Josiah Ober (18:42):
Yeah, well what we call it is a community of practice.
And a community of practice isin some ways an older idea.
There was a whole literatureon this in the late
1990s that basically said that a lot
of things that are not readily taught or
(19:05):
learned through manuals or through top
down orders being given and followed.
A lot of things that are learnedby people who are engaged in
a practice are learned fromothers engaged in that practice.
So the classic example wasXerox copy machine repairman.
(19:32):
And it turned out that somegroups of Xerox copy machine
repairmen did terrifically well.
Their copy machines got up andrunning again fast.
Other groups didn't do so well.
And those of us who go back tothe age of Xerox copies remember
(19:53):
that grim notice that the copymachine is on the blink.
So the question was, why are some ofthese groups doing better than others?
And people who did the studytried to correct for
all of the possible reasons that onegroup might do better than the other.
Turned out that the key thingwas the groups that really
(20:16):
did well talked with each otherabout what they were doing and
they talked informallyaround the water cooler.
They just swapped tips about what works,workarounds.
Yeah, the manual says this,don't do that, do this other thing.
And it turns out that groups thatdidn't do this, that people just
(20:39):
followed the rules, followed the manual->> Chester Finn: And
didn't talk to each other.
Didn't talk much with each other, were much less effective.
So we think the same thing is true forcivic education.
We think we can learn from each other,we can read each other's syllabus,
we can talk with each other about howdid you get that program up and running?
(21:02):
How come you didn't get mugged bythe people who hate the very idea?
How are you working witha mandate from a legislature that
requires civic education in a certain way?
So I think that it is going tobe much more effect nationally
in terms of creating a sortof national commitment to and
(21:27):
rolling that out to civic education.
If we have people who are engaged intalking with one another about what works,
what doesn't.
I think the very idea of sort ofthe network is what we're aiming at rather
than association in which a grouptells everybody what to do.
>> Chester Finn (21:47):
So this sounds very much like exploring an unexplored continent,
actually.
Put on your hat as a historian fora second.
Was there ever a golden age ofcivic education in higher ed
in the United States?
Or are you really starting de novo?
>> Josiah Ober (22:04):
So there was a time in which civic education was really thought
to be quite central to what colleges anduniversities were doing.
When we began pushing forthe program here at Stanford,
we looked back at the archives andwe discovered,
(22:24):
somewhat to my surprise anyway,that Stanford actually had
had back in the 1920s, a mandatoryyear long course for all students.
And remember, Stanford was co-ed.
So this was men and women togethercalled Problems of Citizenship.
(22:45):
And basically Problems of Citizenshipwas designed around really two issues,
questions of freedom andquestions of cooperation.
So we're in some ways recapitulatingsomething that Stanford and
Stanford was not alone.
It turns out that there were a lot ofcourses like this once upon a time,
(23:09):
were very committed to andthen over the course of the next 70 years,
became uncommitted to forreasons that we could explore.
>> Chester Finn (23:20):
Wow, so 100 years ago, this was thriving at Sanford and
some other places, too.
>> Josiah Ober (23:26):
Yeah, and you can sort of see in part, what was motivating it.
There had been a period of very highimmigration leading up to the 1920s.
So there were a lot of new Americans whodidn't grow up or hadn't grown up with,
as it were, the background of whatever onethinks was American culture at that time.
(23:49):
And the 19th Amendment, which gavewomen the vote, had just been passed.
And suddenly you have a wholebody of people, half the.
Population of the country is nowexpected to act as citizens.
And so, there was a lot of sense thatwe really should be doing something to
(24:13):
bring up those who have come here,women as well as everybody else.
>> Chester Finn (24:17):
A little bit like the schools of big cities assimilating
immigrants into the English language andthings like that.
>> Josiah Ober (24:24):
Yeah, yeah, precisely.
So I think it really wasthought of in those terms.
But when we found, we actually foundthe syllabus of this course, and it
was striking how intellectually demandingit really was, it wasn't just remedial.
And that then became part ofthe inspiration for us to try to say we
(24:45):
want to then have a 21st centuryversion of this that will really
address the question of civic educationin a way that is equally exciting.
But now deals with questions, for example,of what are the challenges of technology,
of social media and soon that simply weren't there in the 1920s.
>> Chester Finn (25:06):
That's really interesting.
I did not know any of that background.
And it's also helps to have a precedentfor something that you are proposing.
There's->> Josiah Ober: It's absolutely true.
When we were pressing our case on this,we could start with the founding charter,
and said that you're in violation ofcontractual responsibility to offer this.
(25:29):
But meanwhile, and Stanford wasnot always in violation, indeed,
our predecessors believed thiswas of fundamental importance and
this really was part of Stanford's brandand could be again, and should be again.
Really interesting, so I want to lay a radical idea on you that
also integrates, orintersects with the K12 part.
(25:51):
Again, is it a pipe dream to imaginethat civics education might become some
kind of an admissions prerequisite fora college like Stanford?
Just as many colleges require language,or some proficiency in math, or
something else beforeyou can even come here.
>> Josiah Ober (26:08):
Yeah, I think it, in the near term.
You thought seven years was a long time.
I think that would bea very optimistic thought.
But I think that if Stanford,other elite universities,
other very well regardedstate universities led with
(26:31):
admissions, takes intoaccount civic education,
that is going to be a thumb on the scale.
We're looking for
people who can jump into our firstyear course with some real background.
And we're a little worried about bringingin people who might be otherwise
(26:53):
qualified who don't have that backgroundthat gets out to the college counselors,
gets out to at least parents who payattention to these sorts of things.
And they begin to bring pressureon school boards and so on to say,
look, you know,we want our kids to get into,
you know, whatever it is Universityof Minnesota stands for.
>> Chester Finn (27:16):
Make it a plus factor on admissions.
>> Josiah Ober (27:18):
Exactly.
>> Chester Finn (27:19):
Rather than necessarily a prerequisite.
>> Josiah Ober (27:21):
Yeah, and eventually it may just become a de facto prerequisite.
>> Chester Finn (27:25):
That's interesting.
The other intersection that's importantwith K12 and higher ed in this realm, and
I don't know to what extentthis is a Stanford issue, but
preparation of teachers issomething that higher ed does.
And there's a lot of talk about today'shigh school and elementary school
social studies teachers not knowing muchabout things like civics and history.
(27:50):
What's higher ed's job here?
>> Josiah Ober (27:54):
Yeah, so I think that here we're going to have to be working with
those who set the rules for certificationfor teachers, which are states typically.
>> Chester Finn (28:06):
State certification.
Yeah.>> Josiah Ober: That's a very complex
question.
But I think if once again, if leadinginstitutions of higher education,
well regarded state universities,private universities,
begin to push for the idea that thisreally ought to be at the center
of what every student who comesto their institution learns.
(28:31):
It begins to once again put somepressure on the education schools
that do prepare a lot of teachers to beginto take this more and more seriously.
Now, it's going to help if we getpeople in the US Congress and so
on who begin to say this isreally an important thing,
(28:52):
we're willing to putsome funding behind it.
It'll help if legislatures inthe states begin to think this
is really an important thing,we ought to put pressure on or
indeed mandate that state fundedinstitutions that are preparing
teachers do indeed preparethem well to teach civics.
(29:16):
So I think it's partly a matterof just turning up the ratchet,
building pressure on those who mightbe recalcitrant about doing this,
to see that really and truly thisis what is demanded of them both by
the citizenry and by the institutionsthat they have some respect for.
(29:37):
You're making the important point that it's not just
a faculty thing, it's not just a selfstarting thing within a university,
it's also a public policy issue.
>> Josiah Ober (29:46):
Absolutely.
>> Chester Finn (29:47):
Legislatures and
other policymakers could havea considerable effect here.
>> Josiah Ober (29:51):
That's right, and once again,
in terms of thinking in the longer term,to the extent to
which places like Stanford orUniversity of Minnesota.
I have a BA from University of Minnesota,so that's my go to.
But at any rate,to the extent to which these kinds of
(30:14):
places do in fact educatethe leaders of tomorrow,
which they certainly intend to do,and to I think an extent they do,
then we can imagine getting people inpositions of real policy influence,
lawmakers, those engaged inregulatory agencies of various sorts.
(30:37):
Who will have started out withthe kind of education that leads
them to feel that this is important,this ought to be furthered,
that ought to become more andmore standardized.
That's the long game, But I think that inthe end, if we're talking about matters
(30:57):
of education, we have to be thinkingat least in relatively long terms.
Once again, insofar as we really wantto change the culture of civics,
we want to change the waypeople imagine themselves,
their duties, their responsibilities,
as well as their rights as citizens oras aspiring citizens.
(31:20):
Then we have to be willing to do
the work that is going to bereally that of a generation.
>> Chester Finn (31:27):
Sounds, I don't know if I'm as patient as you are, but
that does sound right to me.
One more thing, we can't, we can't leavetoday without bringing up your recent
book, which seems to me almost a primerfor civic education, especially the way
you were describing the Stanford coursewith an emphasis on cooperation.
Can you say about a book a bit about thetheme of your book with Brooke Manville?
>> Josiah Ober (31:50):
Yes, indeed, so
the book is calledthe Civic How Democracy Survives,
Brooke Manville Friend ofco-author in other work and
really a great intellectual force.
Brooke and I basically decided that ifwe were going to be as interested as
(32:15):
we were in the whole civic realmin the problem of democracy,
we really needed to saysomething about what we supposed
would be a kind of backgroundwork that would say, well,
here's the way to think about it,here's the way to think about democracy,
(32:36):
and here's the way to thinkabout how democracy flourishes,
how at least it survives, rather thanonly worrying about how democracy dies.
As you know, there's a lot ofliterature about how democracy dies.
>> Chester Finn (32:51):
The death of democracy, yes, the other.
>> Josiah Ober (32:53):
Side of it seemed to us quite important as well.
So we started out by sayinghow would we define democracy?
And we decided that we needed to havethe most basic possible definition.
And our basic definition of democracyis no boss but one another.
(33:16):
Democracy is not having a king,
not not having a gang ofoligarchs in charge of your life.
The only people who are yourboss are your fellow citizens,
ordinary people like yourself.
And that means peoplewith diverse opinions,
(33:36):
diverse preferences over outcomes.
And that means you're going tohave to find a way to compromise,
to negotiate with, to bargain with them.
So that's really the core of the book,is that democracy,
if you want not to have a boss, doesrequire that you engage in bargaining with
(33:58):
people that you probably disagree withon some pretty important matters.
>> Chester Finn (34:03):
Well, in early 2025, that sounds like a lesson worth taking
seriously in the United States anda fair number of other countries, I'd say.
>> Josiah Ober (34:11):
I think that is exactly right.
Our book, just like our work oncivic education, tends to focus,
I think it should,on what's happening here in the United but
it's not the only democracy thatneeds to re engage with the whole
question of what really are the dutiesas well as the rights of the citizen and
(34:36):
how can the institutions of a givencountry work towards giving
citizens the kind of basic skills,the basic knowledge,
the basic dispositions,the kind of character that they need
in order really to be effective incarrying out their duties as citizens.
>> Chester Finn (34:57):
That is fantastic.
I want to thank you, Josh.
I want to also remind our colleagues andour friends and
our audience that coming upsoon is Civic Learning Week for
the United states, including on March 13,
a terrific civics summit atthe Hoover Institution at Stanford.
I co-sponsored with iCivics.
(35:18):
I know you're on the program.
I know a lot of other really interestingpeople are on the program and I think it's
a kind of important culmination ofsome of the work we've been doing, and
it's not going to takeseven years to get there.
So thank you again, Josh Hober.
>> Josiah Ober (35:33):
Thank you very much, Checker Finn.
[MUSIC]
Considering how polarized and politicized our college campuses have
become, is there any point in even tryingto teach civics to today's undergraduates?
>> Josiah Ober (00:19):
So I think, Checke, that there are really two choices here.
Either we can say that thisis a hot culture war and
we can engage at the levelof real conflict, or
we can say that it is a situation inwhich there's a lot of disagreement,
a lot of problems on campus, and ourjob is to try to lower the temperature,
(00:43):
try to use our skills aseducators to reset and
therefore try to get back toa time in which it's possible for
us to speak civilly to each other ascitizens engaged in a common project.
>> Chester Finn (00:59):
Whoa, that's Professor Josiah Ober of Stanford University,
known to his friends as Josh.
And I'm Chester Finn ofthe Hoover Institution,
known to my friends as Checker.
And it's pleasure to betalking about civics and
civic education in highered with Josh Ober today.
But I want to follow up.
(01:19):
You pioneered, you reborn civics atStanford as a subject for undergraduates.
I believe you've even made it compulsoryfor all undergraduates to get a taste of.
How on earth did you do that?
>> Josiah Ober (01:32):
Well, it took a little bit of doing.
We're still not compulsory for 100% ofour incoming students will decide or
the faculty senate will decideon that in two years time.
But it is compulsory for two thirdsof them and we're well on our way.
So how did we do it?
Well, basically it began becausea group of faculty about seven
(01:56):
years ago decided that Stanfordwas really derelict in its
duties to the citizens ofthe United States, to its citizens,
and in fact was in violationof its founding charter,
which calls for civic education orsomething very like it,
as well as education in the ordinarytopics of science, humanities and so on.
(02:21):
And so we sent a basically request,a demand to the president
as part of a long term planningprocess saying Stanford is derelict.
Do something about it.
We have a plan.
It would involve mandatory course forincoming freshmen and
then a lot of other coursesthat we would develop.
(02:42):
We kind of thought thiswas a shot over the bow.
Didn't know that anythingwould really come of it.
But in fact it turnedout the time was right.
So the university eventuallybegan to grind through
the process of formalizing this.
It took a lot of work on our part tobring a lot of faculty on board who were
(03:04):
initially suspicious about it.
But ultimately we were able to do that.
We lined up some outside donorswho were very keen on basically
moving forward with they helped usbecause we were able then to show
the university that there reallywas donor interest and we were able
(03:25):
to bring on board some terrific teachers,showed what could be done.
And after a few years timeit had some momentum.
And by now we really have what is, I thinkthe leading project in civic education,
at least at the kind ofuniversity Stanford is.
>> Chester Finn (03:47):
A few years time indeed.
You said seven years, andyou're not quite universal yet.
I mean, I know you're a studentof ancient Greece and
Rome, somaybe that's made you a patient man.
It sounds like a lifetime, you persevered.
>> Josiah Ober (04:01):
I think that when you're trying to think about how you change
an institution like Stanford interms of its basic commitments,
what it's doing, what Stanford is, andhow it's perceived as a university,
it's simply not possibleto turn on a dime.
In Stanford,like I think other universities,
(04:24):
is basically an aircraft carrier.
If you're going to turnthe aircraft carrier, you can, but
it takes a long time.
If you're going to slow it down orspeed it up, it takes a long time.
>> Chester Finn (04:35):
So did this ignite a culture war in the Stanford faculty?
And if not, how not?
>> Josiah Ober (04:41):
So it did not.
In fact, the proposal to begin the processseems to you a leisurely process,
seems to be a surprisingly quickprocess of getting this approved.
Was unanimously approvedby the faculty senate, and
things usually don't get unanimouslyapproved by our faculty senate.
(05:07):
That was the result of a lot of work.
There were a number ofus involved in this.
We spent a lot of time trying tobring people on board with it.
And I think ultimately the people whowould be fundamentally opposed to
any sort of civic education just decidedit wasn't a hill worth dying on.
(05:29):
They were going to lose.
They were going to lose prettybadly if they tried to oppose it.
And ultimately, ultimately they decidedit wasn't worth exposing themselves
to that kind of sort of shameful failureat a moment when I think an awful lot
of people really across the spectrumrecognized that really we need to do
(05:50):
something about improving civic education,civic engagement in the country.
>> Chester Finn (05:56):
Well, I surely agree with that, but
say a little bit about what's actually init, because one way to build consensus,
of course, is to be so vague and genericthat there's nothing to argue over.
>> Josiah Ober (06:07):
So this was one of the really important things in terms of
getting some donor support to bringon board some postdoctoral scholars
to bring on board a couple of lecturerswho could help us do the really
full time work of syllabus designin a committee, and it had to be
a committee that brought in facultyfrom various parts of the university.
(06:33):
It's generally true, I think,in this kind of environment,
that those who are willing to dothe most hard work, who will always be
there at the meetings, who are alwayswell prepared at the meetings,
are going to get to have a biggestsay in how the thing is designed.
In this case, it was the syllabus for
(06:55):
the course that's now taken by twothirds of Stanford's incoming students,
and I hope in two years timewill be taken by all of them.
So we were able to really put somespine into this course to make it
a really serious course rather thana bit of everything for everybody.
Of course,nobody ever gets exactly what they want.
(07:17):
This isn't my dream coursein civic education.
It's probably nobody's dream course,but I think it actually is
a really good course that does reflecta lot of what one might hope that at
the university level students wouldbe exposed to in their first year,
have then potential for building onthat in the rest of their college.
>> Chester Finn (07:40):
Can you give an example or two of the actual content?
I take it this is not your traditionalhigh school civics course.
>> Josiah Ober (07:46):
No, it certainly is not.
And we very decisively chose not to
try to do remedial education.
So this isn't how many people are inThe US House of Representatives.
It isn't three branches of government.
Rather, we thought that we would centerit around problems of cooperation.
(08:10):
Basically saying that civics or
government in a democracy requiresa lot of cooperation among
people who disagree prettyfundamentally about a lot of things.
It requires the possibility orthe potential to engage in bargaining
(08:30):
as well as just asserting what yourdemands are or what your rights are and
expecting everybody else to simplyaccept your non negotiable demands.
So it's basically a setof cooperation problems.
And there's a good literatureon this in social science.
(08:51):
Economists are interestedin cooperation problems.
And it basically allowsthe students to think about
the problem of citizenshipin terms of their own lives.
Because indeed cooperationproblems are common
to all forms of purposeful organization,including a university.
(09:12):
So we were able then to build out fromthat to some of the literature on
cooperation andthen begin to show them how, for example,
the American founders were facingbasically a set of cooperation problems.
How are we going to get theserepresentatives from 13 states with very
different interests to agreeon a common constitution?
(09:36):
That was a matter of hard bargaining andultimately recognizing that
the bargain on the table wasthe best one that was available.
And so once again,we could integrate with,
integrate history,American history with the background.
General question ofproblems of cooperation.
>> Chester Finn (09:57):
I hear you using the word cooperation, not compromise.
Is that on purpose?
>> Josiah Ober (10:02):
Cooperation often requires compromise.
Basically, compromise means thatin a negotiation I recognize
that I'm not going to geteverything I want and
you're not going to geteverything you want, you want.
And there's going to be some pointin which I'm better off inside
(10:23):
the bargain that we ultimately strike,and so are you.
But neither of us have gotten everything.
So in a sense that's compromise.
It doesn't have to meancompromising your ideals.
It doesn't mean having to compromise yourbelief in what would be the best outcome.
But it does mean the understanding thatif we're going to do something together,
(10:47):
if we're going to pass a bill,if we're going to decide on new rules for
whatever our organization is,we're going to have to recognize that
we do have diverse preferencesover particular outcomes.
And there is potentially anywaya bargain that is available that will
make all of us better off than wewould be outside of the bargain.
>> Chester Finn (11:11):
Yes, I think people hearkening back to that hot summer in
Philadelphia a couple hundred years agotypically would use the word compromise
for most of the assembly ofthe Constitution for example.
Why the House of Representativesis population based and
the Senate is too per se,regardless of the size of your state.
(11:31):
But anyway, the fact that you'renot doing a remedial civics course
says to me that you're taking forgranted, but tell me if I'm wrong,
that an incoming Stanford studenthas already learned how many members
there are of the House of Representatives,that high school has done its part.
(11:52):
Is that a fair assumption?
>> Josiah Ober (11:54):
It is at least an assumption.
I hope it's a fair one andindeed our choice not to simply try to
recapitulate what I kind of imagine as 9thgrade civics, since that's when I took it.
>> Chester Finn (12:09):
12th grade in many.
States, but go ahead.
>> Josiah Ober (12:12):
All right, well, yes, this was some years ago.
So the notion was to try toassume that Stanford students
do have at least enough basic knowledge orcan get it,
and that we can showthem where to get it so
that we can begin to considerthe whole question of civics
(12:35):
education as something that isactually intellectually exciting.
So they're learning a whole domainof understanding and of inquiry, or
they're entering into that domain ratherthan just learning a bunch of rote facts.
Now, without any rote facts,
you're going to have a hardtime entering into any domain.
(12:57):
You'd have to have someknowledge to begin with.
But we didn't want to make thisfeel like your introduction to
Stanford's idea of civics educationis just recapitulating for
those of you who did have this background,what you already had learned.
That's, I think, going to be a way to sortof make people decide that this is drab,
(13:19):
dull, in no way the kind of excitingeducation that they came here to get and
that presumably they are gettingin many of their other courses.
>> Chester Finn (13:28):
As you know, it's in the civics education in the elementary,
secondary world today.
It's a time of great ferment and anxietyabout whether the schools are doing right
by civics, by U.S. history,by the whole swath of issues.
From your perspective,
as somebody that teaches collegeundergraduates at an elite college,
(13:50):
what would you like the K12 system to havedone before you get them in this realm?
>> Josiah Ober (13:56):
Yeah, I would like them obviously to have prepared students with
the basic background knowledge of howthe American constitutional order works.
I think that's a prettygood place to start.
I would like them tohave had an experience or
been engaged with Americanhistory in a serious way.
(14:19):
In a way that neither triesto whitewash everything and
sets the founders on a pedestal.
And imagines that somehow,at a certain moment, unique genius was
brought to us and that we ought togenuflect to that genius forever after.
I think that's a mistake and
(14:40):
I think a lot of students willsimply recognize it as a mistake.
On the other hand, I think it's equally amistake to try to teach American history.
And once again, what would I want for
a high school backgroundin American history?
I think it's a mistake to teachit as simply a vicious power
(15:01):
game that was foisted uponalmost everybody else by a small
body of viciously self interested elite.
>> Chester Finn (15:09):
The litan of failure and victimization.
>> Josiah Ober (15:12):
Exactly.
So I think there's, you know,there's really quite a broad middle
ground between recognizing thatindeed there are lots of moral
flaws in the way in which thiscountry was founded and developed.
By our current standards,slavery is just simply a wrong.
And I think we can all agree on that.
(15:35):
But at the same time,the fact of moral flaws in
a country's history doesnot equate to making
the entire history thatone of wickedness and
of evil plots by bad minded people.
So I think that there isa way to teach history.
(15:56):
What would I like them to have known abouthistory that actually Actually allows them
both to be critical about the historyof America and also to be admiring of
the remarkable things thatactually have been achieved here.
>> Chester Finn (16:09):
I want to bring you back to the college level, Josh,
because you've recentlycreated an alliance
involving a number of colleges anduniversities in the civic space.
Can you say a bit about what it is andhow you see it working?
>> Josiah Ober (16:23):
Yeah, we recently launched an alliance for civics in the academy.
We have a charter membershipof about 130 members.
These are all individualswho are engaged in civic
education at the college oruniversity level.
(16:44):
Most of them are teachers whoare working at the coal face,
that is they're actually teachingreal courses to students on a regular
basis with civic content, whether ornot it's a part of an organized program.
Some of them are administratorswho are engaged in setting up or
(17:06):
trying to foster these civics courses,civics programs.
A few of them are peoplein NGOs that are interested
in supporting civics inthe higher education.
But for the most part it's meantto be a body of people who
are in engaged in the actualpractice of educating students
(17:31):
at the higher education levelin some area of civics.
>> Chester Finn (17:36):
That means are all sorts of different colleges?
>> Josiah Ober (17:38):
All kinds of different colleges.
We have state universities,we have private universities,
we have large, small, very well funded,like Stanford, not very well funded.
And at the moment we don't havea membership in the community
(17:59):
college two year programs justbecause that's a different world.
We're hoping to be able toexpand a membership there.
But for the moment we're thinking aboutmembers in four year colleges and
universities.
But yeah, these are verydifferent kinds of institutions,
(18:20):
very different resource bases and
very different backgrounds interms of who is driving who is
driving the mission of increasingcivic education at their institution.
>> Chester Finn (18:34):
So it's just like a support group, a committee
of correspondence, how would youcharacterize the reason for having this?
>> Josiah Ober (18:42):
Yeah, well what we call it is a community of practice.
And a community of practice isin some ways an older idea.
There was a whole literatureon this in the late
1990s that basically said that a lot
of things that are not readily taught or
(19:05):
learned through manuals or through top
down orders being given and followed.
A lot of things that are learnedby people who are engaged in
a practice are learned fromothers engaged in that practice.
So the classic example wasXerox copy machine repairman.
(19:32):
And it turned out that somegroups of Xerox copy machine
repairmen did terrifically well.
Their copy machines got up andrunning again fast.
Other groups didn't do so well.
And those of us who go back tothe age of Xerox copies remember
(19:53):
that grim notice that the copymachine is on the blink.
So the question was, why are some ofthese groups doing better than others?
And people who did the studytried to correct for
all of the possible reasons that onegroup might do better than the other.
Turned out that the key thingwas the groups that really
(20:16):
did well talked with each otherabout what they were doing and
they talked informallyaround the water cooler.
They just swapped tips about what works,workarounds.
Yeah, the manual says this,don't do that, do this other thing.
And it turns out that groups thatdidn't do this, that people just
(20:39):
followed the rules, followed the manual->> Chester Finn: And
didn't talk to each other.
Didn't talk much with each other, were much less effective.
So we think the same thing is true forcivic education.
We think we can learn from each other,we can read each other's syllabus,
we can talk with each other about howdid you get that program up and running?
(21:02):
How come you didn't get mugged bythe people who hate the very idea?
How are you working witha mandate from a legislature that
requires civic education in a certain way?
So I think that it is going tobe much more effect nationally
in terms of creating a sortof national commitment to and
(21:27):
rolling that out to civic education.
If we have people who are engaged intalking with one another about what works,
what doesn't.
I think the very idea of sort ofthe network is what we're aiming at rather
than association in which a grouptells everybody what to do.
>> Chester Finn (21:47):
So this sounds very much like exploring an unexplored continent,
actually.
Put on your hat as a historian fora second.
Was there ever a golden age ofcivic education in higher ed
in the United States?
Or are you really starting de novo?
>> Josiah Ober (22:04):
So there was a time in which civic education was really thought
to be quite central to what colleges anduniversities were doing.
When we began pushing forthe program here at Stanford,
we looked back at the archives andwe discovered,
(22:24):
somewhat to my surprise anyway,that Stanford actually had
had back in the 1920s, a mandatoryyear long course for all students.
And remember, Stanford was co-ed.
So this was men and women togethercalled Problems of Citizenship.
(22:45):
And basically Problems of Citizenshipwas designed around really two issues,
questions of freedom andquestions of cooperation.
So we're in some ways recapitulatingsomething that Stanford and
Stanford was not alone.
It turns out that there were a lot ofcourses like this once upon a time,
(23:09):
were very committed to andthen over the course of the next 70 years,
became uncommitted to forreasons that we could explore.
>> Chester Finn (23:20):
Wow, so 100 years ago, this was thriving at Sanford and
some other places, too.
>> Josiah Ober (23:26):
Yeah, and you can sort of see in part, what was motivating it.
There had been a period of very highimmigration leading up to the 1920s.
So there were a lot of new Americans whodidn't grow up or hadn't grown up with,
as it were, the background of whatever onethinks was American culture at that time.
(23:49):
And the 19th Amendment, which gavewomen the vote, had just been passed.
And suddenly you have a wholebody of people, half the.
Population of the country is nowexpected to act as citizens.
And so, there was a lot of sense thatwe really should be doing something to
(24:13):
bring up those who have come here,women as well as everybody else.
>> Chester Finn (24:17):
A little bit like the schools of big cities assimilating
immigrants into the English language andthings like that.
>> Josiah Ober (24:24):
Yeah, yeah, precisely.
So I think it really wasthought of in those terms.
But when we found, we actually foundthe syllabus of this course, and it
was striking how intellectually demandingit really was, it wasn't just remedial.
And that then became part ofthe inspiration for us to try to say we
(24:45):
want to then have a 21st centuryversion of this that will really
address the question of civic educationin a way that is equally exciting.
But now deals with questions, for example,of what are the challenges of technology,
of social media and soon that simply weren't there in the 1920s.
>> Chester Finn (25:06):
That's really interesting.
I did not know any of that background.
And it's also helps to have a precedentfor something that you are proposing.
There's->> Josiah Ober: It's absolutely true.
When we were pressing our case on this,we could start with the founding charter,
and said that you're in violation ofcontractual responsibility to offer this.
(25:29):
But meanwhile, and Stanford wasnot always in violation, indeed,
our predecessors believed thiswas of fundamental importance and
this really was part of Stanford's brandand could be again, and should be again.
Really interesting, so I want to lay a radical idea on you that
also integrates, orintersects with the K12 part.
(25:51):
Again, is it a pipe dream to imaginethat civics education might become some
kind of an admissions prerequisite fora college like Stanford?
Just as many colleges require language,or some proficiency in math, or
something else beforeyou can even come here.
>> Josiah Ober (26:08):
Yeah, I think it, in the near term.
You thought seven years was a long time.
I think that would bea very optimistic thought.
But I think that if Stanford,other elite universities,
other very well regardedstate universities led with
(26:31):
admissions, takes intoaccount civic education,
that is going to be a thumb on the scale.
We're looking for
people who can jump into our firstyear course with some real background.
And we're a little worried about bringingin people who might be otherwise
(26:53):
qualified who don't have that backgroundthat gets out to the college counselors,
gets out to at least parents who payattention to these sorts of things.
And they begin to bring pressureon school boards and so on to say,
look, you know,we want our kids to get into,
you know, whatever it is Universityof Minnesota stands for.
>> Chester Finn (27:16):
Make it a plus factor on admissions.
>> Josiah Ober (27:18):
Exactly.
>> Chester Finn (27:19):
Rather than necessarily a prerequisite.
>> Josiah Ober (27:21):
Yeah, and eventually it may just become a de facto prerequisite.
>> Chester Finn (27:25):
That's interesting.
The other intersection that's importantwith K12 and higher ed in this realm, and
I don't know to what extentthis is a Stanford issue, but
preparation of teachers issomething that higher ed does.
And there's a lot of talk about today'shigh school and elementary school
social studies teachers not knowing muchabout things like civics and history.
(27:50):
What's higher ed's job here?
>> Josiah Ober (27:54):
Yeah, so I think that here we're going to have to be working with
those who set the rules for certificationfor teachers, which are states typically.
>> Chester Finn (28:06):
State certification.
Yeah.>> Josiah Ober: That's a very complex
question.
But I think if once again, if leadinginstitutions of higher education,
well regarded state universities,private universities,
begin to push for the idea that thisreally ought to be at the center
of what every student who comesto their institution learns.
(28:31):
It begins to once again put somepressure on the education schools
that do prepare a lot of teachers to beginto take this more and more seriously.
Now, it's going to help if we getpeople in the US Congress and so
on who begin to say this isreally an important thing,
(28:52):
we're willing to putsome funding behind it.
It'll help if legislatures inthe states begin to think this
is really an important thing,we ought to put pressure on or
indeed mandate that state fundedinstitutions that are preparing
teachers do indeed preparethem well to teach civics.
(29:16):
So I think it's partly a matterof just turning up the ratchet,
building pressure on those who mightbe recalcitrant about doing this,
to see that really and truly thisis what is demanded of them both by
the citizenry and by the institutionsthat they have some respect for.
(29:37):
You're making the important point that it's not just
a faculty thing, it's not just a selfstarting thing within a university,
it's also a public policy issue.
>> Josiah Ober (29:46):
Absolutely.
>> Chester Finn (29:47):
Legislatures and
other policymakers could havea considerable effect here.
>> Josiah Ober (29:51):
That's right, and once again,
in terms of thinking in the longer term,to the extent to
which places like Stanford orUniversity of Minnesota.
I have a BA from University of Minnesota,so that's my go to.
But at any rate,to the extent to which these kinds of
(30:14):
places do in fact educatethe leaders of tomorrow,
which they certainly intend to do,and to I think an extent they do,
then we can imagine getting people inpositions of real policy influence,
lawmakers, those engaged inregulatory agencies of various sorts.
(30:37):
Who will have started out withthe kind of education that leads
them to feel that this is important,this ought to be furthered,
that ought to become more andmore standardized.
That's the long game, But I think that inthe end, if we're talking about matters
(30:57):
of education, we have to be thinkingat least in relatively long terms.
Once again, insofar as we really wantto change the culture of civics,
we want to change the waypeople imagine themselves,
their duties, their responsibilities,
as well as their rights as citizens oras aspiring citizens.
(31:20):
Then we have to be willing to do
the work that is going to bereally that of a generation.
>> Chester Finn (31:27):
Sounds, I don't know if I'm as patient as you are, but
that does sound right to me.
One more thing, we can't, we can't leavetoday without bringing up your recent
book, which seems to me almost a primerfor civic education, especially the way
you were describing the Stanford coursewith an emphasis on cooperation.
Can you say about a book a bit about thetheme of your book with Brooke Manville?
>> Josiah Ober (31:50):
Yes, indeed, so
the book is calledthe Civic How Democracy Survives,
Brooke Manville Friend ofco-author in other work and
really a great intellectual force.
Brooke and I basically decided that ifwe were going to be as interested as
(32:15):
we were in the whole civic realmin the problem of democracy,
we really needed to saysomething about what we supposed
would be a kind of backgroundwork that would say, well,
here's the way to think about it,here's the way to think about democracy,
(32:36):
and here's the way to thinkabout how democracy flourishes,
how at least it survives, rather thanonly worrying about how democracy dies.
As you know, there's a lot ofliterature about how democracy dies.
>> Chester Finn (32:51):
The death of democracy, yes, the other.
>> Josiah Ober (32:53):
Side of it seemed to us quite important as well.
So we started out by sayinghow would we define democracy?
And we decided that we needed to havethe most basic possible definition.
And our basic definition of democracyis no boss but one another.
(33:16):
Democracy is not having a king,
not not having a gang ofoligarchs in charge of your life.
The only people who are yourboss are your fellow citizens,
ordinary people like yourself.
And that means peoplewith diverse opinions,
(33:36):
diverse preferences over outcomes.
And that means you're going tohave to find a way to compromise,
to negotiate with, to bargain with them.
So that's really the core of the book,is that democracy,
if you want not to have a boss, doesrequire that you engage in bargaining with
(33:58):
people that you probably disagree withon some pretty important matters.
>> Chester Finn (34:03):
Well, in early 2025, that sounds like a lesson worth taking
seriously in the United States anda fair number of other countries, I'd say.
>> Josiah Ober (34:11):
I think that is exactly right.
Our book, just like our work oncivic education, tends to focus,
I think it should,on what's happening here in the United but
it's not the only democracy thatneeds to re engage with the whole
question of what really are the dutiesas well as the rights of the citizen and
(34:36):
how can the institutions of a givencountry work towards giving
citizens the kind of basic skills,the basic knowledge,
the basic dispositions,the kind of character that they need
in order really to be effective incarrying out their duties as citizens.
>> Chester Finn (34:57):
That is fantastic.
I want to thank you, Josh.
I want to also remind our colleagues andour friends and
our audience that coming upsoon is Civic Learning Week for
the United states, including on March 13,
a terrific civics summit atthe Hoover Institution at Stanford.
I co-sponsored with iCivics.
(35:18):
I know you're on the program.
I know a lot of other really interestingpeople are on the program and I think it's
a kind of important culmination ofsome of the work we've been doing, and
it's not going to takeseven years to get there.
So thank you again, Josh Hober.
>> Josiah Ober (35:33):
Thank you very much, Checker Finn.
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If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.