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In the latest episode of Sanford's Policy 360 podcast, guest John Hillen says that only a third of native-born Americans can pass the citizenship test that American immigrants are required to pass. He is part of a new bipartisan commission trying to change that. The goal is to revitalize the teaching of American civics and history.
Hillen served as US Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs in the Bush administration among many other roles. He is now teaching at Duke University in the Master of National Security Policy program. He is also affiliated with POLIS: Duke’s Center for Politics and The Duke Program in American Grand Strategy. He joins Manoj Mohanan, interim Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke, to discuss the commission’s work and American grand strategy more broadly.
Conversation Highlights
Responses have been edited for clarity.
On the importance of revitalizing civics education
(Immigrants) pass (the citizenship test) at a 90% rate; only one third of Americans can pass. So we're a little bit behind on everybody having the same basic facts about the oldest question in political philosophy, which is how do things work around here? But I think the deeper, more important meaning of civics is shared meaning. What are we all part of together? What is the purpose of this enterprise? How do we interact with each other? What are the ways we can really touch our best selves as a civilization?
On civics in a polarized time
One of the classes I'm teaching here at Duke is how to think in an age of political polarization. We focus on creating civic virtue. We want to grow our civic virtue by learning how to talk about difficult and divisive political or social or economic issues with each other, with an eye to collaborating and understanding together, thinking out loud together rather than with an eye to forming teams and defeating each other - so civics and civil discourse and a healthier political dialogue all stream together. It's nice to see Duke and other universities really leaning into this re-invigoration of American civics.
On the difference between civics and civic virtue
I'll give you one example. There was a piece in our student newspaper, The Chronicle a couple of days ago releasing the results of a poll. The Duke class of 2028 was polled on political sensibilities, political affiliations, various political questions. And one of the questions was, do you support or oppose the Supreme Court ruling on such and such a case? I would say a more civic-informed question would be: do you support or oppose the policy that they were talking about? Because to support or oppose a ruling is a question of law, not a question of policy preference. And I find that a lot of Americans get the basic roles and institutions of our complex system of government a little bit wrong, and that leads to more friction and more misunderstanding in our politics.
Civic virtue is the other element of a self-governing society. Not just being well educated but being virtuous. James Madison wrote about that in the Federalist Papers and others. Civic virtue means wanting to be a citizen who cooperates with other citizens, who recognizes you have different viewpoints than other citizens, but at the same time, you're going to engage in a peaceful, constructive process to understand these differences, perhaps find some common ground, perhaps not, but still find a way to move society forward through.
In a pluralistic, diverse society, which the US has always been (many different peoples come from many different places to be here and have throughout our whole history) the real key to pluralism is to have a disposition, an attitude, a set of processes by which we can work through all those differences and still get things done as a society.
On why teaching students thAT civic engagement IS KEY
When we look at the polls over the past 50 years (Gallup and Pew Charitable Trust and others have been polling relentlessly on how Americans trust institutions) and every single institution in American life has gone down over the past 50 years in trust. I have many seniors in this class (and I tell them) you're going to be the ones who has to restore trust by acting the right way. And I think they really take up the challenge. They seem excited about it. They don't want to be known as the generation that doesn't trust anything. I think they want to be known as a generation that rebuilds trust.
John Hillen is a faculty member in the Master of National Security Policy program at Duke. He is a Distinguished Resident Fellow at Duke's Center for Politics (POLIS), is affiliated with the Duke Grand Strategy Program, and is an Executive-in-Residence of Duke's Political Science Department. His latest book is The Strategy Dialogues: A Primer on Business Strategy and Strategic Management.
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About Policy 360
Policy 360 is a series of policy-focused conversations from the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. New episodes premiere throughout the academic year. Guests have included luminaries like Nobel Peace Prize Winner Maria Ressa and former director of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim, as well as researchers from Duke University and other institutions. Conversations are timely and relevant.
This episode was hosted by interim Dean Manoj Mohanan.