Interview: Raj Vinnakota

Raj Vinnakota is the president of the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, a national non-profit organization that seeks to encourage civil discourse and build civid education among youth.

Raj has dedicated his life to initiatives that help American citizens from all walks of life to become productive and engaged members of society. Early in his career, Raj co-founded the SEED Foundation, the nation’s first network of public, college-preparatory boarding schools for underserved children. The SEED schools were featured in both television and film, and Raj won multiple awards for his work with SEED, including Harvard University’s Innovation in American Government Award, Fast Company/Monitor Group’s Social Capitalist Award, and Oprah Winfrey’s Use Your Life Award. Raj continues to serve on the Board of Directors for SEED.

Before joining the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, Raj served as Executive Vice-President of the Aspen Institute. In this role, he launched and led the new Youth & Engagement Programs division devoted to youth leadership development, civic engagement, and opportunity.

Raj currently co-chairs the Civics and Civic Engagement Taskforce for the United States Congress Semiquincentennial Commission celebrating the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding. Raj also co-chairs the Civic Learning Pillar of the Partnership for American Democracy, a coalition of American leaders directing resources and attention toward efforts to save U.S. democracy.

He is the author of From Civic Education to a Civic Learning Ecosystem and has spoken on civic engagement to the Fordham Institute, Results for America, and the ASU GSV Summit. He regularly appears on media outlets such as NBC, CBS, and The Bulwark.

Raj grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the child of Indian immigrants who instilled in him the faith that a good education could open doors to great things. He graduated from Princeton University and is a recipient of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson Award, the university’s highest honor for undergraduate alumni.

Read or listen to his interview with our founder, Caitlyn Tablada below:

TRANSCRIPT

Caitlyn: Thank you so much for being here today. So, question one. In this incredibly polarized world that we are living in, it is so important to teach our young generation how to tackle these difficult conversations and how to really have a civil conversation. So as the president of The Institute for Citizens and Scholars, what are some of the strategies and initiatives that you are trying to implement?

Raj Vinnakota: In order to be able to understand the strategies that we want to use to really develop young people- actually adults even--who can engage in civil discourse, you need to understand what skills you’re actually trying to develop in people. And so there are a few skills that are really critical. One is the ability to empathize and understand points of view of people who are not like you and there are a number of mechanisms to do that. Probably you know the best known projects and organizations such as Better Angels that bring people of very different viewpoints together in the room simply so that they can share why they have their points of view, and require the other side to not only listen to them, but then to mirror and reflect. So the act of mirroring and reflecting is simply saying “okay I hear what you’re saying, here’s what I am hearing you say,” and having the other side affirm. It’s what seems to be a very simple thing but it’s actually a very difficult thing to do and can be transformational. So, that is one of the major ways in which you try to implement that skill.

The second skill is to literally be able to hear and listen effectively. So I talked about mirroring and reflecting as being one of those mechanisms. A lot of times when people speak to us and say ‘I have a different point of view’ or even “so I was listening to Fox News last night,” about a third of the population has now just tuned you off. They don’t actually care what you’ve said now and so the ability to then listen effectively and be able to actually hear the argument is really important. And then the third skill is understanding how decisions are actually made. This is where a sociologist at NYU named Johnathan Haidt has actually done some of the best research on this topic. John is amazing because he’s been able to demonstrate that depending upon your ideological perspective, you value certain things in a different order and so as a result, you have different emotional responses to different issues. Being able to understand why it is that different people have different emotional responses becomes a real critical way in being able to engage in civil discourses. The emotional parts are in some ways more important because usually it’s your emotions that drive most of your decision making no matter how much you try to convince yourself it’s actually your brain. It’s usually your emotions that are telling you what to do.

Caitlyn: Yes, very true. Incredibly important skills for us all to keep in mind and try to learn. So now would you mind discussing a couple of the strategies and initiatives that you’re trying to implement?

Raj Vinnakota: Yes, I would love to. The one that would be easiest to explain is that we're setting up something called The Civic Network, TCN. Think of it as a Netflix for the best civic skills and civic disposition programming that is out there. So, we did two things. Number one, we realized that the best civic content out there is mostly still paper and pencil. It’s not digitized, which means teachers can’t easily access it or assign it. They can’t monitor their students in practicing civic skills. So, we have taken on the role of digitizing this content. We’ve also gone out and partnered with many different organizations and said, ‘you do the best content on this.’ For example, the Anti-Defamation League. Bill of Rights Institute. World Savvy. Facing History and Ourselves. And the interesting thing about this is the content that we’re bringing is across the ideological spectrum. So, one of the things that we can tell teachers, principals and superintendents is we don’t have a bias. What we’re going to do is we’re going to give you a broad swath of very different ways in which to engage on this work. Civic knowledge, civic skills, civic dispositions. Right? And we hope that you actually assign all of it. So that you’re teaching young people to actually learn very different perspectives. That’s called TCN. It’s a spectacular platform.

Caitlyn: That sounds incredible. In your work, what would you say the biggest resistance you tend to hear is, in regards to really engaging with the work you are doing? (Civil discourse, civic engagement, etc).

Raj Vinnakota: So, when we talk about the issues of civil discourse, the two biggest issues I have to deal with are: number one, the debate about “well, you know, the other side doesn’t understand the facts.” My response to that is unfortunately so many of us are in an information bubbles right now that when you only hear one side of the issue all the time, you’re just going to assume that it is fact because everyone around you is telling you that. And it doesn’t matter if you’re on the right or on the left, or if you’re a populist or if you’re an elitist. If you put yourself in bubbles where you only hear one point of view, guess what? You’re going to assume that those are the facts. When in fact, usually you need multiple points of view to even try to ascertain what might be going on. So, that’s one issue.

Number two, and this is actually in some ways more pernicious and even more difficult, is this growing contention that if you believe in the other side's point of view, you’re evil. So this is the sense of hopefulness, optimism, trust that we need to rebuild in our country, that says simply because you’re of a different ideology and so therefore, may have voted for a different person (usually a candidate for president) it doesn’t mean that you’re evil. The way in which politics has imbued itself into all parts of life, is actually a problem.

Caitlyn: Yes, 100%. Those are two really big issues, but it seems like you are taking great steps to address that.

Raj Vinnakota: We’re trying to take it on, head on.

Caitlyn: There you go. How would you advise that we tackle trying to implement change within a culture that’s you know afraid to speak up for fear of being canceled? I feel like in the past couple of years, this whole idea of cancel culture has become prominent. So, how do you take steps to tackle that and really affect change?

Raj Vinnakota: This is hard. Cancel culture has become so prevalent and the interesting thing is that more recent research has suggested that what’s happened is that the extreme side of both wings-- or the extreme wings of both sides-- have recognized that they’re not going to change the other side’s point of view, and so they are actually focusing their shots on the moderate wing of their own side. So that if you’re not progressive enough, but you’re still liberal, then the extreme liberals are going to start basically shaming you into not engaging. And the same thing is happening on the conservative side.

There’s two things that have to happen here in order to have any shot at this. Number one is to recognize that actually 70%of our country is an exhausted majority in the middle. And that requires that you need to be willing to stand up to the extreme sides. Thankfully we’re seeing role models in that on both sides. And I will just point out actually, especially on the conservative side, I am amazed by some of the people like David French. Even Bill Crystal, who I don’t agree on much. But, you know what? He has stood up. Liz Chaney’s another example here. So, it’s really, really important for young people and others to see role models to say “actually you know what? That doesn’t work. You can’t cancel me.” And so on and so forth. So that is one major piece. The other major piece that you need to deal with cancel culture is: you need to get back to a term that I use that I’ve actually taken from...she’s a writer at the Atlantic...she’s amazing. It’s called complicating the narrative. Amanda Ripley.

Caitlyn: Yes, I’ve heard that. Yes.

Raj Vinnakota: So, Amanda’s written a book recently called High Conflict. [It’s] amazing, but one of the things that she talks about that’s really important is that you have to complicate the narrative. Because cancel culture is a tendency to try to simply create a duality to everything. Right or wrong, black or white, so on and so forth. When in fact, the narrative is so much more complicated than that in life. And so if we all say, “no no no, it’s not that binary. Things aren’t that binary almost ever. And these are more complicated narratives, more complicated issues.” We’re actually taking on cancel culture.

Caitlyn: Yes, 100%. So, obviously a lot of these initiatives are targeting and built for youth. So how is Citizens & Scholars going about trying to appeal to some of the older generations that might already be very stuck in their views or might not be as open to change?

Raj Vinnakota: Well, so the answer is we haven’t spent much time there. But when I share the research around the exhausted majority, that’s not just about young people. That’s about most of the country. And when I spend a lot of time outside of what I’ll call the really really major institutions and geographies, you find out that most people are actually really open to wanting to work across differences.

So, I think you know, I live in a town of eight thousand people in Maine. People in my town voted for every presidential candidate. We also shop at the two grocery stores in town. We send all our kids to one middle school and one high school. Guess what? If you have to all vote on a budget together, you start to get to know each other as people... and this is actually where most of America is. And so my answer to you is in some ways begging the question. I would say try to spend the time as far away as possible from the real centers of elite worlds, and go and actually spend time in communities. And understand that the way in which we’re going to solve our problem is not from the top down, but from the bottom up.

Caitlyn:

Yes. It’s great advice. And finally, this is a bit of a big question, but however you choose to answer it is great. So, what are your hopes for our country in the next ten years?

Raj Vinnakota: Well, I have more than hopes, I mean, my goal is that we as an institution are working with hundreds of other institutions and millions of other people to create a citizenry that is more well informed...that actually understands how their government functions. [One] that’s more productively engaged. So that means voting, but also civil discourse as we’ve discussed. And thirdly, [one that] is more hopeful about democracy in our country.

That is where I’m focusing my time and energy, outside of being a dad and a husband, because I think it’s important, most people want it, and it’s really necessary right now.