"The worst thing we can do with words is to surrender to them."— George Orwell
Part One: What is the Essence of Inclusivity?
Finding the best way to describe the essence of inclusivity - what is essential to it - is no easy task. Words carry histories, connotations, and evolving meanings that can complicate conversations about justice, equity, and diversity. The term tolerance, in particular, has been scrutinized and even rejected by some who argue that it suggests a begrudging acceptance rather than full inclusion.
For instance, in the wake of the social reckoning ignited by the murder of George Floyd, Teaching for Tolerance, a decades-old educational initiative promoting inclusion, changed its name to Learning for Justice. Their reasoning? “The fact is, tolerance is not justice. It isn’t a sufficient description of the work we do or of the world we want.” While this was a well-intended and thoughtful move, it overlooked something crucial: tolerance is a minimum standard but it is not an insufficient one.
Justice does not and cannot require that everyone shares the same beliefs or identifies with the same worldview. Instead, it requires a commitment to ensuring that all individuals have the right to live, express themselves, and participate in society without discrimination or coercion. We cannot demand that people believe a prescribed set of religious, political, or identity-based principles, but we can and must require that people behave in ways that respect the rights of others to hold and express their beliefs safely and civilly. That’s what tolerance is.
Tolerance, understood in this way—is both necessary and sufficient as the foundational expectation for inclusion. It is not the most perfect manifestation of inclusivity. That pinnacle might look different from person to person. In any case, tolerance is the bedrock on which inclusivity is based.
What Tolerance Can & Should Mean
Tolerance is freedom from bigotry*.
[*Bigot: a person who is intolerant or hateful toward people whose race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc., is different from the person's own.]
Given that “tolerance” has multiple meanings, it is reasonable to ask: Which version of tolerance should we embrace when discussing inclusivity? The Oxford English Dictionary provides definitions that range from “enduring something difficult or unpleasant” to “freedom from bigotry and severity in judging others”. These variations explain why some people resist the term—nobody wants to feel that their identity is merely endured. But all of us, I think it’s safe to assume, want and deserve freedom from bigotry and prejudice.
As with many words, meanings evolve and vary across time, context, and users. Rather than surrender to linguistic ambiguity, we should clarify the work we want a word to do when we employ it.
In the context of inclusivity, I propose that tolerance should mean the active recognition of every individual’s right to identify and express themselves authentically, safely, and civilly, free from coercion, exclusion, or discrimination.
Addressing Common Objections to Tolerance
Some reject the idea of tolerance because they understandably object to any implication that their identity is something others have the right to accept or reject. “I don’t need you to tolerate my religious orientation.” one might say. “You have to recognize and respect it.”
But tolerance is precisely about recognizing and respecting human differences. It’s not about merely putting up with the presence of something detestable. It’s about upholding basic human dignity and rights. True tolerance does not require anyone to be as another person is, to inhabit the worldviews, identities, or approaches to life of others—only that they respect the right of others to hold and express them safely and civilly.
Consider this: If someone were to say, “I don’t need you to just tolerate my political orientation, you have to identify with it as strongly as I do,” that would ironically be an expression of intolerance—an attempt to impose one’s belief on another. The same applies to any social identity.
Why Tolerance Is Necessary: The Social Bias Paradox
A fundamental contradiction arises when people insist that tolerance should not be required for inclusivity. On the one hand, it is widely acknowledged that we all unavoidably carry seeds and scripts of social bias as a result of how we were socialized (The Social Identity Prism and The Cycle of Socialization are tools that help us understand this). On the other hand, some argue that tolerance, the bulwark against social bias, shouldn’t be necessary because if a person carries a bias they should be disqualified as a potential threat. By this logic, no one would be fit to be part of a community, school, business, etc.
But if we accept the truth that social bias is highly likely if not inevitable, then tolerance is the necessary response to the biases we all carry. “I am committed to tolerance of ways of being human that might not feel familiar or right to me based on my socialization, culture, religion…” Rather than deny that we hold biases, we should acknowledge that overcoming them requires active effort, intentional practice, and, at minimum, tolerance for differences in belief, identity, and worldview.
Tolerance is not a grudging concession; it is the disciplined practice of fairness in a world where our unconscious biases, cultural conditioning, and personal experiences predispose us toward favoritism, exclusion, or misunderstanding.
The Role of Education: Teaching About Justice, Not Indoctrination
This discussion has crucial implications for education. In rebranding from Teaching Tolerance to Learning for Justice, the initiative formerly known as Teaching Tolerance reflected an increasing tendency to view schools as spaces for justice is learned. While this is a compelling vision, it raises a fundamental question: Whose definition of justice? Justice is a concept that has and continues to be vigorously debated in terms of what it should look like? Does education FOR justice imply teaching towards a predetermined sense of the justice for which we are teaching?
Schools should engage learners in understanding justice -- studying conceptualizations and manifestations of justice -- but educators must avoid prescribing a singular, ideological definition of what justice means. Instead, education should equip learners to carefully scrutinize the history and current state of the discourse on justice and synthesize their own perspectives on justice-related issues. At the same time, supporting students in understanding the necessity of tolerance is not a matter of indoctrination but a universal basic human need and imperative. By clarifying the need for tolerance without prescribing what justice must look like, schools fulfill their obligation to keep students safe and their role in preparing students for responsible and respectful participation in society—without falling into the trap of indoctrination.
The Practical Standard for Inclusivity
With all of this in mind, I propose a simple continuum of tolerance, moving from intolerance to active tolerance:
Active intolerance – Open deliberate discrimination, exclusion, or suppression of identities.
Passive intolerance – No overt deliberate discrimination, but inadvertent (implicit/unconscious) bias, exclusion, or selective support.
Passive Tolerance – subscribing to the idea of respecting everyone’s right to their identity and safe and civil expression of their identity.
Active tolerance – Ensuring that all individuals receive fair and respectful treatment, free from discrimination or selective application of inclusivity.
This fourth state—active tolerance—represents the necessary and sufficient condition for inclusivity. It means:
Respecting the rights of all people to hold and safely and civilly express their beliefs and identities.
Promoting and enforcing fair and non-discriminatory policies in workplaces, schools, and society.
Tolerance, understood in this way (as freedom from bigotry), is not a half-measure or a reluctant concession—it is the foundational principle that allows diverse societies to function. It is what prevents the war of all against all. It is what ensures that personal beliefs do not become weapons of exclusion. And it is what allows us to move toward greater and greater inclusivity while maintaining the necessary freedom of thought and expression that come with diversity.
If we truly acknowledge that all people are susceptible to harboring social bias, we must also require and promote the active practice of tolerance as the necessary means of counteracting social bias. We must learn to tolerate tolerance—not as a weak substitute for justice, but as its indispensable precondition.
Part Two - Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Can the mere knowledge of someone’s private belief result in a lack of safety?
It depends on the nature of the belief.
Consider the following concerns:
A religiously devout person says, "I don’t feel safe knowing that my colleague is an atheist because their opposition to my belief system threatens my worldview."
A Democrat says, "I don’t feel safe knowing that my colleague is a conservative because I believe their ideology is harmful to me."
A pacifist says, "I don’t feel safe knowing that someone in my community supports military intervention."
In each of these cases, the feeling of being unsafe is real to the person experiencing it, but we must ask whether this subjective feeling should be the governing principle for inclusivity in a pluralistic society. If we allow belief itself (rather than conduct) to define safety, we set a precedent where any differing worldview can be labeled unsafe and excluded.
There is a Line: Inclusivity Cannot be Inclusive of Exclusivity
Consider the following concerns:
"I don’t feel safe knowing that my colleague thinks my non-cisgender identity does not exist; is not a valid way to be human."
“I don't feel safe knowing that my colleague thinks their and my “race” differences mean they are superior to me."
“I don't feel safe knowing that my colleague rejects the dignity/right to equal treatment of my sexual orientation."
These statements oblige us to answer a crucial question: Where do we draw the line between beliefs that should be tolerated in a pluralistic society and beliefs that inherently undermine inclusivity?
When do Private Beliefs Become a Public Threat?
If we use the historical and present day impact of a belief as a reasonable standard for determining when private beliefs become a public threat, then we must acknowledge that the beliefs expressed in items 4, 5 and 6 have caused harm on a massive scale. If a belief—whether about race, gender, or sexual orientation, or any other identity category—has a clear historical and ongoing track record of leading to structural, systemic, or institutional oppression, exclusion, violence, erasure, or death, then it’s reasonable to scrutinize whether allowing that belief to remain unchallenged (even privately held) is compatible with an inclusive environment.
Social Identity Supremacy Based on Racialization led/leads to centuries of slavery, segregation, systemic exclusion, violence, and genocide.
Rejection of Gender Diverse Identities led/leads to criminalization, conversion therapy, discrimination, hate crimes, and alarmingly high suicide rates among LGBTQ+ youth.
Subjugation of Non-Hetero Identities led/leads to forced sterilization, medical discrimination, hate crimes, exclusion from public life, and a suicide rate far above the general population.
All three belief systems historically and currently produce severe harm when they shape laws, policies, and cultural norms. They are but three examples of what happens whenever a person or group with significant power believes that their personal preferences should not only be tolerated but imposed on everyone.
Drawing the Line
A private belief is only publicly safe if it does not translate or have a likelihood of translating into behaviors, policies, or decisions that affect others.
Some beliefs are inherently more likely to shape behavior, even when unspoken, because they carry strong moral, hierarchical, or existential components (e.g., superiority/inferiority beliefs, erasure…).
Thus, beliefs that have historically and currently fueled oppression must be actively challenged, not just passively tolerated.
This approach does not demand ideological conformity but acknowledges that some belief systems are, by their nature, in conflict with a commitment to inclusivity.
Tolerance as the Bridge to a Inclusive Society
Tolerance is not the endpoint or epitome of inclusivity, but it is the essence of inclusivity. It is the bridge to equity. It is the practice that allows us to navigate the tension between personal beliefs and public conduct, between freedom of thought and safeguarding society from bigotry.
To embrace tolerance in its fullest and most rigorous sense is to commit to ensuring that all people, regardless of identity or belief, can participate in society without discrimination, exclusion, or coercion. It is a commitment not just to passive acceptance but to active fairness—the deliberate effort to neutralize social bias and uphold the dignity of all.
At the same time, tolerance is not boundless. It has necessary guardrails to prevent it from becoming a tool for enabling oppression. We cannot tolerate intolerance that erases, dehumanizes, or systematically subjugates others. Inclusivity requires us to recognize when certain beliefs have demonstrably fueled discrimination and violence and to actively counteract their influence.
In the end, the demand for tolerance is not about forcing uniformity of thought. It is about setting a standard of behavior that allows a pluralistic society to function with integrity. It does not require us to abandon our deepest convictions, but it does demand that we live in a way that respects the fundamental rights, dignity, and humanity of others.
If we do not accept tolerance as the necessary and sufficient foundation of inclusion, we risk replacing the aspiration for justice with a battle of competing dogmas. But if we practice tolerance—not as a grudging concession, but as an intentional discipline—we create the conditions for true and robust inclusivity and for a society where all people can thrive.
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