OPINION: The Death of Democracy at Haverford

The value of democratic participation is dying at Haverford, and its implications extend beyond the campus grounds into the future of democracy in America. 

Haverford prides itself on its democratic community. Just walking by a prospective student’s tour will tell you this much–tour guides preach our politically interactive community values constantly. Just the other day, I walked past a tour guide explaining how great Plenary was to a group of nervous-looking high schoolers. From their telling, Haverford’s community is the epitome of civically responsible individuals. 

But, those of us who actually go here are aware of a much different political atmosphere, one that feels like it’s forcing students to halfheartedly participate in dying democratic traditions. 

For one, our inboxes are constantly flooded with emails from Election Coordinators Julia Knihs and Conner McWhan begging students to participate in campus elections. The contents of these emails range from simple requests like “please vote,” to nearly deranged pleas doing everything to try and engage the Haverford student population. McWhan recently sent out an email requesting support for the Honor Council Co-Secretaries race which attempted to engage students with this line: “In the words of Sabrina Carpenter at her next Short n’ Sweet tour, ‘Please, Please, Please vote for Honor Council Co-Secretaries.’” This was under the subject line “VOTING IS YOUR CIVIC DUTY.” Would a community that so centrally prioritizes political participation necessitate such tactics? 

Another common subject line? “Failed Election.” In the past two months, on 2/10/25 and 3/26/25, the Election Coordinators have announced that both the call for Honor Council Junior Representative and the election for Junior Representative to the Board of Managers failed due to insufficient student participation. Students’ lack of engagement in college political processes is already causing these processes to fail. Causing democracy to fail. 

Those of us who occasionally open emails from the Election Coordinators may also have noted that in the recent Students’ Council election, many positions, including the role of Students’ Council President, only had one set of candidates put their names forward in the race. Does an election matter if there is no choice? And would a civically minded community struggle to produce candidates for its most important political positions? 

What’s more, Plenary, the great symbol of Haverford democracy, the institution often hailed as the most hallowed embodiment of Haverford’s core values, seems to be breathing its dying breaths. Well, that might be dramatic. But it’s a lie to say that Plenary is an excellent display of the strength of Haverford democracy. 

This spring semester’s Plenary, held on Sunday, March 23, displayed just how weak Haverford’s democratic engagement is becoming. In past Plenaries, Haverfordians may recall a long line that began forming hours in advance and wound around the GIAC, bordering on reaching Gummere Hall. I remember standing in line for at least an hour at my first Plenary, feeling that it was indeed an honored democratic institution at Haverford. This Plenary, I walked straight into the GIAC five minutes before the 2:00 p.m. start time, encountered no line, grabbed the customary merch–boba and a t-shirt, which are usually gone within a minute of the doors opening–and sat in the stands for 40 minutes before we barely made quorum. And even when we made quorum, the GIAC seemed fairly empty. The fact that the StuCo Co-President, Yehyun Song, had to send out a Zoom access link for Plenary to the hc-allstudents email at 2:30 p.m. indicates that the GIAC didn’t just seem emptier, it actually was. Moreover, the email seemed like a desperate last-ditch effort by StuCo to find a way to reach quorum when they realized that students were not going to show up in person. In the past, and even when this spring’s Plenary began, attendance via Zoom link was only available for students who were sick or off-campus and had filled out an application in advance. If these Plenary struggles tell us anything, it is that Haverford democracy is only valued based on the burden it places on individual students’ time demands. 

And can we really call Plenary a prime example of civic participation when the majority of those in attendance are nose deep in their homework, headphones on, holding up their paper to vote “yes” to resolutions they didn’t listen to purely because everyone else in the GIAC started to raise their papers? I witnessed multiple people jump with surprise when everyone started to vote, scrambling to grab their white papers, then turning to their friends to ask what they were voting on, the friend usually replying with an “I don’t know” or a shoulder shrug. No one knows what they’re voting on. Students just want to get Plenary over with so they can return to their regularly scheduled programming. 

In theory, Plenary is a unique and impressive display of student democratic engagement. But in reality, Plenary is far from being any such demonstration. Instead, it feels more like a reminder that people are losing faith in and commitment to many political and government systems, not just student politics. In 2023, the Institute for Citizens & Scholars commissioned a national survey that found that only 48% of Americans aged 18-24 planned to vote in the 2024 election, while the general population averaged around two-thirds participation. What does this say? College-aged Americans, Haverford students included, are significantly less civically engaged and value civic duty far less than older generations. This conclusion is only supported by Haverford’s dying political environment. 

I write all of this with no solution for the problem at hand. I have no medicine for the illness of civic disinterest among students. But this increasingly evident lack of political participation in student democracy is a warning sign I think should be heeded–not only in relation to the Haverford community but also to the broader American political project. 

If Haverford wants to live up to its value of democracy and civic participation, the student population must be dramatically re-engaged. We should reevaluate how political traditions such as elections and Plenary are implemented at Haverford. Times are changing, and maybe our practices should too. 

Similarly, in American democracy more broadly, I think politicians and those who seek to maintain a government based on civic participation need to reevaluate how they engage our generation. Our age group is displaying signs of a shifting set of American values, or at least a shift away from valuing political engagement in the way it once was.  

The fate of democracy and civic participation at Haverford lies in the hands of no one other than individual students. Suppose we want to continue talking about how amazing it is to be on a campus where every student’s voice is heard and student democracy matters. In that case, we need to start acting in a way that aligns with a civically engaged community. We must open our emails and take five minutes to vote in student elections. We need to have more than one brave soul run in each electoral race–which means we may all need to look at ourselves as possible candidates. We must show up to Plenary, bring our friends, and pay attention enough to understand what we are voting on. And we need to do all of these things now. We only have a few years left to learn and practice the ins and outs of political participation from the safety of campus. Then we will be thrust out into the “real world”–and if we don’t participate there, the future of our great democratic nation may face a much more rapid demise than even the most pessimistic thinkers would’ve expected.