I add my voice to the chorus of those, like my colleagues Katie Hartsock, Alan Epstein, and members of CASE-OU, raising objections to the inclusion of former Governor Rick Snyder in the upcoming “Breaking the Barrier: The Importance of Civility and Improving Political Discourse” panel sponsored by OU’s Center for Civic Engagement. Snyder is objectionable precisely because his failure, as governor, to respond to the water crisis in the city of Flint is a form of excluding Flint residents from the protections due to residents of the state he was elected to protect. Inviting Snyder to speak on “the importance of civility” after he insisted on excluding Flint residents from the protections of citizenship is to treat those same residents as if they were not part of the body politic, as if their lives did not matter.

An event presenting both Snyder and former Governor Blanchard speak as experts on civility is problematic not just because of who it includes, but because its structure, like so much of what passes under the name of “civility,” excludes the voices of those who have to live under the decisions and systematic privileges of rich white people. That structure is a protective barrier sealing them off from confronting the evidence of the unjustness of that system. Would opening up the conversation on civility to those harmed by the uncivil policies of Snyder (and Blanchard) risk making them uncomfortable? Possibly? Might it make room for anger and recrimination? Probably. Would it disrupt civil conversation? One can only hope.

The discourse of civility has too often been an excuse to silence those marginalized and harmed by the politicians and those who have paid enough to have their voices heard. Our civic conversations should seek to bring to the center those excluded voices. Events that seek to promote the “importance of civility” that do not include those voices are doomed to fail. Oakland University must do better. I applaud the university’s efforts to be more inclusive in their efforts to recruit, admit, and retain students, but this event, by giving a platform to one who has turned his back on citizens whose interest he should have served, works against those goals.

If “civility” is to be useful for improving our political discourse, it must include those our body politic has silenced.