NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Heterodox Academy (HxA), a non-partisan, non-profit membership organization committed to building cultures of open inquiry on campuses, today announced the winners of its annual Open Inquiry Awards.
At a moment when universities must lead reform from within, HxA's Open Inquiry Awards recognize exemplary individuals, groups, and institutions who are doing just that — building cultures of open inquiry across the academy and serving as models that others can learn from, be inspired by, and emulate. This year's honorees have done critical work across all facets of academic life, from the classroom to the research lab to the president's office.
HxA is pleased to announce this year's Open Inquiry Award winners:
- Sian Leah Beilock is receiving the inaugural 2026 Presidential Stewardship Award from Heterodox Academy for her institutional leadership at Dartmouth, including launching Dartmouth Dialogues, which engaged more than 15,000 community members in its first year.
- Christi Hein is receiving the 2026 Teaching Award from Heterodox Academy for her work integrating free speech and civil discourse into the classroom and across Colorado Mesa University, from founding its Free Speech and Civil Discourse Committee to training students, faculty, residence assistants, and athletes in the practice of disagreement.
- Eitan Hersh is receiving the 2026 Leadership Award from Heterodox Academy for his effective leadership in launching and directing the Tufts Center for Expanding Viewpoints in Higher Education and building durable institutional structures for cross-ideological dialogue.
- Lee Jussim is receiving the 2026 Exceptional Scholarship Award from Heterodox Academy for decades of scholarship advancing knowledge of stereotype accuracy, scientific integrity, and the dynamics of ideological bias in social science.
- Tarek Masoud is receiving the 2026 Courage Award from Heterodox Academy for modeling what he calls 'polite but rigorous inquiry' into contested ideas about the Middle East, one of the most polarizing conflicts in American academic life today, even when the personal and institutional costs have been considerable.
- HxSociology, led by Jukka Savolainen, is receiving the 2026 HxA Community Excellence Award from Heterodox Academy for elevating the discipline's most consequential debates, from Florida's removal of sociology as a core general-education course to the field's struggle with ideological conformity.
“This year's Open Inquiry Award winners show us what it looks like to do the hard work of open inquiry — not just to believe in it, but to build it, teach it, and defend it,” HxA President John Tomasi said. “From the classroom to the president's office, these honorees are creating the conditions for free inquiry to flourish. At HxA, we are proud to celebrate scholars and leaders who model the kind of principled engagement that higher education so urgently needs."
Launched in 2018, the Open Inquiry Awards recognize those who do exemplary work promoting HxA's core values in higher education. HxA's membership includes more than 8,500 faculty, administrators, and graduate students across hundreds of colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. More information about the awards and past winners can be found on the website.
Heterodox Academy (HxA) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit membership organization of faculty, staff, and graduate students committed to fostering a culture of open inquiry on college and university campuses. Through a combination of grassroots membership efforts and direct engagement with institutional leaders, HxA equips campus stakeholders to advance viewpoint diversity, constructive disagreement, and the free exchange of ideas — values essential to higher education's role as a truth-seeking, knowledge-generating enterprise.
