INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH

Building Understanding and Engaging Across Difference

The Litowitz Center seeks to address polarization by teaching students research-backed methods to navigate disagreement

In an era of increasing polarization and toxic interactions, two Northwestern professors Eli Finkel and Nour Kteily launched the Center for Enlightened Disagreement in February. Last week, the center received a transformational $20 million gift from two trustees and alumni, Jennifer Leischner Litowitz and Alec Litowitz. It will now be known as the Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement.

“Our society has become so divided that people avoid talking to others with different views — and when those conversations do happen, they can quickly become toxic,” Finkel said. “The goal of the Litowitz Center is to develop research-backed methods that help people embrace differences, allowing for the free exchange of ideas that leads to innovation and expands our worldview.”

Both Finkel and Kteily are professors in the Kellogg School of Management, where the center is based. Finkel is also a social psychologist and a Morton O. Schapiro Faculty Fellow in Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research.

Through a multifaceted approach of research, curriculum, outreach, and conversation, the Litowitz Center will provide students, community members, and organizations with the intellectual and analytical tools and skills to navigate disagreement and harness the power of difference in service of greater understanding, knowledge, and progress.

Starting this academic year, the center will infuse research principles of logical thinking and enlightened disagreement into the learning goals for more than 1,000 Weinberg College first-years in their required college seminar. It will also launch a cocurricular program for students living on campus. It will instill research-backed approaches to cultivating open-mindedness, identifying one’s own cognitive biases, and working collaboratively across disagreement, among others.

“Exchanging conflicting opinions freely and openly can fuel innovation and change, force us to think critically, and push us to expand our worldview,” Jennifer Litowitz said.

Alec Litowitz noted that the center seeks to create “a foundation” underpinning constructive discussion and debate. “The result may not be agreement, but something equally valuable: enlightened disagreement,” he said.

For more information about the gift and the Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement, read the full article. 

Eli Finkel is a professor of psychology and management and organizations and the first Morton O. Schapiro IPR Faculty Fellow. Nour Kteily is a professor of management and organizations. They are founding co-directors of the Litowitz Center.

Published: September 22, 2025.