“Come Together”: President of the Heritage Foundation Speaks to Students

Kay Coles James, president of the Heritage Foundation, recently spoke to students and their families about building bridges across political divides and serving as disruptors in order to change the world for the better.

James spoke of the challenges facing our country, most notably the toxic political environment. “The only way we’re going to resolve difficult questions,” she said, “is to come together to debate, argue, have conversations, and reach consensus. As Americans, we have a special obligation to demonstrate to the rest of the world what it looks like to live in a pluralistic society, deal with difficult issues, and resolve them peacefully and respectfully.”

Elle Magnuson '23 introduced James. Elle is the daughter of Adrienne Taylor, Episcopal's dance instructor and faculty advisor to the Young Republicans Club, which invited James to speak. Taylor met James's daughter 16 years ago while rocking their babies to sleep at a GOP fundraiser, and the two families have been close ever since.
 
James began the conversation discussing what she calls “the American privilege.” She was raised in Richmond’s housing projects with a single mother on welfare in the segregated south and was one of the first children to take part in the desegregation of Virginia’s all-white schools.
 
“I really believe this country offers the opportunity for people to accomplish great things,” James said, offering her own career path as proof that American privilege is real. She has served in a myriad of political roles since the 1980s — from Virginia’s secretary of health and human resources to the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. In 2001, she founded the Gloucester Institute, an organization that trains college-age men and women in the Black community to be future conservative leaders.
 
James said her career has been built upon reaching across the aisle to her Democratic counterparts, and she advised the audience not to judge peers based on differences. “I am a richer, deeper, more thoughtful, more compassionate person because I welcome a diversity of views and ideas into my life,” she said.
 
Political affiliation does not matter, she added, but an acceptance of others and a passion for knowledge matters greatly: “I don’t do well with people who are not critical thinkers, who don’t know that they shouldn’t get their news from Facebook and their analysis from Twitter.”
 
As for the future, James plans to finish writing a new book and spend more time at the Gloucester Institute and with her family. Said Taylor at the conclusion of the event: “She’s truly the kind of person that you want to do better around.”