Academic freedom is undoubtedly a core value of higher education, but should it sometimes be compromised in order to accommodate efforts to tackle the many considerable challenges of the twenty-first century, from fighting climate change and global pandemics to reckoning with the stubborn legacies of institutional racism? More specifically, can American colleges and universities sustain their commitment to serving a more diverse student body, recruited from all classes and ethnic groups and increasingly from around the world, and still rigorously uphold academic freedom? This article concludes that it is easy to defend academic freedom and free speech when everyone is saying pretty much the same things. But diverse communities give voice to diverse experiences, diverse assumptions, and diverse needs. And with diversity comes disagreement. In the wake of sometimes disruptive protest movements against institutional racism and in the context of the country's political polarization, universities receive complaints that they have become too contentious and hence, they are told, unpleasant places. But the very nature of higher education demands contentiousness. Argument and debate, sometimes polarizing, are at the core of what universities do. Both academic freedom and diversity exist to protect and encourage that sort of contention, and together work to render it constructive.