E.E. Ford Foundation Grant

COURTESY OF DEERFIELD COMMUNICATIONS

On January 20, Deerfield Academy was awarded a $125,000 grant by the Advisory Board of the Edward E. Ford Foundation, a New York-based organization providing grants to independent schools. The grant will support the next phase of Thriving in a World of Pluralistic Contention: A Framework for Schools (Framework), Head of School John Austin’s project to promote academic pluralism, built upon three pillars of expressive freedom, disciplined nonpartisanship, and intellectual diversity. 

This award marks the Foundation’s second grant to Deerfield for the Framework, an achievement Deerfield describes as an “unusual honor for an independent school.” While the first grant supported the Framework’s publication, the new award will fund what Dr. Austin described as the next phase, which includes documenting how schools utilize the Framework and translating its ideals into more concrete practices.

According to the Deerfield website, the Foundation’s Executive Director John Gulla noted how only a “handful of proposals” match the “reach and promise” of the Framework, emphasizing how the newest follow-up proposal sought to extend partnership with higher education, hold national conventions, support curriculum development, and build a “self-sustaining model” to continue the work. Dr. Austin himself noted how the Framework was “extraordinarily well received” and that the “Ford Foundation was excited to support the work,” leading to a second grant.

Deerfield describes this next phase as an opportunity to push the Framework into a greater “national conversation,” while Dr. Austin explained that the second grant will focus on promoting “intellectual diversity.” This includes collaboration with school and academic leaders to define “what it is, why it’s important, and [explore] successful initiatives that other schools and universities have used,” he said. Deerfield adds that the new phase will “convene school leaders and scholars nationwide in support of intellectual diversity in classrooms, curriculum, and programs.”

In Dr. Austin’s remarks at the Vanderbilt Open Dialogue Summit in September 2025, he described the actions that schools have taken following the Framework’s publication: adoption of “disciplined nonpartisanship,” creation of programs to “foster free and open debate,” and “re-pluraliz[ation] of student life.” Nevertheless, he pointed out that these initiatives often occur in the “periphery of the student experience,” making them “easy for students to avoid or opt out of.”

To address this, the new second phase of the Framework will seek to make “open inquiry, deep and searching dialogue, and civic debate” priorities that should “sit at the very core of the student experience,” according to Dr. Austin. He emphasized the importance of “curriculum structured around disagreement and divergent perspectives,” noting how such practices help students engage in “deliberation and democratic problem solving” while making “thoughtful [and] informed judgements.” 

Dr. Austin said how Deerfield plans to use the $125,000 to stage a “national conference,” where experts in the field and academic leaders could come together to “figure out creative ways to engage students” and promote intellectual diversity in the “academic program.” Although the exact details of the conference are still in planning, Dr. Austin mentioned the hope to bring in additional partners and collaborate with more secondary and higher-educational institutions. 

When asked about the metrics Deerfield would use to judge the grant’s success, Dr. Austin responded that they did not have a good answer “at this point,” adding that there may be opportunities to “do surveys at schools that have initiated some of the concrete proposals.” He reinforced that measuring impact in education is a process that “doesn’t happen over a year or two.” Connecting to Deerfield’s case, he argued that the success of the school’s education is often revealed through “the lives our graduates go out and lead and live.”

Nevertheless, Dr. Austin believed that the grant would help reinforce schools as “places of learning and inquiry.” In recent years, he expressed how Head of Schools have had to “take stances…[on] domestic or foreign policy.” Continued adoption of the Framework, he said, has created an environment that is “very freeing for schools.” 

“It’s a great opportunity for Deerfield to continue its leadership in the space,” Dr. Austin said. Looking forward, Dr. Austin stated that Deerfield hopes that the next phase, supported by the grant, will transform the Framework into practices that shape students’ academic lives more directly, closely adhering to the practice of promoting intellectual diversity and supporting divergent perspectives.