The University of Utah recently opened the first official office for the Dignity Index, a program based on an eight-point scale that rates how statements sound during political or social disagreement. Project UNITE, the Index’s creator, is marketing the speech-classification framework to politicians, business leaders, and educators across the country, and several school districts and universities have already adopted the tool.
The Dignity Index was created by the nonprofit Project UNITE and piloted in Utah through a partnership with researchers at the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, David Eccles School of Business, and Hinckley Institute of Politics. As detailed in the Utah Pilot Project Technical Summary, the demonstration phase relied on Eccles School and Gardner Policy Institute leadership and a team of 22 trained student coders who scored political statements each week on the Index’s eight-point scale. The Dignity Index categorizes speech from Level 1 — described as the most contemptuous — to Level 8, which reflects language focused on connection and cooperation (“we’re bound together”). According to the Dignity Project’s public materials, the model is intended to help students and adults recognize how their tone affects political dialogue.
In 2022, the project expanded nationally with the involvement of Tim Shriver, co-founder of CASEL — which stands for Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning — and the CEO of the nonprofit UNITE, which focuses on depolarization efforts. Shriver, who helped coordinate the rollout, has described the scale as part of a strategy to reduce “contempt” in American public life.
How the Index Works
The Index was initially used in public-policy settings and in analyzing statements made by political candidates during the 2022 Utah congressional races. Since then, its use has widened. The Irvine Unified School District in California recently piloted the model in a classroom setting, describing it as a tool for “strengthening understanding and connection” during discussions. Program materials encourage students to examine statements, identify where they fall on the scale, and reflect on ways to de-escalate disagreements.
Proponents of the Index argue that it helps teach civil discourse at a time when classrooms face rising tensions around political and social issues. In a local news outlet, Salt Lake City School District Superintendent Elizabeth Grant made the district’s intent clear: “We want to reduce contempt in our community, broadly and more specifically, in our district. Our emphasis is on dignity.” To that end, the district is now turning to the Dignity Index.
The project promotes what it calls three primary “effects”: the Electrifying Effect, where individuals request coaching or workshops; the Mirror Effect, where participants reflect on their own tone; and the Agency Effect, where users feel empowered to reduce contempt in their communities.
Because the Dignity Index focuses on tone, perception, and emotional communication, it has found an audience within the broader SEL (social-emotional learning) landscape. The school district in Salt Lake City has already used CASEL’s SEL competencies — self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making — and is preparing to integrate the Index into its existing lessons on communication and conflict resolution.
Technology companies have also shown interest in frameworks that classify speech based on tone. Google’s Perspective API, for example, uses machine learning to rate online comments for “toxicity,” while Microsoft’s Responsible AI guidelines include similar tone-classification categories. The Dignity Index’s numeric structure is compatible with many of these systems, which are already used in some digital-citizenship programs.
While the Index is currently working with pilot programs, its expansion has also prompted questions from parents and education-policy commentators about how the tool might function in a school setting. Parent organizations that have previously opposed SEL programs have said they worry that classroom tools focused on tone may pressure children to adjust how they speak about controversial issues. Although concerns about indoctrination and viewpoint discrimination have been documented in reporting on SEL generally, my research finds no major published studies have yet evaluated parent response to the Dignity Index specifically.
Privacy and civil-liberties advocates such as the Future of Privacy Forum and several digital-rights groups have warned that tone-classification technology used in school settings must be closely monitored to prevent unintentional data collection or algorithmic bias. Ethics and free-speech commentators have echoed these worries. Jack Marshall, writing at Ethics Alarms, has expressed concern that tone-scoring frameworks could constrain students’ ability to speak openly on moral and political issues.
Hellbound and Down 