"Safe" Schools for Libertarians and Conservatives?
David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy has an interesting college thread on "safe" schools for libertarians and conservatives:
Read the comments. (I find many of Volokh's commenters obnoxious and annoying, but some actually have a lot to say).
I get occasional emails and personal inquiries regarding which, if any, elite colleges are "safe" for politically active and or outspoken conservatives and libertarian students in the sense that students and faculty will generally treat them respectfully, even if they are a small minority, and that they won't need to worry about being hauled before disciplinary committees because they said something politically incorrect that allegedly offended someone. Unfortunately, my knowledge of college life is almost twenty years out of date, but I'm sure VC readers have some ideas. Please comment below, and in the future I'll refer my inquiries to these comments.
Read the comments. (I find many of Volokh's commenters obnoxious and annoying, but some actually have a lot to say).
posted by Helen at 8:35 PM
26 Comments:
I grew tired of hearing that Republicans were "idiots" and "evil" in classes that had nothing to do with modern politics. Middle Ages Literature lectures frequently included comments about Bush and Republicans. PC I don't mind, being called names like that... not so good.
I would have to say:
I don't really understand the idea of trying to find a "safe" school. I can understand staying away from schools that have reputations of being overtly hostile to conservatives Like Berkeley... (however, if they have a program you can't find elsewhere - this might not even be reasonable!) but to try and ensconce yourself in a place where everyone thinks as you do - is not only silly - but does nothing to prepare you for life.
One of the things college "should" teach is how to learn and adapt to circumstance. The truth is that we don't live in a conservative or even Libertarian world. Learning to get along with Liberals - how to argue without being offensive. Or even when to just shut up and let it be... this can't be learned in a place where everyone thinks the same.
Note the problems that the MSM and Hollywood are having now. They ply their trades in a pretty much homogenous area - then they can't understand how there could be people who disagree with them.
College is a place to learn - learning is not always a comfortable experience. Deal with it!
It is strange that so many commenters want conservative and libertarian teenagers (because most college freshmen are still teenagers) to learn to live with conflict, as if that's the point of college. It reminds me of the homeschooling post Dr. Helen linked to a few days ago where the common criticism was that homeschooled kids won't be adequately socialized unless they have to deal with difficult social situations in school. Exactly what is the lesson to be learned from attending a school where you feel ostracized and belittled? That's not my view of higher education.
But perhaps it is true that a conservative or libertarian in a liberal university will be toughened up, intellectually speaking. Surely, if this is such good advice, all these commenters would encourage liberal students to attend very conservative schools. After all, we don't want liberal students to be so comfortable that they never learn to deal with people who disagree with them.
DRJ,
Yes, I agree, when the conflict is one-sided with a conservative or libertarian in a group of liberals, that is fine. But I do not see the liberals turning the tables and gladly being raked over the coals at a conservative school (not that there are all that many).
In the podcast we did with Nicholas Cummings, the head of the APA, he pointed out that liberalism is the norm in psychology--research that is not PC rarely gets done or published. I have experienced this first hand in my profession. I also remember in graduate school that 2 of my professors gave me a below passing mark on my PHD written exams--another student told me that they probably did so because they like pretty women who agreed with them--Well, I sure wasn't one of them! Luckily, a third professor from outside the department graded one of my questions and gave me an above perfect score so I passed but I thought it odd that the 2 professors who knew me(and possibly disliked my views) would have failed me if I had not had an outside reviewer. This is the fear that some students have when going to liberal schools or taking classes with liberal professors etc.--it is not the disagreements but rather, the feelings the professor has about you and your views that influence how well you do. Hopefully, as people have pointed out, most professors can rise above this, but they do not always. And if your career lies in their hands, it can be very frustrating, to say the least.
I was reading the comments referred to---the refrain of making light of conservative and libertarian concerns about fair treatment on campus.
Then it struck me. They sounded like my father, making light of womens' complaints about unfair treatment in college or the workforce twenty years ago. He used to exclaim that life wasn't fair, and that people need to work through it. The fact that he was a guy who didn't face those kinds of problems made him just a tad insensitive to that particular issue. God bless him.
Some of the ruder commenters over at Volokh are no different than my father. Fact is, wrong is wrong.
There IS a huge amount of disrespect on campus for non-PC thought, and a concerted effort to propagandize those issues.
You can say that life isn't fair, and that conservatives and libertarians need to "suck it up." Fair enough. Then you also need to apply that sentiment to most of American society where such thinking is NOT acceptable.
I am an academic, and I work hard NOT to propaganidize my students. But when you are utterly certain you are correct, politically, I suppose it is easy to pick on those with whom you disagree.
It's tough to find a campus that respects non PC thought.
One of my favorite professors once said: "I don't expect you to agree with me. In fact, it will do you an awfully lot of good if you don't and think things through on your own. That's why you're here."
The professor in question was an ex Colonel in the RAF, and had fought in the desert against Rommell. Needless to say, his views were a bit to the right of many of the students, but her realized that his primary job was to encourage debate and inquiry, and one of the best ways to do this was through confrontation. I think that any student (or professor) should worry most about going to an institution where everyone reads from the same page. However, some of the 'group-think' that tends to dominate certain disiplines hinders this.
BTW I was a music major, so my grades were less idealogically driven...although trying to manage the egos of professors that you both admire and want to learn from that happen to despise each other is quite a challenge. In my L.S. core classes, I always tried to pick ones that I was A)Interested in and B) Would challenge me. I think some students run into problems by picking classes they think would be easy, and only find out later that they're idealogical hotbeds for the fuzzy sciences. I'm thinking of those that take classes in film, pop culture, very limited modern histories (Women's studies, Chicano studies, etc.)--you're better off taking a broader course that gives you more of a framework for thought and debate rather than one dominating by those trying to make intellectual mountains out of molehills. That being said, I did take an Anth course called 'Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion' that was excellent--it really explored what ritual was and how it fit into the lives of people. And I became friendly with several women's studies majors in the process and enjoyed debate within class quite a lot. I got an A.
Helen, you're one crazy biatch. Did you go into psychology to try to figure out what was wrong with you? Borderline Personality Disorder maybe?
Eric Blair said:
"He used to exclaim that life wasn't fair, and that people need to work through it. The fact that he was a guy who didn't face those kinds of problems made him just a tad insensitive to that particular issue."
I've gotta say - not only am I a woman - I have always been of a libertarian/conservative mind... even as a young teen and college age kid I didn't understand the total lack of logic behind "liberal speak". (just call me heartless) And yet I see you saying that an opinion, such as the one I hold, of working through these problems is making light of them.
So are you saying that I didn't have to deal with any of that crap? You'd be dead wrong. I had my share of belittling teachers (those who disliked women in their classes or those who though women shouldn't bother their little heads with all that "hard" work), teachers with a chip on their shoulder the size of Texas (those who had some sort of liberal agenda that the entire class had to suffer with), and really great fantastic teachers. I worked my way around each type as best I could. Just like we all have to do in a non-perfect world.
So, as I said in my other comment - staying away from overtly hostile environments isn't a bad thing. But going to the other extreme and getting into a completely agreeable environment isn't doing yourself any favors either. Dealing with adverse conditions is a learning curve. If you don't do it in college - you will have to do it afterward. Much better to figure out how to do it in the surreal college environment rather than run head on into the situation after college where the consequences will be much worse.
If that makes me insensitive - then so be it.
Eric,
I appreciate your comment, not only because it's a good point but because it triggered the same memories. I, too, recall people in my youth during the 60's and 70's telling women to toughen up if they wanted to work in a man's world. I can't believe such sentiments seemed sensible then and seem so out-of-touch today.
Dear Teresa:
Perhaps you misunderstood me. If so, I do apologize for not being clearer.
Any given individual has different strengths and sensitivities. I am endlessly impressed, as a professor, by the kinds of challenges overcome by students---who simply shrug off their troubles. I admire such people.
Sadly, I am old enough to remember true deep sexism in higher education. I have seen scientists not take on female graduate students, saying "you will just run off and have children." While I was in graduate school, I was present when the first tenure track woman was hired in my department---and saw how horrifically that woman was treated. She shrugged it off, and beat the sexist idiots at their own game.
I respect that strength, and honor it.
What I was refering to was the odious hypocrisy shown by many in the Left, who do the limbo for a student in a "protected group" so that impolite language is considered to be a quasi-illegal offense---yet tell libertarian or conservative students to "suck it up" when they have to deal with unprofessional professors who allow their personal politics to color their classrooms.
I detest hypocrites. And academia is rife with them. This subject shows how false the "kindhearted and accepting" image of the Left really is. They are no different than their own grandparents; the prejudices are all that differ.
Again, I honor and respect anyone who navigates through the difficulties experienced in academia. I would never "belittle" your opinion that it is good to fight for your beliefs, either. What I was doing was pointing out the hypocrisy of the self-serving academic Left.
DrJ:
Thanks. I agree that we live in Heinlein's "Crazy Years" in our culture.
There is an entire culture of victimhood, instead of a drive toward fairness and meritocracy.
Sometimes, I don't believe this is my planet.
Especially when I see folks like Anonymous 10:43, who are just trying to stir up trouble and get people angry...and expending their own energy to do so!
Exactly what is the lesson to be learned from attending a school where you feel ostracized and belittled?
Ask anyone whose been through Marine Corps boot camp what the benefit is of a training regimen involving ostracism and belittling.
Just don't ask them to step outside if you disagree, or you'll get a very first hand impression.
That which does not kill you only serves to make you stronger.
Engineering programs are probably the safest bet. Engineering colleges are part of larger universities, and in core coursework, engineering students (who tend to the conservative) will get plenty of chances to face down leftist ideas, but it won't be in classes vital to their careers (most engineering recruiters want to know general GPA *AND* GPA in your major.) In their engineering classes, the material is too objective for a professor to use a political viewpoint to deny a student a valid earned grade.
The other advantage is that a large number of engineering grads are recruited locally upon graduation. Every local company I've worked for has been like an alumni meeting for my alma mater. Engineering students can get good local internships, which provide additional protection through networking. We had an intern who was brought before the residence life board over a politically incorrect party flier, and word got around the office that the alma mater was employing PC speech codes. When the next semi-monthly round of phone solicitations from the alumni association went out, they got a scathing earful, and within three days, the dean called our intern in to say the matter had been dropped and the regulations in question were under review. Universities may make a lot of indignant noise, but in the end, they're whores, and alumni contributors are their 'Johns.'
Dweeb,
I understand your point. Coincidentally, I almost posted the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" phrase earlier in this discussion, and there are times when people do need to get tough.
But I'm not convinced that the goal of college, other than in the military institutions, is to toughen up. I view college as a place where students explore different perspectives, engage in challenging discussions, and try not to become polarized in their thinking. That's one reason why having an extremist professor of any persuasion is so dangerous, because it cuts off intellectual debate in favor of rigid political views.
Dweeb 1:22
I think you may have missed some of the finer nuances.
1. Re: basic training -- Ostracism is not the goal. At it's best, the military -- all branches -- belittles specific, counter-productive behaviors, and it not in the business of making global generalizations merely for enjoyment or for the sake of generalizations. You actually have to screw up to have the spotlight turned on you. That light is painful for the time it's on you (I can say from personal experience) but once your performance is up to par it's turned on someone else. At no time did I feel "persecuted" in the military -- I screwed up in an objective and verifiable manner, was excoriated, learned from it, and moved on.
2. The performance standards I had to meet were objective and verifiable. Some were extremely high, and seemed almost unattainable at the time (shudders at memories from Superman U), but they didn't waver. You passed or you didn't -- no free rides.
3. I never paid money to join the military.
As a parent now, I would not take exception to my boys going through what I went through in the military -- I'd tell them they volunteered, everyone has to go through it, and to suck it up and deal with it.
But if I paid $40,000 per year for them to get an education, I'm now a customer and get a say in what they experience. If they are treated fairly with respect to other students, I don't care if the prof is tough. But I expect -- even demand -- that there is free speech for all, and not only for some.
Oh, and if you don't think this is timely, you might check out whaty NYU did with respect to the recent event on freedom of expression with respect to the Danish cartoons. They told the Objectivist club to either NOT display the cartoons, or the administration would close the event to the public and the press.
Irony called to say she was leaving NYU. It seems no one recognizes her any more.
Anonymous 10:43:
Did you come straight off Volokh's blog to make my point?
I have to say that commenting is one of the best and worst parts of the blogosphere. While many people bring insight and thought into a topic that you never even imagined, others simply spew venom because they think they can.
From personal experience, I've found that those who have blogs of their own are much less likely to spew venom compared to those who don't.
I wonder if there is a way to sample certain blogs to try to prove that.
DRJ,
1. Many woman have toughened up as they made their way into the man's world.
2. Different people have different expectations of colege. I don't think one size fits all.
Anonymous 3:48: Okay by me.
Anonymous 3:48:
On my more charitable days, I tend to blame our current messy society on exactly what you describe: a foolish effort to make one size fit all. Everyone is different, as you suggest. Again, I just dislike hypocrisy and self-serving double standards (like when the academic Left tells conservatives to "cowboy up" and at the same time wants to create a "Black only" graduation ceremony).
When I first started teaching, I had a tiny East Asian woman as one of my students. She had literally seen her mother killed by pirates in the South China sea as a "boat person" style refugee. She dealt with every difficulty with drive and humor. Nothing phased her.
I also had a big strong football playing male student who asked a woman out on a date, she said "no," and he became so depressed about that specific issue that he had to take a leave of absence from college.
I'm not saying one student is necessarily weak and the other strong. I am saying that different people have different strengths and weaknesses.
DRJ, college is to develop the mind, and like muscles, it gets better when challenged. Rhetoric is one of the main components of a classical education, and it's best honed by facing opposing viewpoints. An extremist professor can be a great experience, provided there is a due process constraining him/her from abusing the power of the position as a shortcut around reasoned persuasion.
1charlie2 - according to a DI who was rather candid,Corps philosophy seeks to break all recruits, then build them back up. My friend who held the same role in the Army lamented that his branch was on the wrong side of this issue - he found things more as you describe.
While you did not pay for military training, the taxpayers pay a great deal for it. You pay a lot for your kids' education, and as a customer get some say, but clearly, even though you pay your physician a lot, you don't tell him how to remove your appendix. I agree that free speech should be respected, and that grades should be strictly objective, but if you really care for your kids, the WORST thing you can do for them is to pledge that they'll never suffer the hardships you did. Your character is a product of ALL your experience, good and bad.
The NYU situation reveals that institution to be a bad joke, but nothing would make me prouder than to have a son or daughter there going toe to toe with those leftists and making them look stupid. The real question is, how firm are your kid's convictions, and how well have you trained him/her to intelligently advocate for them? If you have the right answers to those questions, then the only concern is that they'll be fairly graded on their academic work, and for that, choice of major can help a lot.
Dweeb:
Here is my earlier statement in these comments: "I view college as a place where students explore different perspectives, engage in challenging discussions, and try not to become polarized in their thinking."
Your response: "DRJ, college is to develop the mind, and like muscles, it gets better when challenged. Rhetoric is one of the main components of a classical education, and it's best honed by facing opposing viewpoints."
How do you construe my statement to mean that students shouldn't be intellectually challenged in college when I specifically said that they should engage in challenging discussions? I just don't see the benefit in having extremist professors who belittle their students. If you think that's good, so be it. I know students who have survived that experience and emerged intact. However, I don't see the benefit to that type of "in your face" system as opposed to colleges where students are exposed to and respectfully debate the entire spectrum of political thought.
I'm with DrJ on this one.
Here is an experiment that Dweeb can try: sign up for a sociology class at a local community college. During class discussion, announce that you are a conservative Republican who believes in the Second Amendment and feels abortion should not be legal.
Then Dweeb can gauge how he is treated after that by other students, professors...and the grade he receives.
He might have a great time, and get an "A." But I strongly doubt it. He would certainly get his "toughness muscles" worked out in most classrooms, I can promise you.
By the way, "due process" doesn't really exist for a student in most places, except during the most egregious violations of academic professionalism. For example, Dweeb would not be allowed to compare a grade he received on his pro Second Amendment essay to any other essay, say on how abortion rights are fundamental to the Constitution (privacy). And take it from a college professor---if we want to find something wrong with an essay, we will.
This is why academia needs to clean itself up, and live up to its stated goals. It shouldn't be an echo chamber for the DNC, which right now....it surely is.
Charlie and Dweeb,
During Viet Nam, Marine Corps boot camp treated everybody like crap. They told us the very first night as we stood on the yellow footprints that it was their intention to break each and evey one of us and build us back the way they wanted us to be.
Nobody escaped the wrath of the drill instructors. That was their job. I agree those who screwed up took the most crap, but usually we all ate dirt when one guy screwed up. Often the screwup would stand in front and count cadence as the rest of us did pushups and counted each rep by shouting, "Thank you private, Screwup!"
All training certainly wasn't brutal. But much of it was. The things we had to learn were taught fairly, efficiently, effectively, and at a level where anyone could grasp it. But then we were held responsible for it.
For most of us it was the most difficult thing we had ever done. But subsequent infantry training only got harder and harder. And it was all a walk in the park when we finally engaged the enemy in Viet Nam.
Would a kinder and gentler approach have worked? I don't know. It wasn't tried. But for that to work, I think we would have needed a kinder and gentler enemy.
When I hear about various types of hostility on campus, I have to ask just what kind of world are the students expecting when they finish school?
My poor verbal skills may have left the wrong impression in the above post. When we engaged the enemy in Viet Nam, and then looked back on our training, that training was a walk in the park compared to engaging the enemy.
I think the issue is a bit misdirected, in the overall scheme of things. It is quite clear that the Left dominates the academy, for a variety of reasons, and it is clear that there are places that are less polite and tolerant of divergent views than are other places. But the best answer is not avoidance.
I work for a large university, and on my floor of the building, I am the oddball. There are three of us who have more center-right or libertarian views, I am the loud one, and the rest that I am aware of lean left. Many of the more clerk-types are unionized AFSCME employees.
I am the only one who is openly not a Democrat- I have my "vast right-wing conspiracy" sign on my office door. There are people here whom I don't really know, have never dealt with, who are cool toward me and avoid me, and the only reason I can infer for this is that I am The Evil Republican. My former assistant jokes about it with me- "What did you think of what X said yesterday, even though she is a Democrat..?" We have fun joshing back and forth.
But, whenever specific subjects are engaged, I like the banter and debate, I like to defend my views- and I guarantee that not one of the others has seriously reviewed these issues or can mount a coherent fact-based defense. It's fun to argue if you can keep the knives sheathed. My younger daughter is one of 2 center-right people in the Georgetown History Dept., and has great friends all over- they respect her and she is likable, so they figure that this must be an exception- but they are willing to ignore stereotypes and look at individuals.
I think, though, that the issues/question is posed wrongly. There are certain courses in most schools that are worthless because the syllabus/content are nonsense, the prof is an idiot or a PC martinet, or both, and where a non-leftist will be punished for spouting heresy away from the orthodox views. The thing to do is pick the school or program that you want, no matter where it is. What you need to avoid are the worthless courses that are either unenlightening or unfair. It is the courses, not the school, that count and should be avoided at the lower levels.
And have a command of the facts and why you believe what you do.
Unfortunately, there is no cure for the problem the sainted Dr. Helen encountered, but it is also not restricted to political-type views. When my oldest daughter was doing her early PhD research topics in biomechanics, the field was dominated by a certain "mafia" that has reputations built on certain assumptions. She was finding that some of the basic assumptions (about bone ultrastructure, the final thesis topic she defended) from time immemorial were, well, wrong. At first, it affected the journals in which she was able to publish because those people controlled the peer review process- so she had to go to some smaller journals, and after the citations started to roll in as her findings began to be more broadly confirmed or built upon, she found that she was getting accepted by more mainstream publications. Our blind spots are not always political.
I think the message to this all is watch your back, do your homework, be wise, and keep on truckin'.
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