Campus Conservatism: Coming Out of the Conservative Closet on Liberal Campuses
January 29, 2007
Executive Director's Note: This article is the first in a series on the issue of being conservative on today's college campuses. PAI has a number of Interns who currently attend Universities throughout the State of Wisconsin. We asked our Interns to share their thoughts on what it is like to be a conservative in the current academic environment.
College Campuses have evolved into liberal indoctrination schools where it is discouraged to be conservative. As a previous student at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse and a current student at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, I can honestly say that it is dangerous if not costly for a conservative to "come out of the closet", promote conservative ideals, and argue conservative points of views in many classes. It is a rarity to find a conservative professor on campuses, but beyond that, it is equally rare to find a liberal one that does not intentionally indoctrinate his or her students. This goes as far as many professors and teacher's assistants to assume that most of the students in their classes lean to the left and therefore complacently agree with their slanted arguments. I do not want to just make these assumptions, so allow me to substantiate my claims with the following examples because after all, real events do not lie.
Nearly all of the classes I have taken during my years at our state's universities have some example of promoting leftist ideas whether they pertain to social liberalism or economic liberalism. For the purpose of this piece, I will concentrate solely on events that occurred during the first semester of my junior year at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. It may be important to note that this is the same period of time of the 2006 mid-term elections, and I write this only a few days after the elections take place. In addition, I will not mention any names of specific professors nor the specific class in which these events took place because I do not want to single out any individuals.
During the first days of this semester, the professor of a course I took dealing with the African American Freedom Struggle required that we purchase books from a personally owned left-wing bookstore rather than the University book store by only giving the required reading list to this specific retailer. This store advertises itself as "left-wing and progressive" and decorates its windows with anti-Republican, anti-war, and anti-big business signs. Upon entrance, I noticed that all the books in there were by openly liberal writers such as Al Frankin. This left no question of the ideology of the professor-and what's more is that the professor decided to cancel the class during Thanksgiving week the day after the 2006 mid-term elections as he said he was in a "rather good mood this morning" after the elections.
The teacher's assistant for this course was no more moderate than the professor. This educator openly agreed to the statement of "outside of Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin is extremely conservative" and eluded to the fact that it was very different (in a negative way) in upper Wisconsin. This teacher's assistant is also the same person that I got into a short-argument in about the superiority of Capitalism to Communism in relation to the Cold War. This is only a small set of examples of the liberalization that occurred during this course on a weekly basis.
It is not just civil rights history classes that are indoctrination courses. Leftists are leading courses throughout the campus including a certain 9/11 conspiracy theorist who continues to be employed by the University and teaches as class on Islam. Liberalization shows up in an economics course I am taking when the professor speaks highly of Paul Krugman, an openly liberal columnist for the New York Times. The professor recommended reading Krugman's columns as Krugman is, "very knowledgeable," on the subjects we are discussing in class.
Philosophy professors are not immune of the desire to indoctrinate their students either. Two specific jokes stick out in my mind in one such course. When discussing notation for logic, the joke said was "he's Republican, but he's honest" which suggested that it is rare to find a person that is both Republican and honest. Rush Limbaugh seems to take a brute of jokes as well, as he is the scapegoat for examples of illogical reasoning.
Liberal indoctrination does not even evade a statistics course where jokes are consistently cracked about the American political system and gubernatorial candidate Mark Green-while the professor is careful not to mention specific names of candidates but rather to allude to whom he is speaking.
Forcing conservatives in their "ideological closet" does not end at the classrooms. Days before the election, I was interviewed by a writer at one of the leading (liberal) campus newspapers immediately following a speaking event with Mark Green. The following day my quotes did reach the front page of that particular newspaper, but my words were quoted inaccurately and out of context. From this I was fearful that one of my teachers' assistants, who give grades in classes, would read my quote and discriminate against me in their grading. I have heard cases of this happening on campus, but I have not yet been a victim of this unethical behavior.
A final example that is worth sharing is that way that the College Republicans were singled out for not taking a stance on the marriage amendment. A Fair Wisconsin and the College Democrats were very successful in turning the election into a single issue of the rights of gay marriage to students on campus. The College Democrats put fliers into all of the big lecture halls demanding us to take a 'yes' or 'no' stance on this issue so they could back us into a corner. This 'flyering' as it is called costs hundreds of dollars to do, yet the benefits apparently outweighed the costs when deciding to attack our organization.
I have listed many reasons on discrimination against conservatives on campus, and this list is certainly not exhaustive. This should show why it is so hard to conservative to be pro-active on campuses. As one last thought I would like to present an great irony: Liberals on college campuses consistently preach tolerance and open-mindedness yet when it comes to conservative ideology they wish nothing more than to suppress and attack the counter-opinion.
Campus Conservatism: Coming Out of the Conservative Closet on Liberal Campuses was written by PAI's UW Economics Intern © PAI 2007.