<p>American is (or was) ranked #1 in the country for sending the most volunteers to the Peace Corps. It’s also ranked #1 for political activity and it’s in the #1 city for politics, DC. On the other hand, if you read the newspaper there, you’ll see that a handful of students complain that students are aware but not active.</p>
<p>Most LACs are considered high for political activism.</p>
<p>Ask yourself though…is political activism the way to make a difference? If you ***** and moan for twenty hours on a picket line to free Palestine, have you really made an ounce of difference in relieving the suffering in anyone’s life? Just a thought…</p>
<p>I second Oberlin, Wesleyan, Hampshire, Brandeis (although I found it to be a different sort of activism than these other schools), Smith if you’re female. I might add NYU and Eugene Lang/New School especially considering the recent student protests.
I actually happened to sit in on a sexual politics class when I was at Oberlin and they had some pretty illuminating things to say about the (perceived) separation between the “gay” and “queer” communities. </p>
<p>just putting this out there while we’re on the subject, almost everyone I’ve known that’s gone to Wesleyan or Hampshire identified as trans/genderqueer by the time they graduated.</p>
<p>In terms of whether activism makes a difference, of course it may take many activists and many years for there to be measurable success. In that regard, Brandeis alum and democracy activist Shen Tong, a hero of the Tiananmen Square uprsising, recently questioned the impact of that event looking back 20 years. Here’s the Wall Street Journal article:</p>
<p>[Survivors</a> Confront Unsettled Legacy of Tiananmen - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124397266329878327.html]Survivors”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124397266329878327.html)</p>