Colleges without safe spaces and radical liberal faculty

I’m confused. Yes, there are plenty of religious conservatives in Texas. But it also has a libertarian steak a mile wide. Now… to put it delicately, a foreign student might not feel as welcome there as in some other areas. They might find themselves wishing for their own safe space. So maybe it isn’t a fit for that reason. But I’d say the OP’s brother should put their money and actions where their mouth is. Go to a place with a libertarian steak and no safe spaces when you are a minority who might not be well received. See how that goes for you.

@intparent That last part is not so nice.

@Aymyrat The irony is that what you are actually lamenting is the loss of liberalism. That tolerance that we used to have more of. I remember when the ACLU stood up for Pat Buchanan( who is a conservative politician). They kind of had a “I can’t believe we are doing this” moment but they were what DH and I call “real liberals.” I don’t support what you say but I support your right to say it. Sadly as someone quoted, college kids are moving away from that. They are supporting echo chamber “free speech” in which they only support ideas they like. That is a corruption or a failure of liberalism.

And be careful with labels. We use labels and think we understand each other but don’t. Based on that article from @DustyFeathers we read that Hillsdale is no longer a libertarian college. I would never recommend them to an actual libertarian student. And when say that your libertarian, people may think you’re conservative but it’s hard to project action or insight based on that. For example, in the last election the Libertarian VP endorsed Hillary. That might not be considered hard core conservatism. Libertarian voters voted many different ways. As our political system polarizes, Libertarianism is what remains in the center for some people. There used to be more range within the parties, blue dog Democrats etc.

So for you, to give you good recommendations, we have to understand you better. Understand what you are looking for. Your major and your stats.

@yucca10 I do not think I would necessarily recommend that someone from Turkmenistan should/would want to be around a large Russian community. Perhaps some would but I would think many would not.

@gearmom

I remember when they stood up for the white supremacists marching in Charlottesville…a few months ago. Not much has changed with the ACLU.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/nyregion/aclu-free-speech-rights-charlottesville-skokie-rally.html?_r=0

No. And neither is asking for schools that don’t grant space to underrepresented groups who might feel pressured or slighted in their environment have a place of their own.

@intparent And I just wanted to also point out that having a libertarian streak a mile wide (and no safe spaces) and being a minority should not cause any trouble because if you are libertarian, you have tolerance of all races, religions, sexual orientated and POVs (yes I know OP had an impolitic title and mentioned that.)

Yes – I just think that lots of people are libertarians in theory until they realize that they benefit from some of the things that go away when you are a libertarian. I remember briefly (like, for a day) dabbling in the idea politically until I did some research and realized that I liked having many of the things like a State department, federal parks, a national highway system, social security that isn’t privatized, the FDA to watch over drug safety, keep the federal reserve so we have a reasonably coherent monetary policy, try to keep net neutrality rules in place, etc. So my point is that this student might end up picking a place where people aren’t all that nice to them because they are from a foreign country – and their disdain for safe spaces and rules that help protect minority populations might not sound so bad then.

@inparent Post #44 I don’t think in any way that OP meant that. If OP is actually libertarian then OP is letting us know that they are NOT racist, homophobic, intolerant of religion etc. What I think OP was trying to say was they wanted students and faculty who supported diversity of ideas and expression. A safe space to shield you from discussion that you do not like. I realize that it was a messy trigger inducing title.

@intparent Post #46 Well I’m not going to have a huge political discussion about funding. But just for your own information, that extreme privatization discussion in which you think you represent a libertarian POV doesn’t actual represent most modern libertarian POVs which are more balanced and nuanced if you care. It can be as little as favoring a more fiscally conservative approach.

I really don’t think OP understands our political system. Look at your inaccurate representation of modern libertarianism. We assume we understand people. We read about it somewhere once. I really think OP was simply asking for tolerance of ideas and there was no racially implication understood.

Now you could have explained this to OP in a nice way. Do you understand how people could be affected? It just seems not nice to send a foreign student to a place that they will struggle because they have not been clear.

I just took most of those talking points off the Libertarian Party website, or they are natural conclusions from the long list of items on that website. And I would think a Libertarian would want to give people what they say they want.

^I don’t think that represents most modern libertarians who may or may not agree with what some group that they have no connection to or interest in puts on a website somewhere.

Liberterian and liberal are not the same thing. I known libertarians who like Trump, and I’ve known liberals who really dislike libertarians.

MOST college professors in the US are fairly liberal. MOST large state schools are fairly liberal. SOME state schools and SOME private schools are more liberal than others. UC Berkeley, Wesleyan, Reed, Vassar all come to mind.

Unless your brother has extreme views and wants to be very vocal about it (for example, wants to abolish all government or, conversely, espouses views consistent with fascism) your brother should be fine in MOST larger universities in the US.

@katliamom I know libertarians who voted for Hillary or Johnson. I know libertarians who like liberals and liberals who like libertarians. What is the point? No one said that libertarianism and liberalism are the same but they often find common ground in social areas. And the concepts and principles of liberalism are not owned by either but shared in many ways.

Understanding what OP meant is the key. Obviously OP is not a member of the American Libertarian Party.

You would send a secular minority atheist anywhere in the US?

@gearmom, the point is that OP – not being an American – may not understand libertarians or liberals in the American sense. I used extreme examples to illustrate the ranges of expression seen among these groups in the US.

And yes, I would send a secular minority atheist to MOST larger universities in the US.

Lehigh, and Case Western could be good options.

@Aymyrat You can see how contentious American politics is. You can never really know the politics of a country unless you live in a place. There are always layers. Once you label yourself people will stop asking what you think and tell you why what you think is right or wrong. @MYOS1634 gave you a list of good schools to look at in addition the conservative like New England schools. I’d recommend those. Good luck unless we get more information.

@Aymyrat And one last thing to help you. One in five Americans consider themselves to be libertarian or have a libertarian bent. One third of young people (18-29) consider themselves to be libertarian. And since the Libertarian party was mentioned only a half a million people or 0.5% of the voters are part of that party. There is a strong independent streak and tendency not to join.

@gearmom, I lived in US for two years from 2010 to 2012, so I have little idea about US politics, I understand the difference between political movements, but as posts of @intparent show, most people confuse libertarians with anarchists.

Also, I find it unsettling to just accede to university where different POVs are tolerated ONLY if they are not extreme and not voiced publicly. My brother is a chill guy, he is not fascist, nor white supremacist(we are not even white for beginning), but I believe everybody should have right to have whatever opinion they have. If someone doesn’t agree, he can debate it out with facts and proofs, or he can ignore it. So, there are might be many colleges, where you could not voice your thoughts and just mind your business, but if he wanted that, he would have stayed in Turkmenistan.

Aymyrat, I attended two relatively liberal universities. Opinions ranging from liberal to conservative are almost always welcome, as long as they are respectful and grounded in fact. You are bound to have a few rotten apples on both ends of the spectrum, but those are outliers. If your brother is in deed “a chill guy”, he won’t run into any problems.

I don’t know if it’s an option, but I went to undergrad at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and it has students who are politically all over the place. You’ve got organic pot-smoking hippies living next to students who brought half-a-dozen guns to school. Alaska is probably the most libertarian-leaning state there is, since so many people go up there hoping to do whatever they want and be left alone by the government.

UAF doesn’t get much in the way of outside speakers, though. Too far away from everything.