Colleges without safe spaces and radical liberal faculty

@yearstogo, I don’t know about your experience, but me and my brother, we certainly don’t have any problem with russians and don’t know why we should.

@gearmom #79, that is a good description, especially point about empowering individuals. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to get it across.

I think a good target would be very large midwestern public universities where 1) the sheer numbers make it hard to be overwhelmed by a radical left movement and 2)many midwesterners are politically conservative/mainstream:maybe Ohio State/Penn State/Wash U/Michigan State. Further the wealthier the student body the more hostile the liberalism seems to get. Just my 2 cents.

@MYOS1634 #69, yes, pretty much any foreign university will be a huge jump, we know that, but my brother is in a position where he can choose. He has good grades and good SAT scores and we can pay for any tuition. We are just trying to explore our options. Political and ideological diversity of faculty and students is very important for us, and even more so adamant significance of Free Speech. @roethlisburger provided a link, where it shows how monogamous are most of colleges. Brown has 60 democrats in it’s faculty for 1 republican, across all colleges it is 10 to 1 on average. That is just ridiculous.

My brother is studying in islamic shariah school, same school where I graduated from, as it happens to be the best science school in the country, which produces several ISO winners pretty much every year. When I graduated we got two IPhO bronze medals, one IMO silver, one IMO bronze and one IChO bronze medal. This school also produces multiple winners in composition, history, geography and Turkmen language national olympiads every year. This school is involuntarily liberal, because children of many powerful people are studying there, and teachers can’t pressure children of ministers and millionaires to Islam, even though every single of them is a devoted muslim. Somehow, it happens that around 50% of children at this school become atheist by the time they finish it. In contrast 90% of population in Turkmenistan are muslims. As you can imagine, on a daily basis pupil have heavy heated arguments with each other, teachers and imams , especially about Islam and communism. Debating immorality of prophet Muhammed was a common theme and debates could last for days, if not weeks. Devoted muslims who were citing Qoran and hadith casually and antitheists were existing in a small boarding school. Despite that it never escalates, and school has a very close knit spirit. Cracking a keen joke about “holy cows” like Islam, rape, communism, race, pregnancy or president was and still is totally acceptable and nobody had hard feelings about it. Whatever you say, if it is a joke, it was accepted by everybody and the only thing you can discuss is that whether it was funny or not. Son of a minister of internal affairs had a nickname “Mite” for example (police-sucking blood) and it stuck to him so much, that even teachers, and even his girlfriend was using it. One female teacher who has 7 children has a nickname “Rabbit” and every other year at Halloween she would come in a costume of a rabbit to party. Children, including muslim students, were coming with fake beards to talks with guest imams… Now compare that to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QqgNcktbSA

Two of my best friends, who were in the physics olympiad team with me, are muslim, my first brother, who is one year younger than me and went to the same school, is also muslim, but if we were in France or Canada and someone overheard our discussions we will go to jail for hate speech.

Universities in Turkmenistan are free on paper, but very expensive in reality. You need to bribe around 40-70 grand depending on major, just to stand a chance to be admitted. But over the time it worked out fine for our country, because now, children just go to study abroad. Around 40% of turkmen school graduates and 90% of my school go abroad to Russia, China, Turkey, UK and US to study. As I said, we have broad number of choices, we just are trying to find a “good fit”.

A safe space, as the term was originally defined, is simply a place where students with minority identities can exist without hearing hate speech or experiencing violence or harassment. There are a lot of universities that have safe spaces on campus for students in certain groups that are not in the news, that you would never know about unless you were in that particular minority group, and that also welcome healthy debate and a well-rounded education. SO don’t rule out all universities/colleges with safe spaces.

Most universities will have some radical liberal faculty, since academia tends to be a profession that attracts liberal to very liberal people. What you want is not zero radical liberal faculty but a balance of viewpoints. There are lots of universities that have that.

So my advice to you and your brother is to start making a list of schools that fit him based on his stats and preferences (size, location, funding for international students if you need it, activities, etc.) and then start investigating what student life is like on campus from there. I’m sure there are some standout campuses that you’ll likely want to avoid (e.g. Oberlin, Reed, Evergreen State College) but those are unlikely to be places you would be drawn to in the first place.

You might find sizable libertarian populations in some states and regions that tend to be left-liberal, but also have strong tech communities. Washington State and Colorado come to mind immediately: people are often free-market libertarians, but strongly in favor of things like marriage equality and cannabis legalization. That probably applies to most Western states. If you want a smaller college, look into Claremont-McKenna. It probably leans more to the left than you might like, but is more libertarian than other colleges in California. It used to be all-male (previously called “Claremont Men’s College”) and once had a reputation for being pretty right-wing. It is now more diverse, and the other four colleges within the Claremont Consortium are very liberal, but it continues to have a pro-business slant. I’d add Vanderbilt and Tulane to your list, also. The southern atmosphere balances out the liberal inclinations of many faculty members. Washington U in St. Louis, Rice, and SMU could also fit your requirements.

@Aymyrat thank you for telling us about your school, it’s fascinating.
Talking about Colorado, CU-Boulder is extremely liberal but probably more relaxed about it than the coastal “elites”. CU-ColoSprings is probably more conservative, as the town is very conservative. Co.School of Mines is also fairly conservative, and Colorado College may be a good bet. There are certainly a good number of free-market, cannabis-smoking libertarians in CO (especially the mountains), but I’m afraid they’re a dying breed.
However, you have to keep in mind that the situation in the US is so fraught now that people from both sides are jumpy and easily offended. You might also look at colleges in Canada, which is of course more liberal on average but also significantly more relaxed about politics.

@Aymyrat Also maybe Northeastern. STEM focused schools in New England add a conservative element. I’d still think you could consider UMass Amherst UNH, URI, UMaine Orono as New England flagships that could work for you.

@yucca10 Had a good suggestion about Canadian schools.

What could happen in general is that you find a group of friends that you enjoy discussing politics with rather than the general population of the school.

MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Closing thread. Enough comments have been made. Additionally, in the future, your brother needs to ask his own questions. “Asking for a friend” posts are not allowed.