@Massmomm may I also add that “libtard” is completely demeaning of the person who says that word (not you of course because you’re attempting to show how damaging it can be). It shows that not only is the person so biased that he/she can’t hear the “liberal” perspective, but also that the person thinks of mentally handicapped people as “■■■■■■■” and as something worthy of contempt. That word is just horrible in many respects.
Someone upthread asked for instances when conservative campuses have shut down or not allowed liberal speakers. I know of at least four instances when intolerance occured. Notice that none have been blown up in the media for political gain (or for news ratings or whatever may be the reason any of these instances are blow up in the media). Only the more liberal examples are blown up in the media and on discussions such as these boards.
I find that interesting.
Here are some examples that I just generally know of. I’m sure that if a person were to research this, the list would be much longer.
One: Wheaton College in Illinois (not Massachusetts) fired a professor for wearing a headscarf. Two: Hope College had to run an editorial to float the possibility of maybe considering inviting their first liberal to campus – meaning that until then the campus had basically shut down anything resembling “liberal” – they were so shut down that they were not allowed on campus. Three: When Liberty U forced a liberal speaker off of the campus. Fourth: A self-described Christian University not allowing all sorts of speech on campus that may “stray” from it’s Christian roots. Those are the guidelines that exist from the admininistration there. In addition, the colege – apparently not censoring of thought, speech, and behavior enough for the students, the students formed an anonymous self-described conservative underground to pull the admin further right. The students’ conservative underground asked for additional censorship of speech and thought on campus that restricts not just what the students CAN say, but also advocates the more harmful sort of censorship that specifies what professors and students are required TO say --such as the requirement that a professor of biology teach creationism instead of evolution.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/28/christian-university-debates-anonymous-conservative-underground-publication?reload
@Dustyfeathers, I asked whether anyone could “link to some news stories of conservatives at college shouting down some liberal speakers or maybe shutting down a few scheduled appearances.” (My post #23 above, emphasis added.)
You’ve offered four instances at evangelical colleges that do not address my question at all. Thanks for the information anyway; I always like to read about what is going on out there.
My request is still open. As I am sure everyone knows, you don’t have to go very far to see how liberals behave when conservatives are invited to speak.
No need for me to provide endless links, but this one is representative, recounting how a female Middlebury College professor was injured last year escorting Charles Murray from a talk, which itself had turned into a circus: http://www.addisonindependent.com/201703middlebury-college-professor-injured-protesters-she-escorted-controversial-speaker
I’m happy to provide many more links to disruptions, shoutings down, disinvitations as a result of liberal student pressure, etc. But they are not hard to find.
My kids have accused me of that for years. 
I randomly googled American Studies and drilled down into the first college that popped up. At that school, AS, which is part of the History Department, required 14 courses for the major, across the disciplines that you note. The History major at that college requires 11 courses, all in the History department, and one of which is a senior seminar. But note, the AS major (in the History Deparment) only requires two history courses. The rest of the 14 can be lit, film, econ, culture, (or history), and the like. Personally, I’d love to take the ‘History of Rock’ (from the film/comm area, not History…). But interdisciplinary by its definition is breadth. It has to be.
Regardless, this is getting off point, and since I’ve contributed my part over the years to thread creep… 
Just noting that the OP talked about needing to stay in-state for financial reasons, which suggests he’s looking at public schools, not private schools.
There are plenty of private schools on both right and left that just don’t make sense for someone who doesn’t fit the ethos. Heck, there are countless schools where students are required to adhere to explicit articles of faith. Not every private school counts viewpoint diversity as a value. You can come up with some public schools like that; I would be pretty out of place at Dixie State in Utah. But you have to go pretty far out of your way to find them.
@Dustyfeathers - aren’t all those examples from colleges that have a clear religious affiliation? If a student chooses to attend a college that is established to promote and support a particular religion, then it is not unreasonable to expect that the mores of that religion will dictate campus events. Do you have some examples of liberal speakers being shut down at campuses that do not have a religious affiliation?
Conservative =/= religious. There are plenty of people who hold conservative viewpoints that do not have any religious affiliation. Similar to how liberal =/= atheist. Plenty of people hold liberal viewpoints and also hold religious beliefs.
@SatchelSF they are not hard to find, this took me about 10 seconds.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/09/18/incidents-harvard-and-catholic-universities-run-counter-narrative-about-campus - Manning was discussed here at the time because, well Harvard, I guess
Thanks. The first link is helpful.
The second is about the withdrawal of an invitation for Manning to act as a Visiting Lecturer and specifically mentions that it was withdrawn, at least implicitly in substantial part, after pressure from politicians, and so is only of very limited relevance to my request.
The third (WaPo article) is irrelevant. As far as I can tell, it does not recount even a single instance of what I was requesting. Did I miss something in there?
BTW, to see how liberals are not shy about shouting down what are supposed to be reasoned gatherings, just turn on the news right now and watch the Kavanaugh hearings.
Manning wasn’t opposed by liberal politicians but whatever.
@bluebayou, I don’t want to beat a dead horse either, but I find it interesting that you think breadth over depth of education is a bad thing. The world needs both broadly educated and narrowly educated people. The focus lately has been on drilling deep, (and understandably, this is what many people want when they’re paying $260K for a degree,) but studying a range of things isn’t necessarily going to lead to a poor education. People who major in say, medieval studies, may be able to see historical patterns of thought than can contribute to solutions today. Or not. Maybe they’re just really fun to talk to.
But when I responded to your “avoid studies majors” post, what I really meant (and what I think you know) is that not all ___ studies majors are alike. It’s true that people who choose gender studies or women’s studies are highly likely to have a strong political viewpoint that will be the opposite of conservative, but not all are necessarily going to be hostile and close-minded.
I agree with @Massmomm
Reality is not Actually made up of distinct and separate categories called mathematics, chemistry, physics, philosophy, history, literature, psychology…etc.
These allow for intricate dissection of subcategories with specialized vocabularies, but the whole purpose of using that knowledge to gain a better understanding of the world and our place in it --can be lost in translation.
Some people, myself included, just want to see how it all fits together.
We need to understand that not only is there a forest, there is an infinite web of interrelated systems.
Oh I think it can be hard. You have to decide all the time when to call someone on something they said, or when to just let things slide. I’ve been grappling with @ucbalumnus’ comment that immigration is a proxy issue for race/ethnicity.
I don’t know what is meant by that. I initially took it as, if you are anti-immigration then you are racist. Then I took it as you have to be careful with the immigration discussion because it has a disparate impact on some races so it can be an emotional issue, which is what I think was meant. I think it can be exhausting to constantly examine your wording to make sure that your words are truly conveying what you feel. And it can be difficult if you are in an emotionally charged atmosphere and have to constantly defend your thoughts. But, even though these are difficult things, if you are up to the challenge, I think you will be learning excellent skills that will really help you in your life: learning how to focus on your words, learning how to take an emotional situation and diffuse it so you can have an open dialogue and improve things, learning how to be persuasive, learning how to stand up for yourself. And besides those skills helping you, I think our society desperately needs our people to engage with each other and listen to others’ perspectives and convey their own. So, if you are up for it, we need respectful people to engage, so please consider it.
Great advice @melvin123, though in this politically charged environment where identity politics rule, it will certainly be an uphill battle.
@SatchelSF. Is the idea that silence is good? You used the word “shouting” as the criteria for a seemingly “bad” act on campuses. That seems to forget that silence can and does shut down discussion, keep ideas from entering the discussion, marginalize the unpopular opinion, marginalize the unpopular person into a scapegoat, and censor free speech–as seems to be the case at conservative campuses that I listed.
It was never stated that religion = conservative. Not at all. It just seems that many of the extreme examples of censorship happened to be at conservative colleges that happened to also have religious affiliation. Many many of the so-called liberal campuses have religious affiliation – does that excuse any act of censorship they might happen to engage in? Or are only conservative religious colleges excused and exempt from criticism? Are only liberal religious schools ripe for criticism? I mean why single them out?
To support that religion doesn’t equal conservative, here are a few liberal campuses with religious affiliation. St. Olaf is one example of a religious school with a liberal bias, open to ideas, progressively , accepting of people of various sorts. Santa Clara is another example of a religious school with a liberal bias – open to new ideas, progressive, accepting of various lifestyles. Then there’s Earlham, ditto the above. Oberlin is another. And then there’s the entire Quaker consortium of liberal-leaning schools.
I personally do not agree that because an educational institution is religious it should never entertain thoughts outside of that religion. What’s good for liberal colleges should be good for conservative ones. As we’ve seen religion isn’t a good beard for censoring activities. Nor is silence. To censor to the extent that you fire a tenured professor over her choice of headwear proves insecurity of the institution. It’s a snowflake institution. The same goes for schools that usher off campus liberal speaker (Liberty); that keeps any liberal speaker from speaking for its entire history apparently (Hope); and one where the students are hiding who they are to create an environment of silent intimidation in order to force biology professors to teach creationism (Taylor).
“Many many of the so-called liberal campuses have religious affiliation – does that excuse any act of censorship they might happen to engage in?”
You addressed Satchel but since that’s an issue I raised in my post, I’m responding. No, censorship shouldn’t depend on which political views are being expressed. But for the purposes of discussing what the OP asked and examining how able conservative students are to express views and feel comfortable, it’s important to separate out religious colleges from non-religious colleges regardless of political bent. Any college with a religious affiliation is going to have different issues and that is well-known to students who choose to attend a religious college. That is a different issue than certain students feeling uncomfortable discussing politics at a non-religious college, where it wouldn’t necessarily be assumed to follow any particular dogma.
Professor Haidt (NYU) recently gave an excellent, thought-provoking talk at Middlebury College that is directly relevant to OP’s question of how a conservative would fare at a liberal college. If you are interested in viewpoint diversity, it’s a 10 minute excerpt you won’t regret spending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uogEbb0WOJE
I haven’t read his latest book (The Coddling of the American Mind) but his previous The Righteous Mind is excellent and is required reading in my kid’s AP English Language class. His website project, https://heterodoxacademy.org/, is dedicated to questions of academic viewpoint diversity and claims to represent 1800 professors and graduate student affiliates.
I’m so surprised that no one in this thread is questioning the OPs unspoken assumption that liberal state=all in-state choices will have a liberal campus vibe. OP, if you are limited to one state for your choices, do research on all of your in-state options to find ones that fit you, political leanings and otherwise.
Your question didnt really make sense. But if you go into anyplace - school, job— with a closed mind and attitude you won’t have a good experience. No matter where you go to school, even the reddest of red states, there will be people who disagree on policy.
Agree with klbmom. I have a VERY conservative friend (religiously, politically, socially) who recently described a mutal acquaintance as being “a right wing lunatic”. I asked what that meant (I’m very liberal politically although I have friends, spouse, etc. who disagree with me on virtually everything) since in some circles, my friend would be described as a right wing lunatic herself!
So she surprised me- this mutual acquaintance does not believe in evolution, thinks that our shared DNA with other primates is “a coincidence”, and does not believe in vaccinations (plot from the government to spread disease).
So yes- no matter how conservative you are, there will ALWAYS be someone you consider to be a lunatic who is even more out there than you are!!! Best to keep an open mind about the people you meet, IMHO. I’ll still get my flu shot but won’t bother debating with someone who thinks the government is trying to poison us with vaccines.
“no one in this thread is questioning the OPs unspoken assumption that liberal state=all in-state choices will have a liberal campus vibe.”
Yeah, I did. Twice.