Detailed Report of life as a Conservative/ Republican at Philips Exeter Academy.

Prep School Admissions
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Hello all. As some of you know, I am a conservative, and I am a new lower at PEA. I wanted to write this post after weeks of frustration, and anger.

For one thing, when I heard that boarding schools, PEA in particular, are extremely liberal, I did not think much of it, but after roughly 4 weeks of being here, it truly is disgusting. The second I came out as a conservative, it was akin to telling an extremely religious parents that you are gay ( I am not gay, but this is just simply an analogy).

You are immediately, ostracized by most of the school, ridiculed, called a rapist supporter, racist, and other horrible names. This is despite the fact that I am socially progressive, as I have no problems if my friend were to be gay, or that an Asian student was dating a white peer, etc.

Teachers REQUIRED students to introduce their name, year, where they are from, and what pronoun they would like to be
referred to. What is this? Along with this, I referred to a male student as he, and was immediately called out by my teacher. If words, such as gay, retarded, or even gender identity came up, the teacher would immediately shift the discussion to MAKE SURE that all students followed the leftist agenda. This school simply cares to much about offending people, compared to actually teaching and getting work done. Like right now, there is a discussion about whether or not, that the paintings hung around the Assembly Hall at Exeter, should be taken done. Why you may ask? Simply due to the fact that the majority of paintings were of previous principals (who happened to be white men). Some claim that these paintings of past principals are “intimidating, and not showcasing the diversity of the current school population”. I am sorry, but are you for real? You came to Exeter to receive an education, not to feel offended by the slightest of things.

There is simply no “safe haven” for Republicans or conservatives. For those of you who are unfamiliar to PEA, every Tuesday and Thursday, the whole school gathers at the Assembly hall, and we listen to students, faculty, or an alumni speak about a certain issue. However, most of, if not all, speakers are extremely left. Although, there is a Republican club, everyone who attends are frowned upon by most of the community. I can personally say that when I tell people that I am apart of Republican club, they immediately start to ridicule me, and getting angry at my beliefs.

At a recent ALES (American Latino Exeter Society), I was referenced by one of my dorm mates, and they spent the whole club meeting bashing me and my ideas. Im sure, if this was the other way around, there would be an uproar, and I would be asked to withdraw.

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P.S The sentence that I said about how if words such as gay, retarded, etc, were brought up, I was referring to it appearing it in a novel, or story. For instance, gender identity came up in a novel, and the teacher immediately shifted the discussion from, talking about the book, to gender identity.

Essentially, if you are a Republican/ Conservative, make sure you keep that a secret, but better yet, apply somewhere that is more accepting of Republicans.

If someone asks why don’t I just drop out of Exeter if I hate how PC it is, well I’m sure no one will willingly throw away 2 years of their life, and throw away thousands of dollars for nothing.

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Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to discuss religion or politics in polite company?

Maybe people simply don’t want to hear about your political views.

I suggest you lighten up. Perhaps getting that chip off your shoulder would be a good start.

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@Astro77 you are extremely rude to the OP. PEA discusses this stuff 24/7. So the OP isnt allowed to discuss his views? The ALES group said last Spring that they felt uncomfortable talking to faculty that didnt share their racial/cultural backgrounds. And demanded they hire more minorities. Imagine if a white student did that? I feel for you @Bunny8280

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So essentially, you are asking me to shut up, and not give my side of the argument? And liberals claim that they believe in free speech. Like @Center stated, everyday, it’s always something about being PC, having a Leftist speaker at Assembly, or even having dinner, and politics come up.

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@Bunny8280 As an alum, I’m very sorry to hear about your experiences. I come from a different era but given the political climate today, I don’t doubt what you write. With that said, it’s not about shutting up or speaking up - it’s about what comes out of your mouth. Calling you racist or a rapist (assuming you are not those things) is wrong and indefensible, but IMHO, the tone in your post is not exactly docile either (leftist agenda, disgusting, are you for real, and so on). There’s a difference between arguing and making an argument. The former is just spouting off opinions and rarely helpful or useful. The latter is making a claim, supporting it in a logical way, and understanding its limitations. If you’re speaking up to make a compelling argument for conservative values, then you a providing a valuable viewpoint that’s keeping Exeter from becoming a liberal echo chamber. If you are just arguing, then you are probably part of the problem.

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I would suggest you just grin and bear it. Or at least just bear it. What else can you do?

My kid had the opposite experience. She chose to go to a conservative Catholic high school. She thought it wouldn’t be a problem. She didn’t want to go to a large public high school, and her school was the only alternative. But a LOT of things in the school environment really bothered her - she didn’t like every subject being taught with a religious and conservative political agenda. She was adopted from China (left on the steps of an orphanage when she was a baby just because she was female) and she had to listen to a female teacher who told her class that females have never been oppressed throughout history - that they had a special role in life that might be different from men, but that role was important and shouldn’t be looked at as a form of oppression. You can bet she was thinking “What the heck is this?” “You’ve got a kid sitting right in front of you that was literally abandoned because she was female - are you telling me that was my role in society?”

She was also expected to accept and agree with the idea that two parent heterosexual families are morally superior - she came home after that class discussion and told me “Mom, I wanted so bad to tell them that there are lots of kids like me who need families, and it doesn’t matter to us what kind of family we get: Mom, Dad, two moms, two dads - as long as we have someone to love and take care of us.” I never told her that she was exactly correct, because when her Dad and I adopted her, there were some orphanages in China that had over a 80% rate of infant mortality. Every child that was adopted during that time period was given a chance not only to have a family, but a much higher chance of simply surviving. The millions of orphans around the world who need families sure aren’t worried about any two parent heterosexual nonsense - my kid knew that from personal experience - and yet again, some adult was pontificating and was oblivious to the fact that there was at least one person in the room who had a compelling argument against that dogma.

There were many other times when she felt like her teachers, classmates, and school staff were being extremely narrow minded and naive about some issues and felt very frustrated. She felt like many of them had grown up in a sheltered bubble and couldn’t see anything beyond their own front porch. She didn’t share her feelings with anyone but her close friends and us as she thought she would be looked upon negatively for her opinions.

She was also REQUIRED to do things that she didn’t particularly enjoy - like having to attend religious services weekly, and having to take religious classes every year that were meant to cement a belief system into her brain that she didn’t totally agree with.

But when she vented to me about these things, I told that she could always transfer to the public school, and she always chose not to. She had a core group of good friends, knew she was getting a good education, and was able to participate in a lot of activities that she enjoyed, so she was willing to to put up with the negative aspects of her experience. She thought, in the grand scheme of things, her school was the right choice. During the last weeks of her senior year, when her she realized that she probably would never see her most of her classmates again, she regretted that she didn’t try harder to get to know some of them better. Others obviously felt the same way, as there was a flurry of Facebook friending and grad party invitations from people she was never very close to. Who knows what kind of relationships she and her classmates could have had if they’d been willing to look past their differences a couple of years earlier?

Anyway, she survived and is now attending a great college that is a much better fit for her regarding her political and personal beliefs. It’s ironic that she might not have gotten accepted there if she had gone to the lower ranked public high school that had more diversity in people and ideas. I think you are probably in the same situation - I’m sure you’ll have a much higher chance of getting into a great college and have better life opportunities if you stay exactly where you are. Is there any other significant reason why you decided to attend PEA other than those? Probably not.

So like I said, just try to keep you eye on the end result. Try hard to see the positives of that school that you have are so fortunate to be able to attend. Develop and maintain friendship with people that share your values and try to be tolerant of people who don’t. Everyone is unique and has different experiences that shape their beliefs. Since my daughters look and behave like normal American teenagers, it seems like the overwhelming majority of people think that they were somehow born as Chinese people from my Caucasian body. They never even consider that it was a sorrowful event that brought them to our family, that they suffered greatly from living in an institution for the first year of their lives, or that they came to us because their birth country didn’t think they were valuable because of their gender.

Your school is trying to teach you that being “PC” is being kind and understanding to people, like my daughters, LBTQ persons, “retarded” persons, etc. who have suffered because of their backgrounds and differences. I hope that sharing my story gives you some food for thought about why being “PC” is a good thing. And I hope my daughter’s ability to hang in there in her equally aggravating but opposite school environment will inspire you to do the same.

Finally, I think she was wise to zip her lips and not rock the boat. You might want to give that approach a go.

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We live in especially fractious times.

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So let me understand this. The book referenced gender identity, and from there the discussion morphed into “■■■■■■■■” (which has nothing to do with gender identity) and the teacher had the audacity to get the discussion back on track???

To quote Joseph Conrad: “The horror! The horror!” :))

You may be reading too much into some things, IMO.

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No, I believe you read it wrong, or it’s just my wording. @skieurope. Let me reword the situation. So basically, we were in class discussing about a character who was a guitar player. So, we were discussing about the player, and the story, etc. Then, the word “gay” appeared in the reading. The teacher immediately changed the conversation to how the current world is “intolerant to gays” and, we went totally off track.

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I feel for you, OP, I really do! Not sure what you were expecting; it’s common knowledge that the political climate and de facto restrictions on speech at elite institutions these days are oppressive, in the literal sense that those who adhere to the politically correct orthodoxy seek to oppress those who do not. As a conservative, you may understand that as the size and role of government in society become larger, a correspondingly larger part of civil life becomes politicized. This fact will inevitably be reflected in society’s elite institutions, whose primary role, after all, is to perpetuate the power of the elites.

But enough of that. As a practical matter, try to be a happy warrior at school, developing and expressing your arguments and thoughts with logic, calm, and, above all, humor. Try to learn whatever you can from whomever you can. Contrary to what you’ve been told, most of your classmates and faculty are not that exceptional, not that special, not that accomplished, etc. But some truly are. Seek them out and make the most of your PEA experience. You owe that much to your parents, who are probably paying a fortune for this experience. And if you happen to be on financial aid, well, then, all the better. Remember the totality of your experiences when, after you graduate, the school comes looking for donations. In any event, best of luck!

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@Bunny8280 It’s hard to take the high road when you feel constantly attacked. I feel for you. There definitely is some intolerance or at the very least some feeling of superiority frequently on display by the many liberals at most boarding schools, and you are also finding yourself in the political minority, maybe for the first time depending on where you grew up. I am the only liberal in my Republican family and it can be quite uncomfortable. I can’t imagine having that same experience at school. My boarding school was fairly mixed but these are partisan times.

However, you are in a great position to challenge, respectfully, those ideas that contradict your own. A diversity of thought is supposedly much sought after at BS and although not every student is going to embrace or even accept your views, you have the opportunity to expose the others to a different point of view. I would call out intolerance where you find it but at the same time, be equally open and accepting of the school’s progressive and inclusive teachings. IMHO it doesn’t hurt you or your education to call someone by an alternative pronoun and I too found this switch awkward when my daughter first explained kids at her BS preferring “they” to “he/she”, but if it helps the person who requested a switch to feel supported and open, I’m fine with that. It may give the girls on campus courage to see female portraits on the walls. What is the true rational for displaying former heads of school all together versus spread all over campus? Is it important to you personally to preserve the school’s history in this fashion? Or do you just think this is a lame idea? There are mental health issues in my family and I know that if you used the word “retarded” in class, even quoting from a book, my daughters would call you out for it as they have family who once upon a time were labelled that way and it is personal to them and demeaning. You need to be prepared to defend your ideas rationally, and that’s hard work and I imagine more than a little tiresome. These are discussions happening at campuses everywhere right now and you are uniquely situated to contribute to those discussions in a meaningful way but make sure you carefully reason through your own beliefs and contribute to the conversation in ways that help move the dialogue forward and are inclusive, otherwise you will be tagged intolerant, fairly or not. I think the PEA kids are lucky to have you - it’s a teachable moment as they say. It’s not ok to scapegoat or name call you but respectful disagreement and conversation should be tolerated by everyone.

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I guess one really had to be there, but OK.

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@skieurope the OP is perhaps not articulating his/her distress well but I have heard this same story from my kids over and over as well as from other kids and their parents. The school has, in many ways, spun out of control. The school has a vocal and dangerously empowered group of young people (primarily ALES-,the afro-latino group) who chose to go to PEA and now decry it as not “woke”, full of white faculty, full of white students who are racist and don’t even realize it (if someone mispronounces a student’s acquired african name then that is intentionally racist. Apparently mispronouncing someone’s polish or italian last name is not similarly egregious). For those of you that roll your eyes I suggest you think hard about why. I posit that you are doing exactly what the OP is so frustrated about. “school” should be for education, enlightenment, teaching them to think critically and debate with an open mind using facts as a foundation. Not bullying or denigrating those that dont agree. Further to assign guilt, hidden/unknown is reprehensible. This is the new tactic of the left. You dont like my politics you must be a racist. You are a man you are guilty without proof of sexual assault. You dont like Obama, it is because he is black and so on.

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It is so sad to hear all this, for a host off reasons. Critical thinking is important and group-think is always dangerous, no matter the root ideology. You have been given a myriad of replies here. Some are wonderfully thought out observations and helpful advice and I urge you to listen. You also got some hostility of course, but that is also to be expected and you should try to react with reason to all of that. Remember that “If it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger” and in this case, it makes your mind, heart and let’s face it - your basic survival skills - stronger. If you are humanities oriented, for example, life may be more uncomfortable for you than if you are a math or science kid. Regardless, try to remain respectful, even if others are snarking at you. No “safe spaces” for you my dear… and be darn glad that you don’t need that kind of nonsense when you can think critically, debate ideas thoughtfully, can be genuinely open minded and reason, and remain true to yourself. If they refuse to engage the way you would like, then so be it and it is their loss. Best of luck!

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Another thing. We all know how difficult it can be to bond with the returning students. Especially, since I am a new lower, and most lowers have already formed their social group (I am still struggling a bit with this aspect but that is a different issue). So, for the past 40 years, Exeter had a tradition, where there would be no class, and it would be a day dedicated for dorm mates to bond by either going to the beach, or for my dorm, we were suppose to go to a laser tag/ go kart place. Essentially, it was something that the whole dorm was looking forward to, and I was looking forward to bond with my new dorm mates. However,ALES, decided that we should instead, spend the day, and talk about race. All in all, let’s just say that not many people were happy with this. During our discussion, we were given prompts,. written by the school. One of the prompts was " a white student was doing his homework during an assembly about police brutality against blacks. A black girl created a post on FB, and claimed the white guy was racist. How do you feel about this?" I kid you not, those were exact words.

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Does that gender neutral rule at school apply in your French and Spanish classes? It would make lit easier!
But seriously, let me pour some more lighter fluid on the hot coals-- do you have to adjust your term papers to be gender neutral? A teacher at another school tried that and she got reassigned. One of the wonderful things that attract people t to BS is living with and learning from students from different cultures, countries and experiences. It’s important to be sensitive and kind to others, also to see the world from another’s perspective. At the same time, I think good intentions can be taken to the extreme. Here students have spent a great deal of time discussing political issues in a variety of classrooms (science, math, English) in our beautifully diverse school. IMHO the discourse has eaten up too much classroom time – our students are great political debaters but not enough 3 R’s. My hope for young OP is that you find a support system at school and take this as an important learning opportunity-- you will come away from this having matured and feeling stronger :wink:

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Like I said, those who attend Republican club are looked down upon. My friend received a bad grade on his history report, because of his different views. When I read it, there was nothing wrong with it. I believe he got points of because he tried to counter the argument that a black man, will have a higher likelyhood of being poor compared to being white. My friend pointed out how most black families only have 1 parent, compared to most white families, have 2. I am sure that it’s obvious to most that a two parent household, will earn more than a one parent household. But nope, the teacher decided that since my friend did not bring up “inherited racism”, he should receive a worse grade.

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This thread truly demonstrates how important it is to match, as well as possible, the student with the right collegiate environment. Sounds like a more conservative college would have been a better choice. I know that sometimes other factors override which college we choose (i.e. Merit aid, prestige, liklihood of acceptance, location, etc.), which is understandable. But one cannot put a price on peace of mind. I’m all for personal growth but not at the expense of my children’s health and happiness. Since my children have grown up in a predominantly White conservative Evangelical area, they tend to be the only minority children in everything they participate in. They’ve dealt with a lot and are made quite aware of their differences by their peers, parents and teachers but if I believed that they were unhappy I would have changed their environment to a more diverse one without question. Instead they have grown tremendously and I believe that they will be well prepared to live their lives in a diverse world. Keeping their experiences in mind, demonstrated and supported diversity (not just racial/economic diversity but also the diversity of thought) is a top priority for the colleges they are interested in.

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I’m not doubting that your feelings are real - I am sure that they are. But I have to once again say that I think you are reading too much into many perceived slights. For instance:

Without seeing the assignment myself, I have to wonder if your friend received a lower grade because he discussed “inherited racism” where the assignment was to discuss “inherent racism.”

Regardless, while your friend’s paper may have looked fine you as a ~15 year old, an instructor that most likely has at least a master’s degree probably has a little more insight. But that’s for your friend to discern, not you.

While you may have legitimate concerns, for me at least, there’s too much emotional “fluff” in what you write which seems to be overshadow what the real issues are.