Guide to the Most (and Least) Politically Diverse Colleges,

[fractalmstr]

Speaking of Berkeley…aka Bezerkeley. The People’s Republic of Berkeley, etc. etc. etc.

When I graduated - in 1980 - the biggest club on campus was the Young Republicans. And there were Reagan signs posted on the front laws of Frat Row.

Schools are more diverse than either the right or the left would have you believe. That was true then and true now.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116130960571998544

Being a Republican at a liberal college isn’t easy. Andrea Rasmussen, 22, an integrative biology and anthropology major who is a vice president of the club, says some fellow students once threatened to shoot her for her conservative beliefs. Mr. Prendergast, who also works as a local restaurant waiter, says some of his friends have been spat on and called fascists.

Racially diverse maybe, but Berkeley sounds pretty hostile if you are not politically left-leaning…

Now let’s go back to the Liberty example…

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/bernie-sanders-speaks-liberty-university

***Though they demonstrated their disagreements, Liberty students – to a person – said they were extremely grateful that Sanders came and appreciated the opportunity to hear a viewpoint challenged their own.

“Kuddos for him for saying it,” freshman Thomas Lisa said of his abortion answer. “It wasn’t easy, I know, talking about gay marriage and abortion to a school like this.”

Junior Chris Hill, who sat in the front row, said his friends on campus were very curious to hear Sanders speak. “We’ve wanted a liberal to come here. We’ve invited Hillary Clinton, we’ve invited Barack Obama, we’ve invited Martin O’Malley. Bernie is the only one to be here,” he said.

Few said their minds were changed. “I don’t think he picked up too many votes,” said sophomore Logan Price.

But for the handful of students at Liberty who don’t fit in with the stridently conservative culture on campus, Sanders’ speech was like a breath of fresh air.

“I’m a black liberal at Liberty University, so I’m in a double minority,” said Joshua McMillion. “This was the best convocation I’ve ever experienced.”***

I consider myself a liberal, but in all fairness, I applaud these kids for treating Bernie with respect, even though I know many disagreed with his views.

[katliamom]

^^ LOL. Can’t be that hostile since even the title of the article is “Young Republicans Now Flourishing at UC Berkeley”

[Much2learn]

If you want to avoid PC schools, try Penn. Almost all the students use MacBooks.

[Zinhead]

@Cobrat

Ironically, Lincoln would be horrified and the Radical Republican politicians during the Civil War/Reconstruction period would be moreso if they somehow came back to life and saw what the Republican party has become.

Especially after the 1950’s and '60s when large numbers of conservative former southern Democrats like Strom Thurmond left for the Republican party due to increasing influences of Democratic politicians more sympathetic to Civil Rights and ending Jim Crow laws in the south. Nixon’s Southern Strategy campaign in 1968 cemented and largely completed this trend.

That is a bit of revisionist history.Lincoln was anti-slavery but he did not believe in the equality of the races. If he would be horrified at the modern Republic party, it would be that they had black men in a serious run for the presidency in the last few election cycles.

[Gator88NE]

It common to “project” our biases on those that lived long ago, but we forget they where creatures of their time, not ours. It’s a silly exercise. As Zinhead said, Lincoln was complicated; we have no idea how he would adapt to the current world/time.

[cobrat]

That is a bit of revisionist history.Lincoln was anti-slavery but he did not believe in the equality of the races. If he would be horrified at the modern Republic party, it would be that they had black men in a serious run for the presidency in the last few election cycles.

Actually, you’re the one engaging in a bit of revisionist history…especially by omitting the fact Lincoln’s views on race and racial equality evolved to the point he came around later in his life.

To illustrate this, he wrote the following sometime in the 1850’s…well before he ran for office and became President:

: “If A can prove… that he may, of right, enslave B.—why may not B snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A? –You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own. You do not mean color exactly? –You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own. But, say you, it is a question of interest; and if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.”

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln2/1:264?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

While taken for granted today by most reasonable people, the expression of racial equality above was extremely radical for the time even among some of the more mainstream “polite” abolitionists of the era.

From his own writings, one can understand why many White southerners…overwhelmingly conservative Southern Democrats of that era in particular STRONGLY SUSPECTED him of abolitionist sympathies and thus, felt the need to influence their respective states to secede from the union to preserve their “states rights” to own and maintain slaves as personal property and to have that right protected by laws which cover protection of other forms of personal property once he was elected president.

[EarlVanDorn]

I find some of the comments about wanting to “take a shower” after reading the article or some of the comments pretty illustrative of the extreme liberalism that has overtaken college campuses. Most of the universities mentioned in the article do not have a conservative faculty at all; rather they are listed because they have at least one conservative faculty member in most departments. And yet some of you find even the slightest exposure to conservative thought objectionable.

Diversity czars have taken over many campuses, and if that’s what these people want, fine. But I want my children to attend a college where everyone uses proper English pronouns, where Santa is allowed to come to the Christmas party, where the food service workers wear sombreros or lederhosen on Mexican or German night in the cafeteria, and so forth. I’d like for them to be exposed to a variety of viewpoints, both liberal and conservative. I think the “safe space” movement is beyond silly, but I do want my children to be safe from the type of violent physical and verbal racial attacks of the type that Dartmouth students suffered recently while trying to study in the library.

I have two children; my son is a high school junior and a socialist. My daughter is a very conservative sophomore who absolutely loathes extremist liberals. In helping my children find the right college, I am certainly going to take their personalities and political leanings into consideration. For my son this might well be a place where there are lots of protests that he can join in with. For my daughter it means finding a place where I expect there never to be any type of lefty protest, ever.

As the article suggests, we do need true diversity within and between universities. There is a place for very liberal colleges, but we also need colleges that are equally conservative. And I would hope most schools would have a faculty mix that reflects society at large, with about a third liberal, a third conservative, and a third moderate or apolitical. There’s simply nothing radical about this notion.

[katliamom]

Most professors and university staff are liberal. Is it their nature – or the nature of academia?

I’ve never understood why more conservatives don’t go into academics, and all I can conclude is that they don’t want to stay in college for 8 years or more, then compete nationally for a job that’s unlikely to end in tenure, with a salary that’s unlikely to be enough to send their kids to the same university where they’re teaching.

Make universities places where folks can earn a fortune and maybe more conservatives would bother.

[ucbalumnus]

Fiscal or economic conservatives probably are not too hard to find at universities. Social and religious conservatives seem to be less common, possibly because some academic subjects involve questioning religious doctrine (e.g. evolution) or involve subjects that they prefer not to talk about (e.g. prostitution).

[sorghum]

I’ve never understood why more conservatives don’t go into academics, and all I can conclude is that they don’t want to stay in college for 8 years or more, then compete nationally for a job that’s unlikely to end in tenure, with a salary that’s unlikely to be enough to send their kids to the same university where they’re teaching.

In other words, conservatives are more sensible.

[Zinhead]

Actually, you’re the one engaging in a bit of revisionist history…especially by omitting the fact Lincoln’s views on race and racial equality evolved to the point he came around later in his life.

President Lincoln can speak for himself on this issue.

First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois August 21, 1858. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln3/1:1?rgn=div1;singlegenre=All;sort=occur;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=political+equality#hl1

Now gentlemen, I don’t want to read at any greater length, but this is the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the institution of slavery and the black race. This is the whole of it, and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro, is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects—certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.

There are other quotes along these lines. Your hypothetical opinion of Lincoln’s thoughts on the modern Republican party has no basis.

[cobrat]

President Lincoln can speak for himself on this issue.

Zinhead,

I see you completely ignored the fact I was quoting a passage directly from his PERSONAL writings in the mid-1850’s…well before that debate.

One thing you’re ignoring is public speeches given by politicians must to some level allow for and play to the attitudes of the critical majority of a given potential electorate…however unfortunate those attitudes may be. Considering the vast majority of White Americans of that era…especially those who could vote had attitudes which viewed AAs as inherently inferior…even among the more “polite” abolitionists*, he knew very well he had to couch his public speeches/debates in a way to make himself remotely palatable to the public at large if he was to be elected and thus, possibly be in a position to effect changes if the opportunity came up.

What that quoted speech actually denotes is that he’s a reasonably competent politician who knew he had to downplay personal opinions which would play badly with the critical majority of the American electorate in the election season leading up to 1860…which was practically all White back then and mostly of the view AAs were inherently inferior and/or should be enslaved.

One thing about analyzing public speeches given by politicians and public figures is that they don’t always correspond to the speech giver’s actual opinions and feelings on a given topic.

Even with his playing to the prevailing audience of potential electors of that era, so many White southerners strongly suspected him of abolitionist sympathies that once he was elected, they exerted their influence to get their respective states to secede from the union not too long after he was elected President. And that eventually lead to the Civil War.

• Interesting considering abolitionists were already considered to have extremely radical views in their anti-slavery stance by the vast majority of White Americans of that era...including northerners. And the more radical less "polite" abolitionists who argued AAs should be considered no different from Whites and other races....even more radical to the point of being downright scandalous.
  

The latter group of abolitionists were considered the extreme radicals of their day by Whites in both north and south. Interestingly, Oberlin was one of the colleges at the very forefront of radical abolitionism and considered so radical for its day it was considered downright infamous and hated by many White southerners in the antebellum period and into the Civil War.

https://books.google.com/books?id=wutOh4coW_EC&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112&dq=Oberlin+College+hated+by+southerners&source=bl&ots=0xE19mNv-J&sig=hTQ7x5hwfqiHuUXm9tiG6fgUjgk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiUwbmIrsrJAhUDWz4KHRHzAocQ6AEIRjAJ#v=onepage&q=Oberlin%20College%20hated%20by%20southerners&f=false

[Zinhead]

@cobrat - You are arguing that Lincoln secretly held modern day attitudes toward race, which is highly unlikely. To paraphrase Lincoln, in order to make your point, you have to prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse, and that some vague private notes overwhelm his public statements. Since it is highly unlikely that I will convince you of my point, and you will not convince me of yours, I will let W.E.B. Du Bois comments on Lincoln stand as my opinion on this matter.

Abraham Lincoln was a Southern poor white, of illegitimate birth, poorly educated and unusually ugly, awkward, ill-dressed. He liked smutty stories and was a politician down to his toes. Aristocrats—Jeff Davis, Seward and their ilk—despised him, and indeed he had little outwardly that compelled respect. But in that curious human way he was big inside. He had reserves and depths and when habit and convention were torn away there was something left to Lincoln—nothing to most of his contemners. There was something left, so that at the crisis he was big enough to be inconsistent—cruel, merciful; peace-loving, a fighter; despising Negroes and letting them fight and vote; protecting slavery and freeing slaves. He was a man—a big, inconsistent, brave man.

[cobrat]

I will let W.E.B. Du Bois comments on Lincoln stand as my opinion on this matter.

I personally tend to be a bit skeptical of W.E.B. Du Bois considering during the first half of the 20th century…he completely bought into Imperial Japan’s propagandist portrayal of its colonialist policies being an effort to create the “Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” and thus, publicly supported Imperial Japan’s colonialist invasions in Asia and felt the Chinese and other colonized peoples were “ungrateful” for resisting.

Imperial Japan also gave him a specially arranged tour of the Japanese Empire in the 1930’s where among other things…he felt it right for him to lecture colonized locals that they should be “grateful” and “stop resisting/being resentful” of the Japanese invaders. Ironic considering several other AA academics like Rayford Logan realized very well the dubious underlying motives of Imperial Japan’s efforts to give them specially arranged tours, financial and other forms of support.

https://books.google.com/books?id=oh3Cn3YQ0UQC&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=hikida+%22du+bois%22+or+dubois&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

• He completely ignored the fact the Imperial Japanese were not only the oppressors in this situation, but also deeply racist policies regarding treatment of other Asians. Factors which are still bitterly remembered in many countries which were formerly colonized/invaded by Japan...especially considering recent administrations like that of PM Shinzo Abe have cabinet members who have not only felt they've "apologized enough"...but also ones who ignored repeated requests from families of Asian and Allied POW prisoners** who were worked to death in the factories their families owned.

** Deputy PM and Finance Minister Taro Aso whose family owned mines and factories which used Asian and Allied POWs as slave laborers during the war. He and his family ignored several requests for an apology for their role in their wartime enslavement as late as 2009:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aso_Mining_forced_labor_controversy

[californiaaa]

<can someone="" who="" self-identifies="" please="" clue="" me="" in="" on="" what="" it="" is="" that="" a="" conservative="" would="" feel="" so="" passionate="" about="" at="" the="" tender="" age="" of="" nineteen?="" pro-life="" movement?="" repeal="" obamacare?="" just="" tell="" you="" want.="">

Affirmative Action

[californiaaa]

<that people’s="" politics="" change="" is="" largely="" a="" myth="" with="" the="" exception="" that="" there="" evidence="" elderly="" often="" become="" more="" socially="" libertarian.="" but="" views="" we="" adopt="" during="" early="" adulthood="" tend="" to="" stay="" us.="">

Nope. Sometimes it takes just one issue to change everything. If you feel passionate about this particular issue. Happened to me.

[Zinhead]

The original post was written up in a New York Post article.

http://nypost.com/2015/12/10/how-to-find-a-college-where-the-facultys-not-all-lefties/

[Quote]
When Shields wrote about this in a blog post, it was linked to the College Confidential website last week and immediately garnered thousands of hits. While some commenters appreciated the research, others objected to the idea that only self-identified conservatives could ensure the free exchange of ideas in the classroom.

Of course that’s not the case. One of my favorite professors at Harvard was a brilliant teacher of Shakespeare and Faulkner and I was completely unaware until after graduation that he had written speeches for Al Gore.

Unfortunately, it’s becoming exceedingly rare for professors to keep their politics out of the classroom, and even if students want apolitical content, they’re much better off with conservative academics who tend to shy away from the politicization of academic inquiry.

By the way, if your child is set on an Ivy League education, you may be particularly worried. The wrong Halloween costume at Yale can create a campus-wide uprising. At Brown University, people who want to engage in free inquiry now have to join a secret society. For the record, Shields says that Harvard has more ideological diversity on its faculty than the rest.

He’s hoping to continue his research, but in the meantime, it’s important for parents to know they have a choice. “There are a million consumer guides for colleges out there — the hottest guys, the best dining commons.” But there’s not much guidance if students want a statistical measure of ideological diversity.

Indeed, if enough families start to consider this kind of data, school administrators might do so as well.

[PragmaticMom]

When considering a $60K price tag, the last thing I’m thinking about is protecting my kid from politics I don’t like. If the school has rigorous academics, opportunities to indulge his/her curiosity and prepare for the real world, I don’t care about the political environment on campus. On the list of priorities/factors swinging my decision, it’s at the bottom, right next to cafeteria food or good water polo team.

If there is in fact a demand for college rankings according to political bias, it will be quite entertaining to see how the anti-PC crowd will be courted by like-minded campuses in their marketing collateral. Will the brochure say, “PC Goons need not apply” or “Diversity Czars are for wusses not strong students like you” or “Wear Whatever You Want for Halloween” or “Words don’t hurt people, Shrieking does.” How about “No offense, but our buildings are named after people we admire, not people you admire.”

[californiaaa]

<when considering="" a="" $60k="" price="" tag,="" the="" last="" thing="" i’m="" thinking="" about="" is="" protecting="" my="" kid="" from="" politics="" i="" don’t="" like.="">

Opposite. If campus folks have that much time to discuss Halloween costumes and harass students studying for finals in the library, … that says something about their attitude towards education. Sloppy attitude.