I am a liberal, but I believe that it is important to have a space in universities for conservative views. After all, our country is a fairly conservative country compared to other developed countries. For young students on a university campus where they are prepared and educated for eventually entering the real world, some exposures to conservative views are actually part of what a university education and learning is about.
Just saying, this thread won’t really reach its potential with mocking. It’s not the open mind we’d like a badge for, any of us.
It doesn’t matter to me whether “surveys say…” My social scientist side is shouting to “open our eyes” to the thought diversity that does exist around us. It’s more than labels. No one person is purely this or that.
Can’t get much more liberal than some in my family, including in practice. But man, some "conservative " tenets they held to, as well.
Part of the point is not to assume, not to seek security in labels. Not to limit our “openness” to just certain segments (or where we feel our ideas and identity are secure.) Think about it.
If you never have the basis of a belief challenged by someone you respect, then how solid is that belief? Having ideological diversity on campus is important, but that ideological diversity has to be grounded in respect for other views. So I applaud liberal colleges looking for openminded conservative students, but I don’t hold out a lot of hope for conservative colleges doing the same thing.
One of the ways you learn respect for other views is to be exposed to them, rather than to their caricature. In this respect, it would be helpful to get some serious conservative voices on campuses. And sorry, but the fact that there is a relative handful of openly religious/conservative schools out there is not a legitimate counterbalance to the well documented ideological tilt among the vast majority of colleges.
It doesn’t seem like a ‘relative handful’ to me, but I’m looking from the opposite side of the spectrum. It’s true that the big names are more liberal than not, but if you’re looking at smaller campuses there are an awful lot of small religious institutions with very low Campus Pride indexes.
@mom2twogirls you think it’s a stereotype/fallacy that professors tend to lean very left and that conservative views are under attack. I’m definitely a liberal but also a strong believer in free speech (and the other first amendment and due procress values). And I recognize the importance of competing views on campus. Take a look at the website for the Heterodox Academy, a mix of progressives, conservatives, libertarians and centrists concerned about this issue from a faculty standpoint. https://heterodoxacademy.org/problems/ Only about 5% of professors in the social sciences and humanities identify as conservative. The few conservative professors on campus are much more likely to be in engineering or the professional schools. Take a look at the research tab at Heterodox Academy: https://heterodoxacademy.org/research/ .
This is from John Stuart Mill from 1859 in his work On Liberty:
Students need to hear opposing views from people who actually believe them, as Mill said 158 years ago.
@ninakatarina I’m no fan of Liberty University and its president, but I will note that they invited Bernie Sanders to speak before the election and treated him respectfully while he was there.
I think the converse is true. Look at all of the survey data, and then open your eyes and see what is happening on campuses. I think it is very hard to remain open minded and not concede that there is an ongoing effort to eliminate whatever “thought diversity” exists.
First, openly religious/fundamentalist universities are distinct, at least to me, because they avowedly serve a mission that is either different from or parallel to the more purely intellectual mission of a university. In other words, you know what you are getting if you decide to attend Liberty or BYU. You can maybe make that same argument for Berkeley or Vassar or Reed. You should not be able to make that argument for UCLA, Ohio State or Syracuse. In addition, I don’t recall hearing about roving bands of Mormons beating people up on the BYU campus because a speaker showed up to say that Bernie is the man. Second, this is the Fox problem. Fox allows progressives to feel comfortable that no matter what utterly obvious data comes out about the leanings of the NYT, WaPo, LAT, Chicago Trib, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Time, Newsweek, etc, etc, it is ok because Fox leans the other way. This inhibits the necessity to find balance, because ti is too easy to say well, if they want they other side, they can just go watch Fox. Third, is approval by Campus Pride now the dividing line between liberal and conservative? Not only is support for LGBTQ not a “true” liberal/conservative litmus test, but anywhere outside of a college campus that organization would be viewed as pretty far to the left.
Creationism is popular at mainstream levels (38% recently, see http://news.gallup.com/poll/210956/belief-creationist-view-humans-new-low.aspx ), so it is not exactly a fringe ideology.
Meanwhile, a prominent conservative leader with high approval rates among mainstream conservatives suggested that there were “very fine people” marching with Nazis at Charlottesville.
However, a plurality of conservatives voted for him in the primary, and most of the rest accepted him as their leader and approve of him in ongoing surveys and polls.
I know some socially conservative people. But some of them do carry racial and religious bigotry (and proudly splatter it all over social media).
Yes @Corinthian I do think it’s stereotype and fallacy.
But frankly, this is a debate that can’t be won by me anyway because the goal posts are moved with each contributor. Unless suddenly extreme left types are equal to left leaning types, then I stand by my statement. As a liberal leaning person yourself, I am assuming you don’t believe all liberal people are extreme in their views.
Furthermore, people defending conservatives in this thread are also calling foul when conservativism is equated to racism, anti LGBTQ+, nazi, etc… those are the “culture” views under “attack”. So are they conservative view points or are they not? Again, if the goal posts keep being moved then the discussion is pointless.
While I love the idea of colleges becoming more politically balanced, I don’t agree that it should be forced via affirmative action. In fact, I am not a fan of affirmative action, period. Students and professors should be admitted/hired on the basis of merit, not on their skin color or political beliefs. Just my opinion…
I think you are missing the forest for the trees. What people mean by conservative beliefs being under attack is the current habit of equating what are to many rational positions as racism/sexism/homophobia, etc. Believe it or not, in large parts of the country opposing non gendered public bathrooms (about 2/3 of the country) is not the same thing as hating gay people. Wanting to enforce the immigration laws (about 80 of the country is contra sanctuary cities) is not racist. Donald Trump is not really a nazi. Charles Murray is not a white supremacist. But yet we see these types of equivalencies made on campuses everyday, as if they were beyond contestation. This is the obvious result of an ideological echo chamber, and not only does it inhibit the intellectual development of students, but it harms the larger culture.
@mom2twogirls we don’t need to get bogged down into soft definitions of liberal vs conservative or extremism on both sides. We can look just at party registration. That’s why I linked to the research tab at Heterodox Academy which links to several studies. Here’s a study from California university faculty from 2005, so this trend is longstanding:
http://www.criticalreview.com/2004/pdfs/cardiff_klein.pdf.
The tilt is most evident in the social sciences. A recent survey by the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, a professional society composed of the most active researchers in the field, asked its members to respond to a series of questions surveying the members’ views about evolution. At the end of the survey, they included a set of measures of political identity. Not just self-descriptions, but also whom the person voted for in the 2012 US Presidential election. And they asked nine questions about politically valenced policy questions, such as “Do you support gun control?” “Do you support gay marriage?” and “Do you support a woman’s right to get an abortion?” Only 2.5% of respondents self identified as “right of center.” Only 1.2% voted for Romney in 2012. When the answers to the nine questions about policy questions was scored, less than 1% was scored as “right of center.” https://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/01/07/new-study-finds-conservative-social-psychologists/ .
110% agree with all of this B-)
“We can look just at party registration.”
Except that … you can’t. When you register to vote, you are asked to choose a party. So, you choose one. Most people in this country are in the middle in their beliefs and will cast a ballot with some Republican votes and some Democrat votes, and maybe a Libertarian or Green Party candidate thrown in the mix. Many Republicans today are “Reagan Republicans” and many Democrats are “Blue Dog.”
Personally, I come from a family with one registered Democrat parent and one registered Republican parent. Both are fiscally conservative, and both tend to be more socially liberal. I live in one of the most diverse economic and socially diverse zip codes in the country, and myself and my children attended public schools that look like UN conventions. We are not in any ideological bubble. BUT, does educating yourself about what others believe going to cause detrimental harm to you? I think not. You don’t have to agree with what others believe, but learning about why they believe what they do is the foundation for mutual respect needed to affect positive change.
@ImUrHuckleBerry "It’s not appropriate to give others more of a voice, much2learn? I thought one of the primary tenets of liberalism was to be inclusive? Ah, but what you mean is only inclusive of the opinions of those you agree with. Now I understand. Thanks for clearing that up.
Throwing in the most ultra far-right ideology (nazis, creationists, etc) as being mainstream conservative is the usual tired political technique of trying to marginalize those one disagrees with. So I guess, by the same principle, I can assume you are a communist and hate America like most liberals?"
Sorry, but creationism, climate change denial, and supporting discrimination against women and minorities are popular mainstream conservative beliefs, not fringe beliefs. They don’t deserve more of voice because they lack facts and evidence. What is taught in colleges should be based on facts and evidence, not popularity or left and right.
Some perspectives of what used to be the right have a lot of academic support. For example, the importance of free markets, and why we can’t trust countries like Russia and need a strong military because there are bad people in the world. Worse people than most students can imagine. There is a lot of support for ideas like these on college campuses.
College has never been intended to be inclusive of all opinions. You can’t go to Western Civilization class and spend the whole semester arguing that the Romans did not exist. Not without good evidence. You can’t go to Medical School and argue for the Stork Theory of baby making without good evidence either. Fact free arguments that are popular in the conservative media, are not welcome on campus.
To get to a position where the right and left view are equally represented on college campuses, the right has to get back to accepting main stream science that is strongly supported by facts and evidence. Both sides can have a perspective and then we can test them and see who is right. That would be better for everyone.
The problem is that most conservative voters will just tell you (I have asked them) that they don’t really care about facts and evidence at all. The base their views on how they feel. They feel that the earth is only 5000 years old. They feel that a woman’s place is in the home. They feel that climate change is fake. They do not care about facts and evidence. Once they have no interest in adjusting their views to reflect facts and evidence, there is no reason to include them in the discussion.
You really need to get out more.
I’m far left but as an instructor in an admittedly left-leaning department, I challenge my students from the right AND left. I’m doing nothing for their critical thinking skills if all I do is agree with whatever comes out of their mouths.
I’ve had classes with more professors than I can count at multiple universities. None pushed an ideology.
It is obnoxious to read from people who haven’t set foot on a campus in decades pretend to know what goes on inside of classrooms. (Not directed at anyone in particular, just a general sentiment here and outside CC among certain groups.)
Thanks @Ohiodad51 but I’m not missing anything. I am very aware that racists, sexists and homophobics believe themselves rational and don’t see themselves as racists, sexist and homophobic. And that they live in their own intellectual echo chambers. I do hear them (quite literally) worry aloud that gay people may try to recruit their kids.
@Corinthian someone stated that most college professors are extremely liberal. I said that is not true. You said I was wrong, I said that unless you are saying all liberals are extreme, then I stand by what I said. I take it you are saying all liberals are extreme because otherwise I don’t see the reason for back and forth. Nothing you posted confirms that most college professors are extremely anything. I don’t see a point in either of us continuing this tangent unless you have evidence that most college professors want to take away all the guns, or some such.
I know lots and lots of socially conservative people - some very bold-faced names in politics. Some of them do carry racial and religious bigotry (and proudly splatter it all over social media).
Are you very aware of the same on the left?
Are you very aware of people who are not racists, sexists and homophobes on the right?
If you can’t answer yes to both of those questions, you do need to get out more.
In light of the real numbers of conservative voters in this country, this is highly, highly unlikely.
I could give you studies saying that folks on the left are much more likely to be guided by emotion in their voting decisions.