Political Climate

Are there any current students (or parents of current/recent students) who can tell me what the political climate at William and Mary is like? I’m thinking of applying for transfer from Smith College, where I feel stifled beyond belief. People are obsessed with race, sexuality, and gender identity and demand that the college subscribe only to their viewpoints. Students who subscribe to any political leanings other than the extreme left are labeled as “problematic”. I’m hardly an ultra-conservative and yet I’ve been called “ignorant”, told to “educate” myself, and even shunned by housemates for making the personal choice not to attend a protest. This permeates much of the academics as well. After a freshman year dominated by this ideology, I’m seriously questioning my future at the school. I need to be in a place where some diversity of opinion and discussion is allowed and activism is not prized above all else. I know that the ultra PC, “safe space” culture is present on pretty much every college campus today. However, I’d like to know for sure whether William and Mary is less extreme.

William & Mary student here. I actually think William & Mary as a whole has a relatively good representation of people with different political views. Like most colleges, William & Mary does lean towards the left, however I would hardly call it “stifling” and I have many friends from both liberal and conservative backgrounds. There’s even a portion of the student population I would describe as “apolitical” or do not prescribe to a particular political viewpoint.

Given it’s strong roots in history, many William & Mary students are civically engaged or at least aware of the issues in the world around them. This past month a student was elected to the Williamsburg City Council, largely due to student support. There are many different clubs on campus that are actually a combination of students from across the political spectrum. Students for Effective Policy (STEP) and Virginia 21 are both organizations that aim to come up with pragmatic bipartisan solutions to address some of the issues we face today.

One of the best examples of this was an event that occurred this past semester. Net Impact, a group that promotes using business skills for social and environmental change, hosted a debate between the Young Democrats, the College Republicans, the College Socialists, and the College Libertarians regarding various issues such as national security, climate change, the national debt, and social security. It was remarkably civil and it was extremely interesting because all four groups had proposed solutions to issues such as climate change or the national debt, which you don’t often get to hear about from elected officials because they are so rooted in rhetoric. It was really eye-opening and a space for productive conversation.

In another example, last year our commencement speaker was Condoleezza Rice. If you have been keeping up with the news, student protests have led her to step down from giving a speech at many other colleges. Not at William & Mary. There were certainly people that were uncomfortable with her legacy and started a discussion about her role in foreign conflicts via the campus newspaper, however there were no massive uprisings to remove her as speaker. Even those who opposed her stances on issues, even admitted afterwards that she gave a good speech.

In short, I think you are likely going to find a more diverse group of perspectives here at William & Mary and are unlikely to experienced the shunning you mentioned above. Discussions can definitely get heated because people get passionate about their positions, but as a student body people are generally accepting and open minded of one another even if they have different points of view. Personally, I am always interested in hearing people with different perspectives than me because then I get a better understanding of where people are coming from or why they think the way they do.

@shawnspencer Thank you so much for replying. From your description, the students of William and Mary sound like they are reasonable, introspective, and—most importantly—act like adults. The reaction to Condoleezza Rice is particularly telling. That would literally never happen at Smith, where protesters recently kept IMF chief Christine Lagarde from speaking at commencement. Like you, I find hearing other perspectives a lot more enlightening than plugging my ears. Your thoughts made me even more confident that W&M could be the perfect fit for me. Thanks again!