I am planning to attend American but I am concerned by the intolerance of conservatism that seems aparent on campus and with professors. I am a moderate conservative and I am very accepting of everyone different from me and I respect other belief systems, but will speaking up in class or during debate land me with a bad grade or no friends? I am well aware of the liberal climate and believe it could be a useful tool for personal growth but I am very politically inclined and i also want to be able to voice my opinions without being judged, targeted, or harassed— things that I have heard happens to other more conservative students. how concerned about this should I be in considering attending au? is this really an overarching sentiment that I need to be cognizant of or worried about?
My friend’s brother goes to American. He has only told me about the political climate in the social sense. There have been tensions between the “alt right” and students of color in the past (moreso charged by the alt right leaving threats on their dorm doors, once being attached to a bag of bananas for a student who is black). If you’re openly preaching beliefs that are actively homophobic or racist, or hanging up a confederate, you may have a problem socially, but if you’re moderately conservative as you claim, I don’t see there being a problem in that sense. They appreciate people having political opinions moreso than those who don’t care about politics. I cannot speak to the professors but would assume this varies by major. Gender studies? Yes. Political science? Probably. Engineering? Definitelt not. Business? It’s probably embraced. So I think “intolerance” you speak of is not as severe as you are expecting and I would go in with an open mind instead :).
The school is the most politically active school in the nation, so I’d definitely say consider that. If you’re a conservative, I would say that you could expect some backlash from students because there are a lot of jokes made about conservatives being bad people. I’ve also found that my friends who are republicans, not even conservative, don’t feel comfortable telling people they’re political affiliation because they know that so many people disagree with them and are very fiery about it. Since we are the most politically active school in the nation, politics will somehow be brought up in every class at least once. The only class this hasn’t happened in for me is psych, but anthropology, stats, philosophy, writing all have brought it up (those are the ones that have brought it up where you wouldn’t necessarily expect it). I once had a professor do an assignment where we had to write a letter to Trump and tell him all the things he’s doing wrong as the president.