<p>Swarthmore appears to be a very interesting, intellectual school that I am deeply considering. Like most colleges in the northeast it's very liberal, which is expected and in many ways is a very good thing. However, I'm worried about the pervasiveness of anti-Israel sentiment in the college (in light of the recent divestment campaign) and student/professor's tolerance of non-leftist ideas. Would Swarthmore be a friendly place for an opinionated, yet open minded, Zionist moderate?</p>
<p>I am not aware of any “anti-Israel” sentiment at Swarthmore College. I wouldn’t pay much attention to occasional noise about divestiture campaigns. I suspect that, over the years, various spinter groups of students have made noise about divesting from just about every imaginable type of company.</p>
<p>Here is a lengthy PDF with the guidelines the Swarthmore Investment Committee uses when considering whether to join or initiate shareholder motions and/or divestiture. If you have any questions that aren’t covered here, such as on the small anti-Israel campaign (just 218 signatures), you could e-mail Suzanne Welch (VP Finance and she would point you to a contact on the investment office. They would be thrilled that you are interested enough to ask.</p>
<p>The most recent activities have been filing a shareholder motion (Lockheed) and partipating in other (Home Depot) to extend same-sex partner benefits.</p>
<p>In all honesty, the endowment investment committee has bigger fires to fight right now. I don’t see a climate for initiating a lot of investment related political statements.</p>
<p>I can’t find any indication that they two alumni pushing this issue have ever met with Swarthmore’s Board. However, this article has extensive quotes from Suzanne Welch on previous campaigns:</p>
<p>Interestingly, when Swarthmore’s Board voted to divest from South Africa in the 1980s, the Board refused to take the reduced income as a hit to the future generations relying on the endowment:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This approach means that no new divestiture effort has a prayer of passing in the forseeable future. It would, in effect, require additional budget cuts to offset the lost revenue and nobody has any stomach for the the next layer of budget cuts. Not happening.</p>
<p>The divestment campaign has been put on hold (probably canceled) until further notice. PM me for more info about zionist/ anti zionism on campus.</p>
<p>I had a young-earth-creationist friend at Swarthmore. It was tough for him at times—he may have been denied the chance to be an RA due to his conservative POV—but I generally think Swarthmore overplays its liberal credentials. I came expecting a <em>far</em> more liberal school than I found. Social liberalism is huge, of course. Opposing gay marriage openly, for example could get you into some very serious and confrontational (verbal) fights, though there is a reasonably active pro-life organization. </p>
<p>But there are quite a few libertarians, foreign-policy-hawks, and economic conservatives. Even among the professors.</p>
<p>ardentiststate,
My son is a fairly recent Swarthmore grad home on break from his graduate studies and I asked him this question. He said that as long as you don’t expect everyone to share your views, and are tolerant of other people’s views, it will not be a problem at all.</p>
<p>I have a d at Swarthmore and a son who graduated from Brown undergraduate and Columbia graduate school. From conversations with them, it seems that my d’s experience about politics at Swarthmore parallels my son’s pretty much at his schools and they are probably typical of what any student would experience at most liberal arts schools in this country.</p>
<p>Academia by its very nature tends to be more liberal than the rest of the country, but these are places where discourse and debate are expected and encouraged. Specifically about Swarthmore, I can tell you that my D has not experienced any anti-semitism. I do not believe that the Israel divestment campaign garnered much support and I agree with ID that it is not going anywhere.</p>
<p>At Swarthmore, just as anywhere else, as long as you do not try to push your views and beliefs down anyone throats, you are not likely to get any trouble. But it is definitely a very liberal environment and my D, who has somewhat liberal views, complains that she wishes that there were more conservative points of views expressed in classroom debates. </p>
<p>Specifically to your point, I would not describe the sentiments at Swarthmore as being pervasively anti-Israeli.</p>