someone also already listed the University of Chicago. That’s not an LAC in the northeast obviously but they have taken a stance about allowing all speech, right? (Asking for someone to correct me here! Memory isn’t always terrific!)
I’m pretty sure that they sent out a letter that says there will be no trigger warnings, etc.
You may want to look at U of Chic because of that.
You also might want to look abroad at schools, where the discourse will be from a different angle entirely. British schools, Germany has free colleges, etc. You might find some interesting perspectives.
@IndianSuperman: In case you missed it amidst all the discussion of what your words meant, I listed, as possibilities, UVA, UMich, Williams, Dartmouth. Additionally, I find Dickinson, Denison, St Olaf, to be moderate and open-minded.If you’re Catholic, Notre Dame would probably work too.
I also suggested you avoid Oberlin, Smith, Occidental, Wesleyan, UT Austin, UCB, Patrick Henry, Liberty, Hillsdale, Wheaton IL, Biola, Baylor, or TAMU since there’s an overwhelming majority on either side, and that can be stiffling (others would likely include Swarthmore, Reed, SMU?)
Hamilton’s speaker series has showcased figures from science, sports, entertainment and politics, including four heads-of-state – Carter, Clinton, Thatcher and de Klerk – and Vice Presidents Gore and Mondale:
Usually if you’re in the engineering or business programs you’ll get a good mix of views, likely more conservatives than liberals but still a mix. I’m trying to avoid PC culture just as much as the OP but honestly few schools will have a very toxic PC culture. However if you can’t avoid PC culture just laugh at it. It can be pretty amusing up to a certain point.
Some. And ancient history. Impressive speakers but not relevant to the CURRENT political climate on a campus. If you look at most top colleges’ speaker lists over the past 20 years, you’ll find a wide and varied cross section of speakers.
@doschicos: If you feel you could name other colleges with an especially impressive range of speakers, you should. That would represent a contribution to the thread.
Take a look at Claremont McKenna. While visiting we were handed leaflets for political meetings/discussions that were not all from like-minded groups. Also it looked like they had a pretty impressive and diverse speaker series.
I am two degrees away from Larry Summers through several people, including a couple of women who have worked with him.
Their universal consensus seems to be that Larry was shafted, and the reason is that everything that Larry said was true. Larry was noting that because men’s IQs have a higher standard deviation particularly in areas like mathematics, there will be more men than women at the top in terms of the talent required to compete for positions in the most competitive colleges (there are also more men at the bottom, but nobody seems to care about that). He was correct in what he said, but those who defend his brilliance will be the first to say that he doesn’t understand political nuance.
However, it certainly speaks poorly upon Harvard’s Fine Arts & Sciences faculty.
I’ll take your challenge, @apple23, and name a school I have personal connections to rather than speculating based on stuff solely gleaned off the internet and list that span 20 (or should I say 18? not a big difference) years.
Here’s a speaker list for Colorado College during this fall’s election season representing a range of viewpoints and perspectives. The student body - and faculty - still lean liberal/progressive, however. I’m sure someone could express an opinion there against black power groups but they will get countering opinions and arguments back.
@hebegebe we will have to agree to disagree about Summers.
My opinion is more generally in line with this blog by the well-known “mathbabe” in which she presents an analysis of Summers’s errors in at least one domain (stereotype threat and how significant it is) - https://mathbabe.org/2012/02/06/women-in-math/
Your personal connections can have whatever POV they like, but in my opinion, Summers went on to much too great of a political career even following his highly offensive (and false) comments about women in STEM. Compare his story to Watson’s - after whose analogous comments about race, there were no cushy administrative appointments.
And this business about IQ deviations is not relevant, both because it’s not just the “highest” few percent who are scared off from STEM - this would be analogous to saying that cross-country teams could be reasonably 3/4 male because the very fastest runners are male - and, because the measurements themselves are suspect when you are looking at historically marginalized populations. (White) Men have set the tests and standards for years, and congratulated themselves for achieving at their own game. Who even uses IQ tests anymore except that weird MENSA club?
As for Summers’s comments on women being willing/unwilling to sacrifice family for career, there are more problems with this than I can list, but here are a few:
Younger men show approximately the same reluctance as women to give up family for career, in studies
Our entire cultural soup is predicated on sexist assumptions and pay gaps that make it not a “free choice” if/when a woman “decides” to give up her career in deference to her husband’s
Our combination of lack of childcare/breastfeeding support and cultural expectations around priorities feed into #2
Summers himself points out that this isn’t some macho point of honor, but that in general certain career expectations should be dialed back if workers want to be human beings
To bring this back on point, I cannot think of any college in the country where this kind of conversation would be off-limits. And I’m sympathetic to women in mathematics who have to listen to it again and again, when it’s their actual lives being debated on those campuses. It almost makes me favor “safe spaces” in spite of my commitment to free speech.
Which is to say, when an “issue” is actually the real life of another human being, I think it really matters how the free speech proceeds.
That’s because even his detractors will usually (grudgingly) agree that Larry is brilliant. His becoming a tenured professor at age 28 and winning the John Bates Clark medal were not accidents. More than one person has commented about his ability to take a very complex topic and break it down into key points that he can either summarize in a few minutes or go into great detail for an extended period of time, all without notes.
I assume you meant “where this kind of conversation wouldn’t be off-limits”.
If that’s what you meant, I think that is a problem. There should be no topics that are off limits in academic exploration, including that of differences according to sex or race. Just as Larry was roundly criticized for discussing differences according to sex, Charles Murray was crucified for noting differences according to race. Yet if academics are effectively prohibited from studying these important topics, are we limiting ourselves from making all the progress we could to alleviate the differences?
I suspect you never actually read Summer’s remarks but only read other people’s opinions about his remarks. If you had, you would have read this: * I’m going to confine myself to addressing one portion of the problem, or of the challenge we’re discussing, which is the issue of women’s representation in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions, not because that’s necessarily the most important problem or the most interesting problem, but because it’s the only one of these problems that I’ve made an effort to think in a very serious way about. * It’s pretty clear that Summer’s central argument is about the highest percent and not all STEM positions. It amazes me when people have strong opinions about something, but never put in the effort to read the primary source.
If you don’t like IQ tests, SAT tests show the same trend(far more men than women scoring about 700 on math), although I suppose you would argue the SAT math test is also rigged in favor of white men.
OP - Look for colleges with a relatively high concentration of fraternities or sororities. Suggestions at the Ivy or NESCAC level would include: Dartmouth, Cornell, Penn, and Washington and Lee.