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By Jason Collum
| AFA Journal Staff Writer
Conservatism, once believed to be quashed in the land of academia,
has been steadily making a comeback on college campuses across the
United States. But not without a fight.
The most recent evidence is a poll conducted by the Education Research
Institute showing that among college freshmen, 21% refer to themselves
as conservative, while 24% hold liberal views. The vast majority
of students prefer to sit in the middle of the political road.
While the number of liberal students is still greater than conservatives,
consider this:
• According to the poll, the percentage
of students holding strict liberal views has fallen from a high
of 38% in 1971.
• The number of students holding
conservatives views, at a low of 14% in 1973, has hovered around
20% since President Ronald Reagan’s first term in office.
• A larger proportion of students
say they’ve recently attended a church service. According to
the poll, 80% of students have gone to church recently, up from
69% in the 1960s.
• 45% of students in 2003 said
they’ve drunk beer in the past year, down from 69% in 1966.
Fewer students are smoking now, too.
Another sign of strength in the conservative ranks is membership
in college Republican organizations. The College Republican National
Committee (CRNC) touts more than 120,000 members on 1,148 American
college campuses. The CRNC states on its Web site that one of its
reasons for existence is to play an integral role in “the communication
of a conservative message to college students.” Though not
giving a definite time frame, the CRNC says it has tripled its membership
in “recent years.”
Not
without a fight
The shift of political positions toward the right has not been met
with open arms by those of opposing views. With high-profile cases
of some liberal professors expressing bitter intolerance toward
conservative views, some conservative students might be afraid to
speak up or stand for their beliefs for fear of reprisal.
In February, an English professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel
Hill sent an E-mail to her entire English class berating a student
for his comments against homosexuality. He called it disgusting
and a sin. According to several newspaper reports, instructor Elyse
Crystall wrote in the E-mail, “What we heard Thursday at the
end of class constitutes hate speech and is completely unacceptable.”
Crystall went on to refer to the student, only identified as Tim,
as “a white, heterosexual, Christian male” who “can
feel entitled to make violent, heterosexual comments and not feel
marked or threatened or vulnerable.”
Tim made his remarks following a lecture in the class – an
English class – on the relationship between heterosexual and
homosexual men. Upon learning of the instructor’s lashing out
at the student, U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, (R-NC), sent a letter to
Chancellor James Moeser. In the letter, Jones expressed his concern
that the student’s civil rights had been violated, and said
he would be contacting the state’s Attorney General Roy Cooper
and the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Education
regarding the incident.
“I shared with the chancellor my concern, not just with this
professor, but if there is a liberal bias at the University, and
how does this affect students with a conservative position,”
Jones said in an interview with The Daily Tar Heel, the student-run
newspaper at UNC.
Moeser issued a letter in regard to the handling of the situation.
In it he said Crystall had “apologized to the individual student
with concerns as well as to all members of this class. The department
chair met with the lecturer and the students to discuss their respective
concerns.”
UNC is not the only campus in America where conservative students
have found themselves on the hot seat with professors. Recently,
Worldview Weekend founder Brannon Howse issued a report telling
of other instances of conservative students running afoul of instructors.
Included in the list of incidents, obtained by Howse from the Myers
Institute:
• A student majoring in microbiology
made a comment about intelligent design on a paper and was docked
two letter grades and slammed with the following remark: “I
think you should seriously consider changing your major. It is ludicrous
for you to major in biology. Pick another major where personal opinions
are all that matter. I suppose my remarks will feed your martyr
complex, but so be it.”
• A Christian young man at a university
in the Southwest wrote several “politically incorrect”
editorials in his campus newspaper. He was the only student with
a 4.0 GPA not selected for the Honors College. This made him ineligible
for scholarships he needed to continue his education.
Students aren’t the only ones singled out for their views.
DePauw University lost part of its legal battle last fall. In that
case, instructor Janis Price had sued DePauw after having her pay
and hours cut without notice. The university made the move after
a lesbian student complained that Price had copies of a Christian
magazine in her classroom and shared them with her students. The
magazine at the heart of the matter included a feature on homosexuality.
Celebrating
conservatism
Not all conservative students are keeping their beliefs private.
Many collegians, tired of being demonized for their views, are standing
their ground, even celebrating their conservatism.
A group of students at the University of Colorado hosted “Conservative
Coming-Out Day” on February 3. According to The Washington
Times, the event, sponsored by the College Republicans, was part
of a concerted effort to promote conservative ideals in February,
and to fuel a statewide conservative assault on liberal bias in
academia.
One student, Jeff O’Holleran, 19, made his announcement –
“I’m Jeff, and I’m conservative,” at a podium
in the middle of a crowded CU dining hall.
“We have some of the best professors in the world here at CU,
but some of them are here to indoctrinate us,” Brad Jones,
College Republicans chairman, told The Times. “What we’re
talking about is diversity of thought, and a lot of professors don’t
believe in [that].”
The assault on liberal backlash in Colorado goes all the way to
the state General Assembly. Lawmakers and Republican Gov. Bill Owens
have been presented with an Academic Bill of Rights, penned by conservative
writer David Horowitz. The eight-point bill seeks to eliminate political
bias in university hiring practices, stating that instructors should
not be hired, fired or granted tenure on the basis of political
or religious beliefs. Also, the bill says students should not be
graded according to their beliefs, and that faculty should never
use the classroom for indoctrination purposes.
Is such a measure needed? Some fear the bill would stifle classroom
discussion and the free exchange of ideas. Others, though, cite
examples such as what happened at UNC-Chapel Hill as proof that
something must be done to prevent liberal instructors from running
roughshod over the conservative minority on campus.
Perhaps, though, as more students lean toward conservative ideals,
the problem will correct itself. Some students believe that may
already be taking place.
At Chapel Hill, students say instances of liberal bias being brought
to the forefront of the public are having an impact. “I think
the climate has changed,” Kris Wampler, a sophomore from Charlotte,
told The Charlotte Observer newspaper. Wampler founded Carolina
Students for Life, a pro-life organization, in 2002. “It’s
becoming a place where conservative students are not afraid to speak
out and be active. We are kind of breaking through the institutionalized
liberalism.”
Make
an informed decision on college
With so many colleges catering to so many career paths, it can
be overwhelming for parents and students to decide which college
is the best fit for them – both in academic offerings and
in quality of student life.
There are a host of magazines each year which rank colleges based
upon differing factors. However, few – if any – rankings
give a thorough picture of what life at the colleges is actually
like. That’s where Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI)
comes to play.
Choosing the Right College may very well be, as it is touted by
the publisher, the most thorough essay-format college guide available.
Thoroughly revised and rewritten for 2004, the guide offers essay-style
reviews of 125 of the top public and private colleges and universities
across the United States. Included in the essays are straightforward
assessments of the state of each school's academic curriculum,
political atmosphere, and campus life. The guide also details
for students the courses they can take at each school in order
to receive a true core cirriculum.
According to its Web site, ISI “is a nonprofit, nonpartisan,
tax-exempt educational organization whose purpose is to convey
to successive generations of college youth a better understanding
of the values and institutions that sustain a free society. Founded
in 1953, ISI works ‘to educate for liberty’ – to
identify the best and the brightest college students and to nurture
in these future leaders the American ideal of ordered liberty.
To accomplish this goal, ISI seeks to enhance the rising generation's
knowledge of our nation's founding principles — limited government,
individual liberty, personal responsibility, the rule of law,
market economy, and moral norms.
For more information about ISI or to order a copy of Choosing
the Right College, go online to www.isi.org, or call 800-526-7022.
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