Princeton Professor Lauren A. Wright argues that conservative students benefit from the lack of intellectual diversity on college campuses in a recent article. She writes,
“Conservative students, rather than being coddled, face significant intellectual and social challenges in college. These challenges impart educational advantages by forcing conservatives to defend their points of view. Liberal students, surrounded by like-minded peers and mentors, have less opportunity to grow in this way.”
I agree in my recent book, You’re Not Alone: The Conservative Woman’s Guide to College, that conservative students learn important skills to cope with intolerance on campus. But we should not forget that these “challenges” often are extremely difficult situations that have a big impact on young people, from dealing with ostracism from unfair liberal professors to rejection from peers.
Imagine going to college fearful that you won’t have any friends if anyone figures out you are a conservative. That’s what conservative students tell me they face today.
Wright’s article makes it sound like liberal students are somewhat disadvantaged by this environment without enough recognition that liberal students and academics are the ones who have created this atmosphere. Conservative students have just adapted to the environment that liberals created.
Conservatives deploy different strategies to survive on campus. One of these strategies is avoiding unfair and intolerant professors and peers. This helps individuals get by, but it would be better if more students and professors learned to engage with people with opposite views. This is an important skill. That a student can now go through four years of college without learning the skill of how to work together with someone who thinks differently is a failure of higher education today. Liberals could do a lot to fix this.
The lack of intellectual diversity on campus makes it easy to dehumanize people who think differently. This can have big consequences as young Americans don’t see each other as fellow Americans who all love the country but have different opinions on what is best for her, but instead view each other with hate.
In her speech at the Republican National Convention, Ambassador Nikki Haley said, “Our foreign enemies win when they see Americans hate each other. They see that today, whether it’s on college campuses or in a field in Butler, Pennsylvania.”
Colleges need to do better, not just for their own environments but for America. Institutional leaders should rethink how their policies contribute to intolerance on campus and vow to improve the campus atmosphere from day one of a student’s experience. For example, universities could add sessions on the value of intellectual diversity and free speech to student orientations. This is something both conservatives and liberals should be able to agree on.
This blog was written by Karin Lips, President of NeW.
