Apropos of several things floating across my TL, I just want to say as somebody who teaches college:
Yes, absolutely, politically conservative students on campus end up feeling uncomfortable in their views, constantly challenged. 100%.
So do leftists.
So do centrists.
So do students who attempt to be apolitical.
Nobody gets to hang out on campus feeling comfortable and cushy in their worldview. That is…you know…kind of the point of the place.
1/
I can guarantee that a student who is…I don’t know, say, a devoted communist…feels •far• more uncomfortable expressing their full views on campus at a college in the US than a student who believes in Milton-Friedman-style economics as a force for good.
Complaints about whose political views need special protection are less rooted in who’s actually oppressed than in who thinks they’re entitled to never being questioned.
2/
But there’s a wrinkle here, one that’s crucial to unwrinkle: the word “conservative” has long had a double meaning.
Many of our political terms do. In the US, for example, “liberal” means “left” unless you’re a leftist in which case it means “laissez-fair” or “neoliberal” or something incoherent but Definitely Bad. (I refuse to even use the word “socialism” anymore without specific clarification about its meaning in a given conversation.)
It’s the double meaning of “conservative” in particular that muddies this discussion about views on campus.
3/
In •public discussion• about conservatives supposedly being oppressed on campus, people act like that means free markets, minimal government, centering religion, etc.
But the •actual experience• the loudest complainers are talking about is very often (not always, but •very• often) that they were ostracized for being transphoic, queerphobic, racist, and/or religiously bigoted.
“Conservative views” gets to mean something polite and acceptable in op-eds, but then gets to mean outright fascism on the ground.
4/
And this is where the discussion gets hard.
There are some mission-based things that are not up for negotiation. Our mission is to create an environment where students can learn. We create a bubble of personal safety within which students can become intellectually uncomfortable. That latter •requires• the former. That is our job.
If one student makes another unsafe — not intellectually challenged, but in actual danger — that is not OK. It does not magically become OK because we deem the threatener’s threats “political.”
5/
One of the ground-level premises of my institution of higher ed — and of most of them — is that everyone deserves to feel safe on campus so that they can learn together, with one exception (per Karl Popper): you’re not welcome if you don’t accept this premise.
So yes, there are some beliefs that are unacceptable on campus. No Nazis.
6/
And yeah, if you use racial slurs, or sexually harass people, or refuse to call people by their name, or misgender them, or personally denigrate them for their religion…in that case, you are indeed not welcome in my classroom.
Interrogate and debate the biological and social construction of race and gender and identity and whatever all you like — these are complicated questions, many unresolved, many resolved but still in need of hashing out for those newly learning! — but the •required• starting premise is that we all keep each other personally safe.
7/
This is messy and complicated in practice. Keeping each other safe is real work, and hard work. None of us (including me) get it right 100% of the time. All that’s required is that we try, that we believe we are •supposed• to try. That is not negotiable.
8/
So if you want to argue that we need poltiical diversity on campus, that we need to allow “conservative” views, please be clear. Be specific.
By “conservative,” do you mean we need to make sure there’s room for people to argue for market economics? Or low tax rates? Yes, we need room for that. I will fight to make room for that that debate even if I disagree.
Or by “conservative,” do you mean we need to accept white supremacists? Or that it should be OK to tell people they’re going to hell for being queer or whatever? No. Piss off into the sun.
Tell me which one you mean.
/end
@kims correctly guessed that this was one of the posts that sparked this thread today, and it’s good to have some concrete context for all my general remarks up thread:
Ivies, those hotbeds of liberalism where >40% of graduates go into finance and consulting. Not sure why conservatives want to mess with that formula "The Trump administration has demanded that Harvard hire additional conservative professors or risk losing even more of its federal funding. (Even as it made that demand, it insisted that Harvard adopt “merit-based admissions policies and cease all preferences based on race, color, national origin, or proxies thereof.”)" https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/conservative-professors-dei-initiatives/682944/?gift=hz3-sGceWBq1O6I5tAqH166RwZ2WPGtYI9PCRMlR6Ag&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Why would you call fascists or right-wing extremists conservatives? Is it wrong to call out such people for what they are?
@TobiWanKenobi @kims
Ref unc: who is “you” in that sentence?
If by “you” you mean “Paul Cantrell,” it’s irrelevant. I called them “Nazis” upthread, but that’s beside the point of the thread. The point is what language people like the ones in stories like the ones Kim shared are actually using — and what •they• really mean by that language.
If by “you” you mean those people in the article, then yes, it is indeed good to ask why they won’t accurately call themselves what they are.
I was referring to "In •public discussion• about conservatives supposedly being oppressed on campus, people act like that means free markets, minimal government, centering religion, etc." and following.
By "you" I meant the US-American people or the "public" / "people."
Nazis won't call themselves Nazis because they don't see themselves as such (in most cases). So it'd be the obligation of the public to call out their wrong labeling, I think?
@TobiWanKenobi They like to self-ID as conservatives. It comes with the "traditionalism" part of fascism.
@inthehands @kims Probably why an X campus decided to ban all politics and religion conversation altogether.
If you started to talk about left/right/center/up/down/jump/B/A/START then you get 1 week suspension. I was baffled to see others denigrate others based on their socioeconomic status and get a slap on the wrist at best.
No place is perfect, I guess. The toll is paid by the alumni and teachers, nevertheless.
A concept that might be useful is that a person learns best when they're just outside of their window of tolerance.
Comfortably inside the tolerance zone, you're unlikely learn.
Painfully outside of it, where you're experiencing trauma and pain, you can't learn.
This is why exposure therapy must be guided by an experienced therapist, to ensure that you're not retraumatised.
A teacher is, in a way, like a good exposure therapist. Keeping you a bit uncomfortable by challenging your assumptions, but providing a safe space where you know you are respected and are able to learn from that uncomfortable experience.
But this requires the recognition that being uncomfortable because people don't agree with you might be difficult but isn't traumatic, and being treated as if you don't deserve to exist, or that you are broken or disgusting as a human being is traumatising.
Fugsache ... professors, as a class of things, are as conservative as all get-out.
Only Trump's insanity allows him to think Harvard is not sufficiently right-wing, or that it will not outlive him.
I like inverting the "conservative" argument here and arguing that the MBA program needs more communists.
@Uair Btw, fun historic tidbit: business administration turned out to be so ridiculously scarce skill among the Bolshevik Communists that when they had the revolution in Petrograd and seized power, they soon had to hire a lot of former administrators to administer the seized businesses.
=> Future revolutionaries would do wisely to pick up some administration training before going for a new revolution. Doesn't have to be MBA, obviously, but it'd probably get the job done.
=> => One'd expect at least some genuine Communists to study, and perhaps even teach, MBAs for this very reason.
@inthehands As someone who came from a very conservative, rural background, I'd add that many conservative students come from areas where they are very, very unlikely to encounter anyone who publicly voices an opinion contrary to the majority. It blew my mind in my first year of college when I heard someone criticize the local Rush Limbaugh-esque radio talking head. Like, I had legitimately never encountered someone who had said anything political that wasn't just parroting conservative talking points. And what they said was entirely correct after I had a chance to think about it.
It was all downhill from there (if you ask my still very conservative parents).
@inthehands "I'm being oppressed for my political views!"
"Which ones? Which ones, motherfucker?!?!?"
Thank You! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Well said!
I loathe that maga has hijacked the term “conservative” which in my ken has been associated with small government, low taxes & free market economics.
What maga actually stands for is white supremacy, racism, misogyny and intolerance, and they want a overbearing government willing to use its power to enforce conformity to their beliefs. This is the farthest thing from “conservative!”
This defense of scholarly safety seems true enough, but insufficient.
Imagine an engineering school reknowned for providing a safe environment for its internationally diverse student body. Once home its proud graduates find good jobs at local military contractors, implementing various means to kill their erstwhile classmates from other nations.
So too with the other peaceable schools of the parent university...
@inthehands The one thing that makes the modern(or vehemently anti-modern)conservative go quiet is a demand for specifics.
“What is it about America that formerly made it “great” that your fuehrer is going to return us to?”
@inthehands still I don't find the two meanings of "conservative" really separate. Market-based economics are inherently ableist if not racist, as are low tax rates. And even if they are not they are certainly weaponized to conceal various -isms (if they did a good enough job they would be paid the same).
And of course in "civilized discourse" in class it will be the first and then half hour later in the cafeteria it will be the second.
@inthehands @Flux I hear lots of variations on this, and while I get the intent, I have concerns.
We’ve known since *at least* ~1984 that e.g. “lower taxes will give economic growth” is false. It has no sound foundation grounded in data; every time (at least in the US; I can’t say elsewhere) we’ve run the experiment, we get the same result. Taken neutrally, someone making that claim today *should* face the same skepticism—and burden of proof—as someone making claims of perpetual motion.
@inthehands @Flux And yet these ideas persist. They persist because they aren’t *intended* as serious ideas about economics; they’re simply cover for enacting regressive, oppressive social policy.
Trickle-down economics is a “practice lie”. We let them on campus, let them pretend that this time it will be different, that somehow they’ve uncovered the one tweak that will reverse Keynes’ winning streak, unbroken since the early 1930s. And they wink at each other and set up think tanks.
@inthehands @Flux And we look at those think tanks and say “yes, diversity of views!” as they advocate policies which are the same ones which *always* make the rich richer and worsen oppression, deepen class and racial divides, and fail at their own stated goals.
Because their own stated goals are never the real goals.
But we’ve gotten good enough with the practice lie that mow real lies—ones that kill people—are easier, too. Lies like mass homelessness being anything but a policy choice.
@inthehands @Flux When talking about academics, at least in sciences (including social sciences) I *don’t want* diversity in their ability to analyze data, examine their priors, synthesize arguments, or apply their theories to the world around them. I expect them all to be very good at that.
And that’s the thing. To get more professors who think trickle-down economics makes any sense, you have to hire worse professors.
You have to accept the practice lies. And get ready for what comes next.
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