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| On Campus, Conservatives Talk Back |
| 2005-01-16 |
| This post is dedicated to 2b who, a few days ago, was depressed about Kerry's near win. A veeeery long article about the logarithmic growth of conservatism amongst American university students, printed in the quarterly City Journal, and reprinted in the Wall Street Journal It begins: Throughout 2003 and into 2004, a surge of protests roiled American campuses. You probably think the kids were agitating against war in Iraq, right? Well, no: students at UCLA, Michigan, and many other schools were sponsoring bake sales to protest . . . affirmative action. [snip. Details of the Affirmative Action Cookie Sale] The protests shocked the mainstream press, but to close observers of America's college scene lately they came as no surprise. For decades, conservative critics have bemoaned academe's monolithically liberal culture. Parents, critics note, spend fortunes to send their kids to top colleges, and then watch helplessly as the schools cram them with a diet of politically correct leftism often wholly opposed to Mom and Dad's own values. But the Left's long dominion over the university—the last place on earth that lefty power would break up, conservatives believed—is showing its first signs of weakening. The change isn't coming from the schools' faculty lounges and administrative offices, of course. It's coming from self-organizing right-of-center students and several innovative outside groups working to bypass the academy's elite gatekeepers. There have always been conservative students on campus: more than a half-century has passed since a just-matriculated William F. Buckley published God and Man at Yale, lamenting his alma mater's secularism and launching the author on his now-legendary career. But never has the Right flourished among college kids as it does today. The number of College Republicans, for instance, has almost tripled, from 400 or so campus chapters six years ago, to 1,148 today, with 120,000-plus members (compared with the College Democrats' 900 or so chapters and 100,000 members). And College Republicans are thriving even on elite campuses. "We've doubled in size over the last few years, to more than 400 students," reports Evan Baehr, the square-jawed future pol heading the Princeton chapter. The number of College Republicans at Penn has also rocketed upward, says chapter president Stephanie Steward, from 25 or so members a couple of years ago to 700 members today. Same story at Harvard. These young Republican activists, trudging into battleground states this fall in get-out-the vote efforts, helped George W. Bush win. There's a good deal more at the link: the overall culture is the same across the youth population, but the radical leftists can be distinguished by their unwashedness; "post-feminist" desire for marriage and children; key experience is 9/11; tolerant, libertarian-leaning -- don't care if others are homosexual, even those who believe its a sin; against affirmative action -- aware its unfairly applied (rich Hispanics=! discriminated-against minority) and harms minorities; nowadays "question authority" = anti-Liberal; and more. In fact, go to the homepage and check out the other articles; Rantburg fave VDH has a submission. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #5 yes I have, TW. :-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-01-16 7:54:37 PM |
| #4 This post is dedicated to 2b Gosh TW! Thanks. Great article and links. I feel really heartened by the implications of this. Nothing could scare a 50/60/70's liberal more than realizing that the young people don't see their "rebellious" ideas as cool or daring - but just stale, eye-rolling, establishment gruel embraced by the aging uncool. But more importantly, it shows hope for the future of our country! |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-01-16 7:09:25 PM |
| #3 Sounds like you're rearing them right, Frank! Have you left Rantburg where they can 'inadvertantly' find it? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-01-16 6:18:41 PM |
| #2 My teens have been caught scanning my National Review mags when they think I'm not looking. Heh heh |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-01-16 5:48:22 PM |
| #1 My most disgusting experience in college and post-college was the liberal loons (big blue state university). After too many decades, it's reassuring to hear that the moral majority has a collective voice. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-01-16 5:43:11 PM |