Gone are the days when dominance of American higher education by religious institutions sowed tension on campuses around the country, but debate about political ideology in the hallowed halls of the nation’s flagship universities is far from over. As high school seniors continue to weigh college options, few will be able to avoid the national discussion of political polarization in higher education. Amidst calls for ideological diversity at Harvard and other institutions, students join the conversation.
The Harvard Crimson’s editorial board recently called upon the university to hire “professors with diverse beliefs and backgrounds who can challenge prevailing campus ideas.” Only about 1.5 percent of respondents to the Crimson’s May faculty survey “identify as conservative or very conservative, compared to 83.2 percent who identify as liberal or very liberal.” Public distrust rises as a result of this lopsided political breakdown; a 2017 Pew Research Center study found that 58 percent of “Republicans and Republican-leaning independents” view higher education in a negative manner, up from 45 percent in 2016.
Among critics and concerned students, however, few consider how the lack of ideological diversity on campuses affects conservative applicants — the future college students who can reverse the trend toward an America where institutions of learning are ideologically one-sided and distrusted by the right. Facing their futures in America’s dominantly liberal higher education system, conservative applicants fear generalization of and ostracization for their views. But to reverse the uniformity of thought in higher education, right-leaning applicants must recognize the opportunity to be challenged, and liberals must embrace their classical roots and encourage better representation of conservative voices on campus.
The Applicant Lens
Tobi Ariyo ’22 knows what it is like to be in the political minority. In an interview with the HPR, he described his South Carolina high school’s “pretty liberal” student body, explaining that he received backlash from fellow students and even a few faculty members when he founded the school’s first Teenage Republican Club. Ariyo also served as the Vice-Chairman of the South Carolina Federation of Teenage Republicans, and when he began applying to Harvard, he struggled with claiming this part of his resume. He told the HPR: “I really had to sit down and ask myself, ‘Should I put that I was involved in Teenage Republicans?’ I talked to a lot of teachers and counselors about it, and most of them recommended that I didn’t.” Ariyo ended up including his involvement with Teenage Republicans on his application, but not without worrying that it might appear as if he was “pushing an agenda.”
As he begins at Harvard, Ariyo wants “to stay connected to [his] conservative roots, while also interacting with the liberal campus and being able to hear new arguments.” He said that he recognizes that many people will oppose his views, but he wants “to be exposed to new ideas.” This awareness is critical in a conservative student’s transition to attend a school like Harvard, especially in the face of rising political activism on college campuses. The commonly cited overreaches on college campuses — controversy that led to an Evergreen State College professor’s resignation, riots at UC Berkeley, and students screaming at Yale faculty — may not be as commonplace as they are portrayed; however, they build a reputation of higher education that can be daunting to right-leaning applicants.
Offering clarity in such situations, Lucy Gordon Smith, a University of Virginia alumna and college adviser with the Virginia College Advising Corps, provides application guidance to high school students in a conservative, rural region of Virginia. Smith told the HPR that she helps applicants discern the political atmosphere of a campus by examining popular activities and asking questions like, “Even if [a college] has a branch of a political group, is it a social group, or are they actually trying to make a change in the college?”
Smith reminds high school students with clear and active political beliefs that they may be dissatisfied at a school where most students disagree with them. This is sound advice for all conservative applicants creating their college lists; the goal is to find an environment where these students can be challenged, as Ariyo desires, but not silenced.
The Conservative Niche
The search for such an equilibrium was at the front of Kelley Babphavong ’20’s mind when she considered applying to Harvard three years ago. Babphavong, who realized her conservative viewpoints after working for a Rhode Island Democratic campaign, told the HPR, “I recognized that Harvard is extremely liberal.” Despite this impression, Babphavong was not deterred from choosing Harvard — “The only way that campus culture can change is by conservatives who aren’t afraid to speak out, and I wanted to contribute to that dialogue.”
Still, it was challenging for Babphavong to find a healthy conservative population at Harvard. “It took some time for me to find my place,” she said. “I had a connection with someone from my high school, but [the conservative community] wasn’t something that was advertised.” Babphavong’s experiences taught her that “people can make snap judgements about you based on your activities,” and that “censoring yourself in the classroom, especially in section, is definitely something that conservatives have to do.” At the same time, she has realized that the classroom is another place to be courageous and an opportunity to represent conservatism.
Benjamin “Benny” Paris ’21 shared similar views with the HPR. He said: “I didn’t really have a great impression of the Ivy League in general before starting the whole application process.” As he received offers from schools, he formed his impressions based on conversations with people he met. “The thing I noted at Harvard, and part of the reason I really liked it,” Paris added, “was that people were really interested in politics, and there was definitely a lot of energy. And certainly more than Yale, people at Harvard seemed more willing to listen to the other side. That was important to me.”
Paris shared some experiences from his freshman year: “In my freshman seminar, I quickly became known as argumentative, the devil’s advocate. But I was always treated with respect.” Paris found an outlet for his beliefs in the John Adams Society, a debate organization that focuses on political and moral philosophy. “The John Adams Society has served as a really great outlet for me, and also a great place to refine my own ideas,” Paris explained. He now serves in a leadership position as the Right Honorable Chief Whip.
Kate Krolicki ’20, who is part of Harvard’s ROTC program, told the HPR that Harvard’s strong student involvement in various political groups was what led her to choose Harvard over other schools. Although she embraced the school’s political activism, Krolicki spent some of her first days on campus in the First-Year Urban Program, a freshman pre-orientation program, where she was dismayed at how quickly incoming students “were thrown into a very politically charged environment before school even began.”
Despite her surprise with FUP, Krolicki was able to connect with multiple conservative groups. She went on to become a board member of the Harvard Republicans and the president of Harvard’s chapter of the Network of Enlightened Women, an organization for conservative university women. Krolicki explained, “We welcome people of all genders and [political leanings], and we invite different conservative women speakers and have conversations about [various topics].” She cited several positive encounters through NeW, such as a discussion on the portrayal of conservative women in the media, but she has still experienced some less positive confrontations as a member.
Krolicki cited activities fairs as an example of these less positive experiences: “We’re often put next to other women’s groups that, although many do great things for women, many are very liberal-leaning.” At one fair, Krolicki, who was nearby in her military uniform working the Air Force ROTC booth, saw from across the room some disgusted looks and whispers from members of another women’s group. Krolicki added, “It’s crazy how quickly some people will judge the Network of Enlightened Women. It’s really disheartening how people say they’re inclusive and respective of all opinions and backgrounds and that’s how they treat [us].”
Because of her conservative beliefs, Krolicki said she is sometimes “honestly scared” to speak out in large classes, where she fears she would be immediately labeled or judged for her beliefs. But to incoming students, she advises: “Don’t be scared; you’ll find your place.”
Portia Berry-Kilby ’20, a conservative international student from England, told the HPR that when she began studying applied math, she thought that “calculus and geometry could be taught untarnished by liberal bias”; however, the day before the 2016 presidential election, Portia was taken aback when her teaching fellow “spent more time condemning Trump supporters than she spent explaining maths.”
Berry-Kilby went on to tell the story of a student who was punched by a dormmate for revealing that he voted for Trump, and how half the students in one of her classes were absent the day after the election: a protest “more or less praised by the teaching fellow.”
Even though she may not have had the most favorable experiences with American campus politics, the conservative niche is a community that Berry-Kilby knows is vital at Harvard. She told the HPR: “Without a doubt, conservatives exist at Harvard. Sometimes, it is simply a question of knowing where to look.”
Rather than becoming discouraged by Harvard’s ideological leanings, conservative applicants must understand that belonging to the political minority has its benefits as well. Government professor Harvey Mansfield agrees, going as far as to say that conservatives at Harvard receive better educations than liberals. In an interview with the HPR, he said, “Conservative students are more selective of their classes, more critical in their classes, and they must defend themselves constantly.” From classes to dining hall discussions, right-leaning students must “work out their position and think out their answers,” which leaves them with a stronger understanding of their own viewpoints.
For conservative students at Harvard, extracurricular groups are the path to a more welcoming community. Babphavong, Paris, Krolicki, and Berry-Kilby found their homes in Harvard’s conservative student organizations, holding leadership positions in Harvard Right to Life, the Harvard Republican Club, the Network of Enlightened Women, the John Adams Society, and a multitude of other groups.
The Complementary Challenge
As conservative applicants strive to embrace the unique position they occupy in higher education, modern liberals can join the effort to promote an ideal of diversity. To truly realize this goal, however, the liberal majority of Harvard’s student body must retire the “arc of history” mindset, which curbs perspectives believed to hinder progress. A more classically liberal approach — one that celebrates ranges of opinions and the right of individuals to express them — better fosters diversity of thought.
Roger Barrus, Ph.D ’84, is a political science professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Hampden-Sydney, Va. He shared with the HPR an intriguing observation about modern progressivism: “If you really think that you know the way that progress is moving, then how do you reckon with people who disagree? You might say, ‘Gee, are they so benighted that they can’t see what I see so clearly?’ And if that’s what you think of them, why not shut them down?” Barrus argued that if the American left embodied classically liberal values — including prioritizing the right to self-expression — universities would draw closer to the ideals of equality they promote. He added that accepting diversity of thought is imperative, especially because “people at some level understand that no individual has a monopoly on truth.”
For a different perspective, the HPR spoke with Harvard College Democrats President Devontae “Dev” Freeland ’19. Responding to outside criticism of higher education as overly liberal, he said: “I’ve been really proud of how Harvard students in the past have responded to types of things they thought were inappropriate at Harvard’s campus. I’ve only seen people organize peaceful protests, and counter-dialogue in response.” He pointed out that these respectful forms of disagreement have actually increased dialogue on campus. Freeland added that for events and speakers brought to campus, there must be the opportunity for those who disagree to engage in dialogue and to ask challenging questions.
For Freeland, political diversity must be thought of in companion with other aspects of diversity. He expressed his concern at over-emphasizing ideological diversity as the most important and, like the authors of the Crimson’s editorial, explained that political diversity should be considered along with other crucial aspects of diversity, such as race and socio-economic class.
Of course, diversity of many kinds benefits students by allowing them to consider the worldviews of others and refine their own. According to some conservative professors, however, it is ultimately ideological diversity that best exposes students to a multiplicity of ideas in institutions of knowledge. “The only diversity that has sense in a university is that of thought,” former Harvard professor Ruth Wisse told the HPR, because “the function of the university is to further thought and the inquiry into truth: Veritas.” Mansfield agrees: “Diversity of thought is very important. [It] opens the mind and raises questions, opens up a campus and makes it freer — which may be less comforting — and it wakes you up, makes you alive and aware.”
Like many of the conservative students the HPR interviewed, Wisse believes that ideological diversity must come from the students. “[Today’s situation] is the result of pressure from radical students in the 1960s,” she said. “Student energy is what changes things.” Whether the students will truly become a force, however, is “a question to which we don’t yet have an answer.”
And what if that answer is no? Maybe conservative applicants decide to avoid inevitable ideological conflict at left-leaning colleges, and some progressive students continue to prevent others from hearing opinions deemed unacceptable. High school seniors to the right of the political center will flock even more toward religiously affiliated and stalwart conservative institutions, while liberal students enroll at increasingly leftist campuses. Instead of learning how to reconcile their differences, these applicants — the students of the future — will become the products of an educational system that is capable of little more than one thing: perpetuating the creation of polarized and narrow-minded leaders. In the current political climate, in which the gap between ideologies seems to grow with every tweet, post, and news story, those struggling for unity amidst differences will have lost a major battle.
Image Credit: Unsplash/Nathan Dumlao