In October 2018, amidst mounting pressure from faculty, students and alumni, President Fox sent an email to the St. Lawrence community overtly rejecting a petition to revoke the honorary degree of U.S. Senator Susan Collins ’75. Fox addressed the concerns of the petitioners, while equally reinforcing the university’s ceaseless abstention from rescinding an honorary degree.
I applauded President Fox’s leadership and his maintenance of Laurentian values in the face of fierce partisanship. However, one quote from the email stood out to me in particular:
“With profound respect for the strong views expressed in the petition, and the sincere feelings behind those views, I will defend the right and the opportunity of all Laurentians, all citizens (including the world citizens in our midst from other lands) to express opinions as an individual or in a group of individuals. That right is at the deepest core of St. Lawrence’s commitment to freedom of speech. It is the richest part of our treasure. Nothing has changed in the face of considerable public notice to affect that prima facie belief as the first article of faith in our discourse.”
Though I commend this statement from President Fox, I’m unsure if our campus reflects this commitment. Throughout my four years on this campus, I have noticed that there is an ever-shrinking space for conservatives. In my first year, I remember the dissolution of the SLU Republicans club due to waning membership. As a junior, I remember the Thelmo Executive Board’s reinstatement of SLU Republicans, though this motion received sharp criticism.
I am not a conservative. I voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, and, this fall, I voted in my home state to support the nomination of the first-ever transgender candidate for governor. Yet, perhaps the need for me to make these assertions outlines the problem in itself: conservatives do not feel comfortable on this campus. I spoke with three SLU students, two of them openly conservative, to learn more about their experience.
“As a whole I do not believe St. Lawrence professors teach a politically inclusive curriculum,” said Jake DeVito ’20. “Often they do not dispute the radical points made during class such as ‘if you voted for Trump you must be a racist’ or ‘all Republicans are misogynist.’ This is false.” DeVito additionally referred to an instance when his professor asked the class why they believed a single-payer healthcare system should be implemented. Single-payer healthcare was proposed by House Democrats in February. Instead of asking students if they believed in a single-payer system, the professor asked why, therefore acting under the assumption that all students were in favor of this liberal policy. The professor did not consider the fact that students might support more fiscally conservative policies.
In such cases, conservative students often feel discouraged to share their conflicting opinions in class. Ian Fogarty ’20 states, “On certain issues, I have found that it may be in my best interest to keep an opinion to myself. When it comes to emotionally charged and divisive issues, sharing a minority opinion in the classroom can be very difficult, especially if a professor is in agreement with the majority.” DeVito echoed Fogarty’s comments, stating his apprehension to share political views in the classroom.
Another student that wished to remain anonymous also recalled an instance in their American Politics course when an outspoken conservative student was “ganged up on by classmates” during discussion. “I bet people from that class have bad opinions of her now,” said the student.
This is maybe what conservative students fear the most, the possibility of being publicly shamed for their political views. This results in a discouraging classroom environment where students are reluctant to speak up because they may feel ridiculed by students with opinions different from their own. The underlying result is an absence of comprehensive, well-rounded discourse.
“The day after the 2016 presidential election I had a political course and the setting was more like a funeral rather than a regular class,” said DeVito. “The demonizing statements made about Republicans with no self-reflection on why the Democrats lost was beyond me. These points circulated in my head but I realized it was just not worth it to start a fight in class where ‘groupthink’ was very prevalent.” Fogarty further reinforced this notion, stating that after the 2016 presidential election and during the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, professors acted as “opinionated participants” instead of discussion moderators. From that point on, Fogarty felt like his conservative viewpoints were no longer welcome in the classroom.
Similar conflict takes place out of the classroom. An anonymous source pointed to an instance in April 2017 when the Philosophy Department hosted Angela Davis as a guest speaker. “Angela Davis came and spoke. She used to be in the Communist Party. Let’s be honest, communism is hard left. Could you see SLU bringing somebody in from the hard right?”
An often-heard left-wing response to this dilemma seems to be that liberal policies are morally oriented and thus more acceptable. This declaration was reiterated by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in her “60 Minutes” interview when she justified the inaccuracy of the amount of tax revenue needed to fund her policy proposals. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez stated that, even though her math was wrong, her policies were “morally right.” She then went on to state that her flawed calculations were not as bad as President Trump lying about immigrants.
The problem with this claim is that morality is subjective, and, in my opinion, cannot be attributed to a political party’s policies. One’s morals are based on their own personal experiences and perspective. It is simply unfair to condemn one’s political views based off a self-righteous claim that the political party you support is morally superior. If anything, it is ignorant, insulting and does nothing but drive both sides further apart. “This condescending sort of tone within the classroom, that liberals hold the ‘moral high-ground,’ is infuriating. In fairness, I would say that neither major political party holds this ‘moral high-ground.’” said DeVito.
This is the same type of rhetoric that, in the 2016 presidential election, led Democrats to label Trump supporters as “deplorables.” DeVito identifies this type of generalization as harmful to having a healthy dialogue. “In my view, just because you voted for a certain candidate, it does NOT mean you embody that candidate. You voted for this person for a multitude of reasons and I am sure you do not align with 100 percent of that candidate’s positions.”
As conservatives feel a lack of representation on campus, one student even pointed to The Hill News as an obvious promoter of a left-wing agenda. “I love The Hill News but I feel like it’s just liberal propaganda half the time. In a lot of the opinions articles, you can tell, there’s nothing in there that’d be conservative or economically conservative. It’s all from one point of view.”
I was not surprised by this comment. I’ve heard similar claims and I partially agree. Much of The Hill News’s political content is supportive of liberal policies. However, for the last time, I restate that all students are equally welcome to write for The Hill News. Nothing is stopping you from contributing to our content. This has always been our policy.
This article is therefore not a promotion of conservative values, but rather a note to conservatives on the St. Lawrence campus to make their voices heard. Write for The Hill News, speak up in discussion and don’t fear the criticism. How else can Laurentians improve upon their own judgements if they aren’t exposed to opinions different from their own? An inclusive discourse is essential to a liberal arts education. It is a founding pillar of our democracy. Every opinion counts.
The Hill News retains knowledge of all anonymous sources.