College Thread:
I get occasional emails and personal inquiries regarding which, if any, elite colleges are "safe" for politically active and or outspoken conservatives and libertarian students in the sense that students and faculty will generally treat them respectfully, even if they are a small minority, and that they won't need to worry about being hauled before disciplinary committees because they said something politically incorrect that allegedly offended someone. Unfortunately, my knowledge of college life is almost twenty years out of date, but I'm sure VC readers have some ideas. Please comment below, and in the future I'll refer my inquiries to these comments.
Related Posts (on one page):
- The "Yale Taliban" and The Limits of Academic Tolerance:
- Choosing Higher Educational Institutions:
- One more Post on Respect for Conservative and Libertarian Students:
- Where Should Conservatives and Libertarians Go To School?:
- The Real Harm of Campus Political Correctness
- "Respect" for Conservative and Libertarian Students:
- College Thread:
More broadly,this type of thinking is harmful. I've found that people are, in general, suprisingly fairminded, and if you put forth your arguments in a reasonable fashion, you'll get a relatively unbiased hearing. You won't neccesarily find *agreement*, but what can you do? One of my favorite prof's here is a feminist hyper-leftist. We agree about very little, but that in noway precludes a fruitful intellectual exchange. Of course, use common sense; some classes are going to be less tolerant than others, but that's just how it is.
Of course we are Goober, Mr. Block's study of Berkeley children said so...
In my third year, I took an environmentalist philosophy class. Out of about nine students, I was the only non-environmentalist, and the professor made no attempt to hide that she shared their views. Those first few classes were the only time I really felt intimidated.
Fortunately, even though she wasn't a great teacher, she was fair. She repeatedly asked for my view just to keep things balanced. That, in a nutshell, represents how I felt at Chicago.
Now, to be sure, there were lots of ways in which the environment and the tone of discourse made things uncomfortable for conservative and libertarian students. there were also some leftist thought-policing activities, both administrative and social, but these victimized people much less on the basis of their substantive political views than on the basis of arbitrary takings of offense at activities that were not intended to be political in any way. I have no reason to believe that students to the political right were singled out by this process.
First off, assuming for the sake of argument that mainstream universities (e.g., the Harvards and Berkeleys and Browns of this world) are inhospitable to conservatives -- and more on that below -- if you're unwilling to stand up for your ideas openly, what good are they? The bottom line is that no one is being silenced or censored at any of these places.
Second, I don't think these universities are so inhospitable to conservatives and libertarians -- which, to remind everyone, are not the same thing. I attended law school at Berkeley. The Federalist Society events always attracted a big turnout, and people were generally respectful, even if they disagreed with the speaker.
Yes, occasionally in class someone would make a shrill or idiotic point. To take one example, at one point in property class I argued against the concept of rent control, which has demonstrably been a disaster in the Bay Area. The stunning pro-rent control counterpoint was "how can you possibly say that!?" Which pretty much demonstrated to any disinterested parties just who prevailed in that debate.
I will also say that they have a new dean and I'm not sure how friendly he is to conservatives.
Cry me a river.
In neither school, however, would any conservative "need to worry about being hauled before disciplinary committees because they said something politically incorrect that allegedly offended someone," though I assume that if their actions went beyond political speech (such as defacement, tresspassing, or the more traditional form of harrassment), they would of course be subject to punishment.
Furthermore, I'm unsure what you mean by "that students and faculty will generally treat them respectfully." When conservatives state things that liberals find outrageous or outlandish, I do not think the liberal has any obligation, or indeed has any honest ability, to treat the idea with "respect" in the sense of reasonable people with reasonable differences. Also, when conservatives do things that are intentionally disrespectful to certain groups (i.e. imply that their African-American classmates are relatively dumb, or that their liberal professors support genocide), I see no reason why they should expect "respect" in the social sense in return.
I'm not sure how that would apply in other cases, but it seems like the only way to avoid being penalized for harrassment or being disrespected for making disrespectful statements is to go to school where the harrassed or disrespected targets are basically an unwelcome minority. But to redescribe this as a free speech issue, when this is more of simply an issue about where "misfits" (most conservatives, I take it, have no interest in offending or harrassing people) will fit in, I think is disingenuous.
Postscript: Surely there are anecdotal evidence of liberals, including liberal administrators, overprotecting harrassment or taking their disrespect too far. We can also come up with anecdotal evidence both ways about how a conservative did not get in trouble for doing something blatently against a speech neutral policy.
But if all you're going to end up showing is that conservatives are going to feel like an uncomfortable minority at certain small liberal arts colleges such as Skidmore (the vast majority of people at Michigan and Columbia were basically apolitical - at my fraternity at Michigan of 107 people, for instance, there were about 10 people whose politics I knew, and most of those were conservative), I'm not sure common sense would dictate any other result.
My wife and I attended Sonoma State University to get our BA and MA (hers in English, mine in History). As a general rule, most professors, even if on the left end of the political spectrum, were fair. But especially in those classes which are mandatory because they are primarily political agitation in scholarly disguise (Women's Studies, ethnic studies), this was often NOT the case.
My wife took a Women's Studies class required to meet one of the general education requirements. The professor assigned a paper about how racial minorities and women have a lot in common--both members of oppressed groups--you know, all the traditional leftist arguments. The assignment was to critically analyze the paper. That's what my wife did--she pointed out the areas where this argument worked, and where it failed. For example, most women grow up in middle class or above homes, and get comparable food, medical care, and educational opportunities as their brothers--unlike the situation for blacks, who are disproportionately in poorer homes, with consequent disadvantages relative to whites.
The professor just couldn't handle this--a student who actually followed the assignment, and did a critical analysis of the paper. I sat outside the office when they got together to discuss the lousy grade the professor gave her for this paper--and it was apparent that the professor simply did not want to hear that the situations were not exactly analogous.
From that point on, my wife was invisible in class. The professor would say, "Any questions?" My wife would raise her hand. "Good. We'll move on." And this was a class of about 20 students, so the professor didn't miss her.
Now, leftists might not want to admit it, but some leftist professors engage in truly inappropriate behavior in the classroom, driven by political needs. My wife's view is that for too many professors, the classroom is a form of therapy--a way to overcome their emotional problems.
A thread in this vein would be more useful to ask for examples of schools that are so totally intolerant and stifling of conservsative views that conservative graduates would have decided to go elsewhere if they had to do it all over again.
And another thing, Prof. Bernstein, what qualifies as an "elite" school in your view? Are we talking US News? Ivy League?
Last question: At which schools are conservative students being hauled before disciplinary boards for espousing their (perhaps minority) views?
Grove City
Hillsdale
St. Thomas Aquinas (in CA)
Are my three favorites. BYU and BYU-Idaho are pretty conservative, but also obviously very LDS -- far more than at Thomas Aquinas (a Catholic school) you'll need to adhere to LDS doctrine (no drinking, no mixed sex apartments, etc.) to stay enrolled. Hillsdale and Grove City are formally non-denomiational, but a prevailing sense of Christianity exists both in their promotional materials and on campus.
But only about 3,800 kids can attend those schools -- Thomas Aquinas had I think 275 students when I was shopping colleges in 1996; Hillsdale has about 1,200 students and Grove City 2,300.
Hillsdale and Grove City have the additional plus of taking no federal funds. Or at least they did in 1996, IIRC.
I'm sure there was a National Review guide to colleges out there someplace; that's how I found out about Grove City (I knew about Hillsdale because we lived in Michigan.)
St. John's (in New Mexico and Annapolis) is very rigorous in terms of academic work, and I cannot imagine them even having a committee to be dragged in front of, but the overall "vibe" isn't particularly conservative. I was 15 when I did my college visits and the students there scared me (in part because they were all smoking in public -- I was raised in a post-cigarettes-are-evil California.) They don't exactly work like a regular college, though; you don't get to pick your own classes or major.
[These colleges are also all very friendly to homeschooled students, which is why I looked at them - in retrospect, I think I ought to have gone to any of those four schools, or one of the BYUs, instead of Ohio State, though I'm quite proud to be a Buckeye.]
In fact, people who do not fit the political orthodoxy of some campuses are routinely silenced or censored. Brought up on charges of violating vague speech codes. Etc. As someone above noted, the response to the affirmative action bake sales is often nothing short of hysterical.
How could the self-admitted most liberal lecturer in a liberal social science department hand out A's for a conservative test answer? Perhaps universities actually reward solid thinking and the Ben Shapiro's and David Bernstein's of the world are fallaciously using a few rotten apples to prove a poisonous tree.
2 out of my 70-odd professors and preceptors (T.A.'s for you non-Princetonians) is nothing. I guarantee you that in most situations, more than 3% of the people I meet are hostile and unpleasant or otherwise not interested in civil debate.
My experience with Michigan was more recent than the cited case, though not as recent as I sometimes wish (sigh). Still, while I found that "conservative" or "libertarian" viewpoints were not generally shared by my classmates or by my professors, I didn't take that as a negative (and there were certainly instances where the professor was more conservative than I).
As others have said, the need to critically examine and provide argument for those beliefs was very, very useful--it caused me to sharpen my beliefs, or (in some cases), modify them where they turned out to not stand up to scrutiny.
Isn't that what college is about? Challenging your own pre-conceptions? You know, learning something? I'd hate to have gone someplace "safe" for college.
P.S. I would recommend those who think that conservatives are "making this all up" to take a quick jaunt through FIRE's archive's too.
Those numbers sound high to me.
Of schools in the top 1 to 1.5 tiers, depending on your perspective, I'd say Chicago and Dartmouth fit what Mr. Bernstein had in mind, though I would personally consider any school in that tier "safe". I got my BA from Chicago in '05, to provide a frame of reference (Matt Tievsky, we know each other; if you're not sure who I am, drop me an email as I'd prefer to stay anonymous). I chose not to apply to Dartmouth after judging some of their promotional materials to be insulting. I guess I'm lucky; if I weren't a card carrying member of the liberal orthodoxy I couldn't afford to have been so choosy.
In my experience as a student and instructor at a university that almost anyone would consider elite, it seemed to me that there were two types of students:
1. Students who were there to learn and, thus, worked diligently. They were rewarded regardless of their own or their instructor's ideology, with few exceptions, all regrettable.
2. Students who were there to laze through four years at Mom and Dad's expense. These students often hid their laziness behind pretended conviction. When asked to write about a text they did not care to read or think about very hard, they would usually seize on some line from the first few pages and then write five pages about author bias. Attempts to encourage deeper engagement were frequently countered by accusations that the instructor shared the author's bias. Thus self-styled campus progressives were always going on about racism and classism while their conservative counterparts blamed everything on liberal professors.
In this regard, "Conservatives" (or "classical liberals" as they often called themselves owing to the particular history of the university in question) were particularly destructive both of selves and of the learning process as their educations tended to be narrow. Any attempt to move beyond, for example, presidents and generals as objects of study in American history was instantly subject to the charge that the instructor was shortchanging "real history" in order to be "politically correct." Well, the simple fact is that a high school senior who is elite college material knows just about all he or she needs to about generals and presidents but probably won't have much grounding in other topics: conditions of ordinary people, history of other regions, etc. But to the closed mind, the attempt to move beyond what the student found comfortable becomes ideologically suspect.
"Liberals" had their own problems. But to my mind this goes a long way to explaining student complaints.
Of course, I relentlessly mock most people and institutions on a regular basis, so it's not like I'm picking on SAF in particular...
If you are going to engage in political advocacy, you should expect and learn how to deal well with opposition, even when it isn't as respectful of your point of view as you'd like. Obviously if everyone agreed with you, there would be no reason to advocate, so it's an important lesson to learn.
On that note, many people don't hold political viewpoints which carry a mainstream at any campus. What elite colleges are "safe" for politically active and or outspoken anarchists?
I wonder if liberal blogs feature people asking for the names of colleges where there are no affirmative action bake sales, because they dislike witnessing antagonistic behavior by those not ideologically aligned.
It's not a fun place to go to school, but politics doesn't enter into that calculation. I take the point of the Duquesne example cited above; however I am deeply unmoved by the plight of the kid who was criticized in front of his girlfriend.
Do you know of a campus where conservatives are in reasonable fear of actual violence for their political beliefs?
This is also a very good point. Someone mentioned Hillsdale--that might be a good fit for someone who is very socially conservative, not only in terms of their politics but in terms of their outlook on things like should women be allowed to have men visit them in their dorms (at Hillsdale, at least when I visited, the answer was no). I doubt a true libertarian would last more than 5 minutes in that place before getting booted or running away screaming.
Of course, this brings up the age-old question of why libertarians and social conservatives have any connection at all, given their differences in outlook on everything that doesn't involve money (and many things that do). That's a question for another thread.
I also agree with the posters who note that the actions of individual students are not necessarily representative of the campus as a whole. To paraphrase a well known movie, at a school like Mich., you've got lots of cliques--sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, d***heads, etc. Unless you're Ferris Bueller, not all of them are likely to think you are a righteous dude.
If you're asking for confrontation, you'll get it wherever you go to school, and the loons on one side or the other will be all over you. In my experience a vast, vast majority of UMich students just want to go to class, drink sangria at Dominick's on warm fall and spring days or go to football and/or hockey games, and could generally care less about your politics. I never heard anyone I knew complain that a professor penalized them for what their political values were.
I'm afraid you're missing the point. I wasn't traumatized by my time at Brandeis, and I'm sure most conservative-types are not traumatized by being treated disrepectfully at other schools. Still, it's more pleasant, and much more conducive to learning something from your fellow students, to be treated respectfully than disrepectfully. For example, several posters have identified Penn as a school where conservatives are treated respectfully. Many students, at least in my day, chose between Brandeis and Penn, which at least in those days had very similar average LSATs, and relatively similar demographics (i.e., lots of Jews from the N.E.). A conservative 17 year old trying to choose between Brandeis and Penn would certainly find it relevant to know that students with his views are not treated respectfully at Brandeis, but are at Penn. Why expose yourself to more unpleasantness than you need to? I tend to be a combative type anyway, so these sorts of things don't wear me down. But there are shyer types who want to be able to discuss and debate their ideas without repercussions, so why shouldn't they want to know on which campuses they will be treated most nicely?
Possibly those institutions that DB means, i.e., the most academically challenging (or those formerly so), would follow the path that they have taken with blacks, women, Spanish-speakers (but NOT those from Spain!), musselmen, homosexuals, and even athletic greats to form a separate institution on campus for classic conservatives/libertarians.
No expensive or time-consuming studies would be needed. Simply institute the curriculum of an elite school c. 1930.
You know, wild and crazy stuff like the classics, Western Civilization, art history (pre-Jesus urine bottle performance art), literature measured by greatness rather than the backgrounds of the writers, and so forth.
To add icing to the cake, how about seperate sex housing facilities with feather beds and dining halls that feature well cooked traditional foods--no wheat grass/tofurky casseroles, etc.
Why not give it a go?
Stand your ground, be respectful, only debate politics when sober, and things are pretty safe.
On the other hand, my cousin at the University of Mobile reports an vibrant community where liberal, conservative and libertarian voices are treated with equal respct.
How many "anecdotes" of a conservative being punished under a vague campus speech code for saying something conservative does it take to silence people?
My oldest managed to keep his libertarian outlook intact despite attending probably the most radically liberal college in the country... Antioch in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It is so uniformly far left, no one ever thought to inquire (and he's not outspoken). He's probably the only vote George Bush ever got off that campus, although in 04 he voted for Badnarik.
I don't think that's such a bad idea. It's perfectly possible at most elite colleges and universities these days to go 4 years without hearing anything positive about Western civilization or America in the classroom.
It does sound absurd, although I do not doubt that it is true. But so what? If someone said that to my girlfriend, I'd laugh in their face and be quite confident that my girlfriend would not pay it any mind. Guess what David: there are going to be jerks at every school. Sometimes, those jerks are going to be political jerks, whether from the right or from the left. Get over it — you sound like such a crybaby, it's pathetic. Your book raises some good issues, but it's posts like this and other similar whiny things in your book that make it hard to take you seriously as anything other than a guy who still hasn't gotten over the fact that a bunch of girls laughed at him once in elementary school or something.
The whole world is not against conservatives. The most prominent conservatives all when to these so-called elite schools with liberal biases, such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. Somehow, I think Scalia, Thomas, Bush (both of em) could handle it and I am not too worried that they may have had their feelings hurt once or twice. We all do. Funny how things have really changed —- it used to be the libs always bitching about how they got their feelings hurt. . . . .
(while probably not considered "elite" just yet, it's still fairly young--having only been around for 30 years now, it's first set of graduates are just now coming into positions of power (e.g., 10th cir. judge michael mcconnell, bush's drug czar, and the first african american justice on the texas supreme court). but it's a definite rising star.)
I would also add that, while non-sectarian schools seem like they might be more open to a variety of perspectives, don't write off "sectarian" schools, insofar as that means "religiously affiliated."
The University of the South, for instance, is owned by the Episcopal Church (and doesn't, as far as I know, come down officially on either side of the gay priesthood issue), but offers a traditional liberal arts education that focuses very little on politics per se and more on stimulating students to ask the important questions and figure out their politics for themselves. That being said, political organizations do well on campus, and do so without acrimony.
That's my endorsement. The caveat is that a small, liberal arts education (particularly in a rural location) is not for everyone. Students who are politically inclined might be better served at a large university with more opportunities to get involved with national organizations.
You mean there are 20-year-old college students who are insensitive and dogmatic? I'm shocked, shocked!
David, please. On any campus, you will find all manner of students who are insensitive and dogmatic about all manner of issues -- political affiliation, curricular requirements, taste in music, whatever. (God, if there is one thing I do not miss about college, it's watching people go nine rounds over whether to listen to Thelonious Monk or Steve Miller for the umpteenth time.) T.A.s and professors too, even. For that matter, you'll find bores of all ages, in all walks of life, although I think we can all probably agree that young adults tend to be somewhat more dogmatic than the more "life-seasoned" among us. Some campuses may have a few more than others, but the law of averages and the ultra-competitive nature of college admissions and faculty hiring these days guarantees that, at least at the elite schools about which you've asked, it's going to be more or less the same everywhere.
Let's suck it up, people.
Faculties taking care of that. Student organizations can't even get Conservative speakers without going through faculty obstruction.
Give it 10 years and no longer.
This is a serious statement.
Yes, it was Justice Ginsburg that sent us to war in Iraq. Justice Thomas who decided to pass the prescription drug benefit. G-ddamn that Souter, he gave me a parking ticket the other day. And the reason my friend couldn't get a building permit was because some Judge on the Ninth Circuit denied it. And don't even get me started on the Sixth Circuit deciding to raise my taxes. . . .
(This leads me to a question I've been thinking about. Is this shift away from the dreadlocked socialist punk indicative of a conscious effort on the part of admissions to accept more traditional students? Graduates who go off and work for Greenpeace don't tend to give a whole lot back to the school when the Alumni Fund comes calling.)
If Locke is valued, then you'll have a more open environment for considering a diverse range of views. If he's mistakenly devalued by being mis-labeled "right-wing" when that means "oppressive", then we have a problem.
You're mixing up your the personal anecdotes you're presenting as "facts" her, Sir. Generally, a conservative 17-year-old doing the choosing has not taken the LSAT, nor is applying to law schools, exceptions aside.
I really think you do both libertarians (which I really doubt you are truly -- you seem at heart too much afraid of freedom, imo) and conservatives a disservice with the continual "they're picking on me" whines. Victimology is not pretty, and I'm not sure if it's a trait you even recognize in yourself.
I really do agree with this, quoted above: "Get over it — you sound like such a crybaby, it's pathetic. Your book raises some good issues, but it's posts like this and other similar whiny things in your book that make it hard to take you seriously as anything other than a guy who still hasn't gotten over the fact that a bunch of girls laughed at him once in elementary school or something."
Just a thought: for such a successful man raised in elite social circles (your words, not mine), and surely not hurting financially, ummm... don't you think you are a little unhappy with your lot in life? Can you envision yourself being happy anywhere really? What circumstances would it take for you to get on with your life, no complaining about others, and achieve a measure of contentment?
Maybe these questions, not "where would libertarians and conservatives be safe?" are the bigger questions you should be concentrating on. Just a thought, from a non-elite, dismiss at the peril of still finding yourself in the same sadsack boat 20 years from now...
While the department was moderate, it had at least one radical libertarian faculty member, Walter Block (who mandated that we write 1/2 our papers from the left and half our papers from the right)
In a relative sense, the administration did not now to PC standards as much as the "elite" schools. And I was never once hassled for being a conservative (which I now experience daily while living in SF) ;)
I'm going to guess that all the individuals telling conservatives and libertarian students to "get over it" wouldn't have a the same attitude about a gay student looking for somewhere where he's treated with respect, or a Muslim, or basically anyone else who is liable to be mistreated on a particular college campus. And before you jump all over me for making bad analogies (they're not, but let's get past that) would you tell someone who posted, "I live in the South and my daughter's an outspoken feminist, and she's looking for a school not too far from home where she'll be treated by fellow students with respect" to "get over it" "suck it up" and just go the nearest right-wing religious college to hone her ideology? I didn't think so.
Of course, "being hauled before the disciplinary committee" because someone is gay, republican, muslim, etc. would not be acceptable. But I frankly do not believe this is as widespread as you and former-communist David Horowitz want to tell us it is. In fact, I doubt it happens much at all --- the idea that Yale and Harvard oppress the poor widdle conservatives is absurd. In the field I am most familiar with, the law, the most impressive and successful lawyers coming out of those schools for the last 20 years have disproportionately been conservatives. I don't know why that it is, but it is so give me a break that the schools that produced Scalia, Thomas, George W. Bush, etc. are schools that oppress the conservative. Almost every story I have heard about some poor wittle republican getting a bad gwade because they expressed their republican views has turned out to be a bunch of BS ---- like the guy who said his teacher gave him a bad grade for writing that Bush was a great president when it turned out that the assignment had nothign to do with what he was writing about. . . . . (I think you or another conspirator here wrote about this once and then had to append a correction when the actual essay got out.) I went to some of these schools, and when I went to these schools, I was very much a self-proclaimed conservative republican (I came to my senses a few years ago after seeing this lunatic George Bush in action). I never had a problem expressing my views, was never disciplined for my views, and did quite well in school. Yes, many of the profs were libs, and I thought many of their ideas were silly (I don't know what I'd think now), but never did I feel I was treated unfairly because of my then-political views, and if anything it helped because I was able to think outside the box and distinguish myself.
I repeat what I said above, you look like a bunch of whiny crybabies and sound ironically like the liberals of yester-year who were so concerned about hurt feelings. Grow up.
Because David Bernstein has it a lot harder than your average black guy. Give me a break. Somebody call the whaaambulance.
Leave off that last word, and you may be on to something.
;)
Every once in a while, the conservative newspaper or a conservative columnist in the student newspaper generates a bit of campus drama. It generally passes pretty quickly (says a former token conservative columnist). Death threats per articles written are rather low compared to peer institutions (how's that for a USNews metric).
Another "fact" in doubt. How well do you think you really know yourself? I see bumps on the horizon...
Growing up, did you take time out from "achieving" to really do this? Figure out yourself, and your place in the world, that is? Something in reading you these past months tells me there's something more there...
Just to narrow the debate -- would you find the following an acceptable college environment? A gay person called "faggot" within earshot at least once per day. Likewise a black person called "ni**er" daily, or a feminist called "bitch".
I watched a ROTC student at Harvard face constant harrassment for several days when newly placed with three roommates. He was repeatedly called "fascist" within earshot, from guys that had not talked to him long enough to determine anything about his personal philosophy. On the third day they went through his Army surplus duffel bag and left his personal belongings scattered around the room. They told me they were justified because they needed to check if he had a gun.
That was enough for the ROTC student, who then requested a room transfer. I was fairly close to the roommates in question and never heard that they received even a reprimand, much less any kind of punishment.
I personally can think of no higher calling than someone willing to sacrifice their own life for someone else's freedom. Yet when I attended Harvard in the 80's, the university atmosphere was so intolerant that the ROTC students had to perform their service at MIT.
As an average white guy, I can never fully understand what it is like to be a black man in America. However, I am pretty sure I would find a daily dose of "ni**er" pretty chilling, especially if it came from my professor or teaching assistant.
If Justin wants to test how tolerant the "liberal" waters are at Columbia, then I suggest he cut his hair short and spend a day on campus in uniform. From my experience, he will be insulted by people based solely on his appearance.
IANAL, but would a university take any action against white students that insisted on calling the black students in their dorm "ni**ers"? I personally would not want to attend a university that gave tacit approval to such intolerance. As a classical liberal, I certainly would not defend such a university and call the black students whiny.
In my limited experience, I believe Professor Bernstein is asking a legitimate question. It worries me that some of our elite universities are "unbothered" by intolerance for conservative students.
You do know that those stories being circulated in some conservative quarters, about liberals being unpatriotic and hating on the troops, are a myth, right? Just a cheap political tactic.
Many Democrats, independents and generic liberals have family and friends serving -- perhaps numberswise more than political "conservatives".
Maybe we need to start qualifying "the liberal elites" if indeed such stories are true? I don't know much about them, but I do know your average bread-and-butter liberal has been painted as "unpatriotic" by more than one conservative mouthpiece. Remember the quick backtracking on the Murtha comments?
Be careful which anecdotes you choose; here I'd say the shame game falls more as a tactic on the conservative side.
Yale also has maintained a great focus on liberal arts and so students really will get to read Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, etc. if that's what they're looking for.
There is also a very vibrant conservative community which engages in a lot of heavy duty philosophical debate.
Sometimes you will get an evil TA who will screw you because you oppose graduate student unionization. Sure, that happened to a whole group of friends who were in the same section (thankgod I had dropped the course), but that's quite rare.
While certainly not perfect, it was also not like we (conservative/libertarian) students were harassed on a consistent basis. Besides, it was great getting to have fun and pull crazy stunts that made some of the unthinking lefties' heads explode (wait what, feminism and multiculturalism really do conflict?!).
But yeah, most lefty students I found were usually pretty respectful and it was easy to avoid those who weren't.
USMA, West Point, NY
USAFA, Colorado Springs, CO
USMMA, King's Point, NY
USCGA, New London, CT
I went to Army briefly, but left for medical reasons before graduation. (This is of course the reason you don't see Navy, which is not safe for anyone, on my list.) If you're not that interested in an extended military career, Coast Guard would be a great choice. You don't even need a Congressional nomination, as you do at the other academies.
Of course, if you're not so worried about "elite" status (if you, for instance, realize that a motivated student can get a top-notch education anywhere) and you'd like an environment that's safe for alcoholics as well as conservatives, Ole Miss and Auburn are fine choices, too.
Princeton has its fair share of notable conservative faculty (Robert George most well known, but there are others.) The conservative groups on campus aren't mocked for being conservative, but rather for being stupid (the Tory, Princeton's conservative magazine, in particular has been declining in recent years.) I've never felt intimidated from bringing up conservative ideas in class, though I've mostly kept to the "hard humanities"--economics, law-focused politics, hard philosophy.
I'm honestly surprised by how relatively moderate NYU Law has been. The lawyering program could be better, but that's largely a function of where you get lawyering professors from (successful firm lawyers don't go back to take non-tenure track legal writing professor jobs.) All of my first semester profs were respectful if not supportive of conservative ideas, and my admin prof at least claims that she no longer believes all Republicans to be evil. NYU's Federalist Society is active and noticeable, and among the students, well...my crim law class's discussions are often won by the right-wingers. When a petition to support the grad student strike got passed around my 110 person Torts class first semester, I think they got about 10 signatures. There's a conservative/libertarian journal which has been mentioned repeatedly on this blog.
So, I'd recommend both places, though I can't speak to NYU undergrad, which seems much less open.
Plus, any school that still has a viable greek system is probably not too far down the pc path.
I would stay away from traditionally "conservative" schools simply because a quality education requires serious exposure to opposing views.
I went to a very right-wing residential college at an Australian university loaded with leftists. The worst conflicts were generally deliberately provoked by my fellow collegians.
If you look at how few serious incidents are logged at FIRE, you have to conclude that this is a struggling meme.
So amny centrist or leftish academics are brilliant, fair-minded and ready to let any ideas be tested. Fine, provoke the counter-examples all you like but then its a fight you asked for.
This is hardly what I'd call an outrage, and the implication is that the lady in question didn't know she was dating a Republican. One would hope any adherant to conservative social values would be forthcoming to women he was courting about his political leanings, which would render this act of "disrespect" trivial.
I understand they may have a basketball team as well.