"I'm not shy about my views; all my friends and professors know I'm a conservative. No one tries to silence me.  I even write conservative columns for the school paper!"
That is what I told conservative writer and activist David Horowitz last Tuesday when he came to speak on campus. Horowitz spent a good deal of time speaking about alleged persecution of right-wingers on college campuses, and I therefore felt obliged to offer my own experiences.

Sure, Brandeis is a liberal campus, but no one tries to silence or persecute conservatives or Republicans.

It is unpopular to be conservative, but it is not unsafe.

After I offered Horowitz my defense of Brandeis, I found myself in class the next day learning about the German sociologist Max Weber.  

Our professor was discussing Weber's belief that teachers ought to never use their classrooms as soapboxes to express their own political opinions.  
In the middle of this discussion, the professor went on a tangent to discuss how the Tea Party movement doesn't understand the American government's history of economic intervention.

The irony of this situation prompted me to rethink whether I had judged our University a bit too favorably when I was speaking to Horowitz.  

But what I ultimately realized was that the pervasive liberalism of our student body, faculty and administration does more harm to campus liberals and progressives than to conservatives.

Even if a fiercely partisan Republican wanted to keep himself in a bubble, he could not. Every economics major has to listen to Prof. Michael Coiner (ECON) talk about "f-ing Republicans."

Every Anthropology and International and Global Studies major has to learn how to operate under the assumption of "cultural relativism." You can get all your information from Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, but unless you want to have only six friends during your time here, there will inevitably be some smart and interesting liberals in your social circle.
Consequently, to be a conservative at Brandeis is to have your beliefs and ideas questioned at every turn.  

Brandeis' conservatives have all heard the other side's arguments, both good and bad.  We have read liberal thinkers, understood liberal ideas and argued with countless liberal friends and teachers who have challenged and pushed us.

And we're better for it.  

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for our University's Democrats and progressives.
It isn't hard to imagine how a first-year could come here as a liberal Democrat and hear very little in four years that would challenge his political beliefs.  

Most of his friends will be liberal or indifferent.

Most of his professors will make jokes and speeches that confirm, rather than challenge, what he already thinks.  

He'll be given the arguments behind his positions instead of the ones that oppose them, jotting them all down in his notes. Perhaps he'll be perfunctorily presented with a conservative argument in class, only to have it quickly rebutted by the professor or his fellow classmates.

There has been a lot of talk in the media lately about the "conservative echo - chamber," in which Republicans deceive themselves by only talking and listening to those with whom they agree.

But there are also liberal echo chambers, and Brandeis University is one of them.
As a liberal arts university, Brandeis prides itself on teaching its students how to think.  
We are here to have our ideas challenged, our beliefs questioned and our assumptions overturned.  

That is what a real college education should be about.

When it comes to the political environment on campus, very few of these things happen for the average liberal Brandeisian.  

He may act as if he's being pushed out of an ideological comfort zone, but too often he is simply deluding himself.

With the help of his teachers, he acts like a free-thinker, while actually being stuck in an ideological bubble.

We can do better.

First, professors should include a wider range of thinkers and theorists in their curricula.  
For example, economics students should be able to study the generally free-market based Austrian and Chicago schools in addition to aggregate demand-based Keynesian economic theory.  

Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, professors ought to be far more careful about using their podiums as soapboxes on which to express their own political views.  Teachers aren't there to sound off; we have plenty of pundits for that.  Their job is to educate.  
Professors ought to take on the role of devil's advocate far more often, challenging the liberal assumptions of students while also taking on the assumptions of those who are more conservative-minded.

Finally, the University's clubs, departments and institutes ought to make an effort to bring more conservative and libertarian speakers to campus.  

Why shouldn't an economist like Thomas Sowell or writer like Ross Douthat be invited to Brandeis?

It cannot only fall to our small campus conservative groups to bring these kinds of speakers.  
As a conservative Republican, I will leave Brandeis confident that I received an education that challenged me in countless ways, often made me uncomfortable and forced me to rethink my opinions.

I want every student at this University, including liberals, to have the same opportunity that us conservatives were given.
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