A Liberal Professor Humors His Conservative "Whipper-Snapper" Students

Ashley Thorne

Via Campus Reform, I read an interesting post today on a blog called Hugo Schwyzer. The author, an anonymous "community college history and gender studies professor, animal rights activist and Episcopal youth minister with a passion for Christ, chinchillas, trail running, poetry, gender justice, country music, and reconciling contradictions," writes about his realization that some of the most engaging and articulate students he has taught have been politically conservative. Of course, his admission is tempered with lots of qualifying remarks to his liberal colleagues ("Not for one second will I concede the intellectual superiority of conservative ideas or values"), but he sees conservative students as the ones filling the good role of "counter-cultural rebelliousness" on campus today. Even through his bless-your-heart condescension, the professor clearly enjoys his repartees with such students. He views conservative students who "come from turbulent and impoverished backgrounds,"  and "'ought' to be reliable Democrats," but "become infatuated with the Republican gospel of stern self-reliance and the 'up by your bootstraps' mentality" as misguided and ultimately arrogant. But he still loves having them in class.

 

  • Share

Most Commented

March 24, 2025

1.

A Reckoning for Higher Education?

Are American colleges and universities finally getting their comeuppance?...

March 31, 2025

2.

Keeping Watch

Columbia's descent into chaos is by its own hand. Actions to right the university must be swift and tough....

January 27, 2025

3.

Exclusive Documents: UC-Boulder Breaks Civil Rights Law to Advance Racial Preferences

New FOIA documents grant a window into how the University of Colorado-Boulder, in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, discriminates on the basis of protected class and upholds a co......

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

April 15, 2025

2.

Fighting Harvard and the Other Cultural Warlords

The academic bureaucracies and professoriate are so deeply committed to their radical program of replacing American society with their own vision of a new order that we have no real choice b......

October 12, 2010

3.

Ask a Scholar: What is the True Definition of Latino?

What does it mean to be Latino? Are only Latin American people Latino, or does the term apply to anyone whose language derived from Latin?...