This was, perhaps, the most positive conversation I’ve ever overheard while a graduate student. Otherwise, it’s a tame example of what I have to deal with multiple times a day, nearly every day.
(I was a participant in this conversation, but I did not speak during the section I’m reporting on).
Student A: Well, I don’t believe Ralph Nader stole the election from Gore. I have yet to see any evidence that people who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore if Nader hadn’t been running for office.
B: What are you – a Republican or something?
A: Hell, no. I –
C: Why did you even ask that question? How on earth was he supposed to answer?
B: What do you mean?
C: No one in this department is a Republican, and even if they were, would you expect them to admit it? If they did, you know they’d be out of the program within a semester. There are serious repercussions for holding conservative political views.
B: As there should be. But I get your drift. The only possible answer to that question is no.
C: Well, yeah. It’s not like Republicans belong in the program or anything, but if one happened to slip in, they’d have to be very quiet about it.
B: Our job as instructors is to make sure our students are radicalized anyway. They get the conservative viewpoint from every other facet of society. We’re the only ones who can give them the truth. We need to break through their idiotic conservative beliefs if we want to be effective at all. A Republican can’t do that.
A: Exactly.
Perhaps this explains why, despite not being Republican myself, I’m so darn cranky with leftists.