It is time to rethink our image of UW-Madison. The leftist haven of the 1960s and '70s is no more. Instead, the school is a roughly accurate representation of the state-minus minorities and poor people, of course. When you take minorities and poor people out of the mix, the reasons for UW to be a center-right community only increase.
Anyone who still thinks the UW is radically liberal, has no Republicans and that the college is generally the same place their parents believe it was needs to rethink things a little.
The antiwar, anti-ROTC protest recently had fewer people in attendance than did the group of College Republicans protesting the protest. For those not familiar with school history, several students actually bombed the Army Math Research Center in the early '70s because it was producing napalm. Students also rioted to protest on-campus army recruitment. Obviously the climate has changed.
This change of the student body should not come as such a shock. Kids from conservative backgrounds in the '60s and '70s had the very visible issues of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War to pry them away from their traditional background. Meanwhile, the conservative kids of today have Iraq-a war in which a scant few of their peers are actually participating-and Social Security.
Without the really divisive issues that presented themselves two generations ago, kids generally stick to the political stances of their parents. Without much incentive to change political leanings, campus conservatives grow in numbers every year.
Then there is the alleged issue of professor bias, something conservatives on campus point to in their quest to live up to the broader Republican goal of perpetual complaining, finger-pointing and self-victimization. The apparent truth, though conservatives are loathe to admit it, is that professors are by and large impartial. While some may air their political stance in lectures, few allow politics to shape their classes.
Nonetheless, the growing rumble of conservative discontent with the political views of UW professors represents a change in the student body. No longer is every student at UW expected to be politically liberal, something that became painfully apparent on the night of Nov. 2, when over half of the dorm was cheering the election results. It is therefore high time for outsiders to recognize this change as well.
Instead of viewing UW-Madison as an unabashedly liberal school with nothing but leftist radicals for students, people should begin to see UW as a school representative of the households that produce its students. Campus Republicans should shut up about being vastly outnumbered and discriminated against.
At the same time, campus liberals should shut up about minority nut-job Republicans misrepresenting the university. There are far more right-wingers at Madison than most people on the left want to admit. Both sides should recognize the new political climate at UW-Madison, one of far more balance than ever before, and drop much of the extremism that has done nothing for relevant political enlightenment on campus.
opinion@dailycardinal.com.
