Thousands of students visit Quad Day on the University of Illinois campus in 2003. The university hosts hundreds of student-lead recreational, social and political organizations each semester.
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Students have long picked schools based on their academic reputations and social life.
for The Hechinger Report and courtesy Illinois News Connection
When Angel Amankwaah traveled from Denver to North Carolina Central University for incoming student orientation this summer, she decided she had made the right choice.
She had fun learning the chants that fans perform at football games. But she also saw that “there are students who look like me, and professors who look like me” at the historically Black university, said Amankwaah, 18, who is Black. “I knew that I was in a safe space.”
This has now become an important consideration for college-bound students from all backgrounds and beliefs.
Students have long picked schools based on their academic reputations and social life. But with campuses in the crosshairs of the culture wars, many students are now also taking stock of attacks on diversity, course content, and speech and speakers from both ends of the political spectrum. They’re monitoring hate crimes, anti-LGBTQ legislation, state abortion laws and whether students like them — Black, rural, military veterans, LGBTQ or from other backgrounds — are represented and supported on campus.
“There’s no question that what’s happening at the state level is directly affecting these students,” said Alyse Levine, founder and CEO of Premium Prep, a private college admissions consulting firm in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. When they look at colleges in various states now, she said, “There are students who are asking, ‘Am I really wanted here?’ ”
For some students on both sides of the political divide, the answer is no. In the chaotic new world of American colleges and universities, many say they feel unwelcome at certain schools, while others are prepared to shut down speakers and report faculty with whose opinions they disagree.It’s too early to know how much this trend will affect where and whether prospective students end up going to college, since publicly available enrollment data lags real time. But there are early clues that it’s having a significant impact. One in four prospective students has already ruled out a college or university for consideration because of the political climate in its state, according to a survey by the higher education consulting firm Art & Science Group.
Students from a campus club demonstrate Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art and game that includes elements of dance, acrobatics, music and spirituality at Quad Day in 2003.
Photo: PhotoNews Media Archives
Among students who describe themselves as liberal, the most common reason to rule out colleges and universities in a particular state, that survey found, is because it’s “too Republican” or has what they consider lax gun regulations, anti-LGBTQ legislation, restrictive abortion laws and a lack of concern about racism. Students who describe themselves as conservative are rejecting states they believe to be “too Democrat” and that have liberal abortion and gay-rights laws.
One in eight high school students in Florida say they won’t go to a public university in their own state because of its education policies.
Institutions in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Texas are the most likely to be knocked off the lists of liberal students, according to the Art & Science Group survey, while conservative students avoid California and New York. One in eight high school students in Florida say they won’t go to a public university in their own state because of its education policies, a separate poll, by the college ranking and information website Intelligent.com, found. With 494 anti-LGBTQ laws proposed or adopted this year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, prospective students who are LGBTQ and have experienced significant harassment because of it are nearly twice as likely to say they don’t plan to go to college at all than students who experienced lower levels of harassment, according to a survey by GLSEN, formerly the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. “You are attacking kids who are already vulnerable,” said Javier Gomez, an LGBTQ student in his first year at Miami Dade College. “And it’s not just queer students. So many young people are fed up.” It’s not yet evident whether the new laws are affecting where LGBTQ young people are choosing to go to college, said Casey Pick, director of law and policy at The Trevor Project, which supports LGBTQ young people in crisis. But LGBTQ adults are moving away from states passing anti-LGBTQ laws, she said. And “if adult employees are taking this into account when they decide where they want to live, you can bet that college students are making the same decisions.”
Students protest Israel's Independence Day on the Quad in May 2006. Universities have always been an environment for political and cultural awareness and ideas. Today, campuses are becoming more hostile to diversity in race, religion, and sexual orientation.
Photo: PhotoNews Media Archives
Meanwhile, in an era of pushback against diversity, equity and inclusion policies in many states, and against affirmative action nationwide, Amankwaah is one of a growing number of Black students choosing what they see as the relative security of an HBCU. Enrollment at HBCUs increased by around 3 percent in 2021, the last year for which the figure is available, while the number of students at other universities and colleges fell.
College students of all races and political persuasions report feeling uncomfortable on campuses that have become political battlegrounds.
An anthropology lecturer at the University of Chicago who taught an undergraduate course called “The Problem of Whiteness” said she was deluged with hateful messages when a conservative student posted her photo and email address on social media.
“Anecdotally and from personal experience, there’s certainly a pocket of students who are weighing these factors in terms of where to go to college,” Stevens said. Eighty-one percent of liberal students and 53 percent of conservative ones say they support reporting faculty who make comments that they find offensive, the same survey found. It used sample comments such as, “There is no evidence of anti-Black bias in police shootings,” “Requiring vaccination for COVID is an assault on individual freedom” and “Biological sex is a scientific fact.” A professor at Texas A&M University was put under investigation when a student accused her of criticizing the state’s lieutenant governor during a lecture, though she was ultimately exonerated. An anthropology lecturer at the University of Chicago who taught an undergraduate course called “The Problem of Whiteness” said she was deluged with hateful messages when a conservative student posted her photo and email address on social media. More than half of all freshmen say that colleges have the right to ban extreme speakers, according to an annual survey by an institute at UCLA; the College Pulse poll says that sentiment is held by twice the proportion of liberal students as conservative ones. An appearance by a conservative legal scholar who spoke at Washington College in Maryland last month was disrupted by students because of his positions about LGBTQ issues and abortion. The subject: free speech on campus.
Many conservative critics of colleges and universities say faculty are indoctrinating students with liberal opinions.
The University of Illinois welcomes students from all backgrounds who wish to pursue a higher education.
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“I have to imagine that universities that have a bad track record on freedom of expression or academic freedom, that it will affect their reputations,” said Steven Maguire, the organization’s campus freedom fellow. “I do hear people saying things like, ‘I’m worried about what kind of a college or university I can send my kids to and whether they’ll be free to be themselves and to express themselves.’ ” Some colleges are now actively recruiting students on the basis of these kinds of concerns. Colorado College in September created a program to ease the process for students who want to transfer away from institutions in states that have banned diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; Hampshire College in Massachusetts has offered admission to any student from New College in Florida, subject of what critics have described as a conservative takeover. Thirty-five have so far accepted the invitation. Though many conservative critics of colleges and universities say faculty are indoctrinating students with liberal opinions, incoming freshmen tend to hold left-leaning views before they ever set foot in a classroom, according to that UCLA survey. Fewer than one in five consider themselves conservative. Three-quarters say abortion should be legal and favor stricter gun control laws, 68 percent say wealthy people should pay more taxes than they do now and 86 percent that climate change should be a federal priority and that there should be a clear path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Prospective students say they are watching as new laws are passed and controversies erupt on campuses, and actively looking into not just the quality of food and available majors at the colleges they might attend, but state politics. “Once I decided I was going to North Carolina Central, I looked up whether North Carolina was a red state or a blue state,” Amankwaah said. (North Carolina has a Democrat as governor but Republicans control both chambers of the legislature and hold a veto-proof supermajority in the state Senate.) Florida’s anti-LGBTQ laws prompted Javier Gomez to leave his native state and move to New York to go to fashion school. But then he came back, transferring to Miami Dade. “People ask me, ‘Why the hell are you back in Florida?’ ” said Gomez. “The reason I came back was that there was this innate calling in me that you have to stick around and fight for the queer and trans kids here. It’s overwhelming at times. It can be very mentally depleting. But I wanted to stay and continue the fight and build community against hatred.”
Jon Marcus wrote this article for The Hechinger Report. This article is provided by the Illinois News Connection.