Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise.
The fifth session discussed Tested: Why Conservative Students Get the Most out of Liberal Education with Lauren A. Wright and Brandice Canes-Wrone on Wednesday, February 19, 2025, from 10:00 - 11:00 am PT.
Recent critiques of America’s elite universities have aptly asserted that college students are being coddled and shielded from points of view they disagree with, setting them up for failure. But this depiction excludes the starkly divergent experiences of conservative students, who face extraordinary intellectual and social challenges inside and outside college classrooms. These obstacles are double edged: while they expose conservative students to adverse and sometimes hostile social environments, decades of psychology research also shows they may ironically impart educational advantages by forcing conservative students to defend their points of view. Are conservative students being better prepared than liberal students for life after college by constantly engaging in a more rigorous mode of thinking? This is the first ever ethnography of conservative college students at the best universities in the United States. Featuring hundreds of interviews with students and faculty, it fills a gap in timely conversations about intellectual diversity in higher education.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Eryn Tillman (00:07):
Hello, my name is Eryn Tillman,
an Associate Director at the HooverInstitution, and we'd like to welcome you
to today's webinar organized bythe Hoover Institution's center for
Revitalizing American Institutions,also known as rai.
Today's session will consist of briefopening remarks from our panelists and
a facilitated discussion with ourmoderator, followed by a period of where
(00:28):
our panelists will respond to questionsand answers from audience members.
To submit a question, please use the Q and
A feature located at the bottomof your zoom screen.
We will do our best to answeras many questions as possible.
A recording of this webinar willbe available@hoover.org rai within
the next few days.
Rai operates as the Hoover Institution'sfirst ever center and
(00:50):
is a testament to one of our foundingprinciples, Ideas Advancing Freedom.
The center was established to studythe reasons behind the crisis and trust
facing American institutions, analyzehow they are operating in practice, and
consider policy recommendations to rebuildtrust and increase their effectiveness.
RAI works with and supports Hoover Fellowsas well as faculty, practitioners and
(01:12):
policymakers from across the country topursue evidence based reforms that impact
trust and efficacy in a widerange of American institutions.
To date, our webinar series has coveredtopics relating to transitions in
the executive branch,trust in elections, and
how polling helps us understandwhat is on the minds of Americans.
Today, our focus is on Americancolleges and universities.
(01:34):
This is a particularly relevant topicbecause post secondary institutions have
experienced some of the steepestdeclines in confidence in recent years.
According to a 2023 Gallup poll, only 36%of Americans expressed a great deal or
quite a lot of confidencein higher education,
a future that has dropped21 points since 2015 57%.
(01:56):
It gives me great pleasure to introducetoday's moderator, Brandice Canes-Wrone.
Brandice is the Maurice R Greenberg SeniorFellow and Director of the center for
Revitalizing American Institutionsat the Hoover Institution.
She's also professor of Political Scienceand Professor by courtesy of
Political Economics atthe Graduate School of Business.
She served on the faculty at mit,Northwestern and Princeton until several
(02:19):
years ago, where we were able toentice her return to the farm.
Now I'll hand it off to Brandice KanesRoan, who will introduce our guests.
Brandice.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (02:28):
Thanks so much, Erin.
I'm delighted to introduce Lauren Wright,who's an Associate Research Scholar and
Lecturer in Politics andPublic affairs at Princeton University.
Lauren is the author of multiple books,including Star American Democracy
in the Age of Celebrity Candidate andOn Behalf of the President,
Presidential Spouses, andWhite House Communication Strategy.
(02:51):
Today, Lauren's a frequentguest political analyst on TV.
So you may recognize her.
She's appeared on Fox News,CNN, CBS, Cspan, and
the BBC, among many other outlets.
She is a board member of the White HouseTransition Project and previously served
as field representative for Meg Whitman'scampaign for governor of California.
(03:13):
Today, as Erin mentioned, Lauren will bespeaking about her most recent research
project, which is about an institutioncertainly close to my heart and
close to home universities.
She's going to be discussing her new work,
why Conservative Students getthe Most out of Liberal Education.
And Lauren, you mean liberal educationnot just in the liberal arts sentence,
(03:35):
but the politically liberal sense as well.
So we're going to begin with Laurendescribing an overview of her
research as an introduction.
And then I'll ask somequestions of Lauren and
then we'll open it up to leaving a goodbit of time for audience questions.
Lauren, thanks so much forjoining us today.
>> Lauren Wright (03:54):
Thank you so much.
Brandice, let me go ahead andshare my slides here.
And the point you madeabout terminology is great
because you probably saved me about30 seconds there on defining terms.
I'm really excited to hear the feedbackfrom the audience today and
some of your questions.
Thank you for having me.
Just to get going here.
(04:16):
So when freshmen students arriveat Princeton, here we go.
They're immediately confrontedwith something like this called
a privilege wheel.
And this example is fromthe University of Michigan.
But a lot of these orientationexercises have cropped up at top
universities acrossthe country in recent years.
(04:38):
So what is this privilege wheel all about?
Well, I asked one of ourconservative senior undergrads at
Princeton about her experience with it.
Her name's Danielle andthis is what she told me.
She said, I signed up to bean outdoor action leader.
So taking 17 and 18 year olds hiking.
And to do that, I had to do a training ina multipurpose room with something called
(05:02):
the privilege wheel, where you pick oneaspect of your identity that defines
you the most, religion,class, disability, status.
I think height was evenon there somewhere.
And you go in the corner of the room setaside for people with that attribute and
talk about it.
Normal people don't think like this.
I was really uncomfortable andI know other religious kids who were too.
(05:24):
But Danielle also told me thatbeing in the intellectual and
ideological minority atPrinceton was valuable for her.
It caused her to question her ownbeliefs and she elaborated like this.
If I had gone to Christian college ora very conservative college,
I never would have had to followliberal students on Instagram.
(05:46):
The first year forme here was like boot camp.
I would read their Instagram posts in myhead and then have to go back and forth.
Why is that point they made wrong?
Why do I disagree with it?
Like I hate it, but intellectually,what is the reason I do?
Every single day I'm getting sharper andsharper and
they're not because they'renot hearing the other side.
And it's like, in a lot of respects,I should be thanking these people in
(06:10):
the end of the day because I'm coming outso much more on top than they ever will or
ever could,because they don't even have a chance.
How can you have a good argument againstan argument you've never heard before?
And experiences like Danielle's informthe thesis of my book in progress.
Basically, elite universitiesare unwelcoming to conservatives.
(06:34):
Conservative students face social andintellectual challenges because of this.
They're constantly made to defend theirviews because they're in the minority.
And so ironically,they develop these skills and
this knowledge thatliberal students don't.
They become, for example,more perceptive and self aware,
more resilient, more prepared fora class debate and discussion.
(06:56):
And so, in a nutshell, conservativestudents are getting more out of
the college experiencethan liberal students.
And just to put a fine point on this,
conservative students are inthe severe ideological minority.
They make up about 19% ofcollege students nationwide,
compared to 48% of college studentswhich identify as liberal.
(07:19):
And these data are from the foundation forIndividual Rights and
Expression that keep tabson about 300 colleges and
universities acrossthe country consistently.
And perhaps because of this, conservativesare much more likely to self censor than
liberal students in a variety of settings,in classroom discussion,
(07:39):
with other students, with professors.
It's not the majority ofconservative students.
It's about 14 to 16% whosay they do this regularly.
But it is much higher than liberalstudents at about 4 to 6%.
And what's also interesting isconservative students appear to be more
open to opposing points of view.
(07:59):
View to their own.
So here fire asked college students,which of the speakers with
the following extreme views wouldyou be okay with having on campus?
And so you can see that for speakerswith left leaning extreme views, both
liberal and conservative undergraduatessupport having those speakers on campus.
(08:21):
But for speakers with right leaningextreme views, it's really only
the conservative students who are open tohearing those liberal students are not.
And my books, the first in depthethnography of conservative students
detailing these sort of silverlinings of hostile environments and
(08:42):
elite liberal spaces,
one of which is this open mindednessthat we seem to see in national surveys.
To be clear, this idea that universitycampuses have left wing bias is not new.
For example, Greg Lukianoff and
Jonathan Haidt say in their bookCoddling of the American Mind,
something's been going wrong on manycollege campuses in the last few years.
(09:06):
Speakers are shouted down.
Students and professors saythey're walking on eggshells and
they're afraid to speak honestly.
Keith Whittington similarly says andspeak freely.
Free speech is under attack atcolleges and universities today.
Conservative students and professorsoften find themselves beleaguered.
And Fox News even has an entirestreaming series dedicated to
(09:28):
the decline of Ivy Leagueuniversities put censorship
of conservative thoughtat the center of that.
But these accounts of universities ashostile to conservatism are incomplete.
They don't include the firsthandexperiences of conservative students.
(09:48):
And part of that is conservative studentsare really guarded about sharing those.
And they also don't explore thispossibility that the adverse experiences
of conservative students teach them tobe more resilient and critical thinkers.
And there's lots of reason to believethat this is what's going on.
(10:09):
For one, there's decades of psychologyresearch that show facing and overcoming
challenges promotes well being andcognitive growth helps build resilience.
And that's exactly what the conservativestudents in the interviews I conduct
describe.
They face adversely, constantly,intellectually and socially.
When they're asking questions in class,professors might dismiss or
(10:33):
even demean them, other studentsassume the worst or attack them, and
they describe becomingsocially radioactive.
But in order to deal with those obstacles,
conservative students becomemore calculating and self aware.
They over prepare for class discussion,they become excellent at alternative
perspective taking, andthey ultimately express gratitude for
(10:57):
the college experience andwhat they call real friendships.
So I don't have time to go through thedetailed plan for the book with you today.
We could save some for the Q andA, but basically I'm planning for
surveys with more of thesedescriptive statistics establishing
the experiences of conservatives andliberals on Campuses are different and
(11:20):
planning forover 200 interviews with liberal and
conservative students atthe following institutions so far.
And the reason that group of schools isgood is they vary different positions
both on fires, free speech rankings andoverall college rankings.
And I also include some conservativeschools where conservatives are in
(11:44):
the majority in my sample.
And there's a really interestingevidence of an opposite trend.
I hope we can talk about a little bitwhere the liberal students are getting
more out of their collegeeducation in those environments.
And I've completed almost 70 interviews sofar,
pretty evenly split among conservative andliberal students.
Again, I'm going to rush throughthe interview sample and
(12:07):
protocol because I want to get tosome quick examples of findings.
But what I'd really like you to focus onhere is that in these interviews with
liberal and conservative students,when I ask,
ask them what they think about policy andpolitics, it's on their turf.
So I'm asking them what are your mostimportant issues that you care about?
(12:28):
What's your position on that issue?
What's the best argumenton the other side?
What are the obstacles to yourpreferred policy passing?
So it's really politically involvedstudents being asked about their politics.
And one of the most interesting findingsis I see these gaps in knowledge on
the students self reported mostimportant issues with conservative
(12:52):
students excelling at counterarguments and liberal students really,
really struggling in this regard.
So let's take an issue thata lot of conservative and
liberal students say is their number onemost important issue, Israel, Palestine.
Here's an example of a conversation witha conservative student on this issue.
(13:14):
He said, if I were a single issue voter,it would be Israel.
I asked, so you're pro Israel.
You think Israel has a moralhigh ground in the conflict?
He says, yes, I think the way Israelhas conducted itself in the course of
the conflict actually demonstratesa commitment to protecting civilian life
that's unmatched by any military conflict.
(13:35):
If you look at the ratio of targetedstrikes to casualties, it's better than
the US operations in Fallujah orMsul against Isis for instance.
I ask, well, what are the downsidesto Israel's military operations?
What's the best argumentthe pro Palestine side has?
And he says it's one Idon't hear that often,
which is that Israel's campaign in Gazais just going to get more antipathy and
(13:59):
more hostility toward Israel in the longrun and breed more terrorism and it's not
going to set the population up in sucha way that a two state solution is viable.
So you can see he has examples andevidence.
And he's thought about bothsides of the issue a lot.
Here's how a conversation went with asenior that's pro Palestine at Princeton,
(14:23):
a liberal Princeton senior.
He says,my roommates really know their stuff.
We talk about issues, sometimes for hours.
I asked what are the issues you're reallyinformed on that you talk about the most?
He says, the war stuff in Ukraine orin Israel, we talk a lot about that.
I ask him what his viewson the issue are and
(14:43):
he says,I think Israel is an apartheid state.
Clearly they treat Palestinians as secondclass citizens and there's no defending
this callous medieval style siege on Gazawhere people are in an open air prison and
they bomb and tell them to leave.
It's insane.
I asked what do you think Israelshould have done instead?
In response to October 7th?
(15:04):
And he says, that's where it gets tough.
Obviously they can't do nothingthat would show weakness, but
I can tell you they should nothave indiscriminately bombed.
So this student in contrast, says thisis his number one most important issue,
but he hasn't really thoughtmuch about the other side.
And this trend is really widespreadacross different political issues.
(15:29):
Just looking at the interviews I'veconducted at Princeton so far.
22 liberals, 24 conservatives.
It's really common for liberal studentsto fail to articulate a counter
argument on their selfreported most important issue.
It's extraordinarily rare for
conservatives to fail toarticulate a counter argument.
(15:50):
And again, part of the reason I thinkis they're in the ideological minority.
Some other differences gleaned frominterviews Conservatives are more likely.
Likely to attend events withspeakers they disagree with.
When they do speak up in class,they're much more likely to be challenged.
They're more likely to have been excludedfrom a social group because of political
(16:13):
beliefs, and they're more likely toexperience attacks on social media
as a result of their political views.
And so to summarize here, conservativestudents in elite college settings
constantly are exposed to different pointsof view and they're made to defend theirs.
Liberal students are not.
Interviews with liberal students pointto many downside, one of which is that,
(16:36):
they're unfamiliar with and sometimescaught off guard by counter arguments.
And interviews with count, conservativestudents point to many strengths and
this sort of silver lining ofan adversarial experiences, for example,
resilience and intellectual development.
And again, at the conservativemajority schools I look at,
(16:57):
liberals are the ones experiencing this.
I think these findings havereally important implications for
life after college andhope we can talk about that more,
but particularly for students that wantto go into politics and government.
Thank you so much,I'll stop sharing my slides.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (17:16):
Lauren, thanks so much for that terrific overview.
So I'm going to ask a few questions andthis is a great time for
those of you who haven't yetwritten in to the Q and A or chat to start
writing in and share your own questionsfor Lauren over the next period.
Lauren, so your findings on the one hand,as you say, have the silver lining, right?
(17:40):
That conservative students get moreout of their education because they're
challenged.
It seems like a fairly straightforwardimplication would be that all students,
whatever your political beliefs orbackground,
should receive some sort ofchallenge to those beliefs.
So that sounds sort of, [LAUGH] seems likethere's a particular group of students who
(18:02):
aren't particularly experiencing that.
What should universities andcolleges do to make that happen?
You know, I think actually oneof the easier fixes Brandice,
is in the classroom.
There are many well meaning professorswho just really struggle not
to wear their personalpolitics on their sleeve.
(18:24):
But when that happens,
when you share your personal politicalviews with students, it's easy for
them to assume there's a privileged pointof view or a preferred point of view.
And it really stiflesthe ability ability or
openness of students tosharing their own views.
And actually something like thisjust happened in my master's level
(18:49):
class earlier this week.
I'm teaching women in politics thissemester and one of my students said,
you know, one of the biggest problemsis we have a patriarchal society and
that it might sound likea given to some people.
But you know, I Asked her,what do you mean by that?
(19:09):
What are the hallmarks ofa patriarchal society?
How do you know we're in one?
Can we measure those attributes?
And if professors, I think,could try actively to make sure there's
an environment where the students know,no matter where you're coming from,
your premises, your beliefs,your assumptions will be challenged
(19:34):
no matter where you are onthe political spectrum, then I.
It's easier for them to stop assumingthat there's a preferred point of view.
And that's just something wecan all do in the classroom and
try to be more careful of.
Yeah, no, I'll certainly agree there,
that faculty should be doing that andmaybe there should be more.
(19:57):
I mean, it's sort of a question.
At some business schools, for instance,faculty, you know, the way, you know,
because of the kind of biases fromteaching evaluations, what some business
schools do is the faculty actuallysit in and evaluate other faculty.
Of course,
we'd need to make sure the evaluatorsagreed with the sister I proposed.
[LAUGH] Sure, but some sort ofincentives to take this on., kay, so
(20:22):
an interesting part of your study is thiskind of counterpoint at universities or
colleges such as Hillsdale oruniversities such as BYU,
right, that liberal students get out,get more there.
So as a social scientist,right, I sort of wonder,
okay, there's some elementof selection here.
(20:45):
No one's really forcing, whether it'sthe liberal students to go to Hillsdale or
the conservative students to go to,you know, Princeton or Harvard.
So how might that affect the sort ofsilver lining aspect of your results?
Or are you concerned about that?
Or have you done things, you know,
how should we interpretthe kind of selection issues?
>> Lauren Wright (21:08):
That's a really good question.
Well, I think with this type of research,there's pros and
cons to an ethnographic study.
On the one hand, I get really in depthaccounts during these interviews.
I can switch on a dime.
If I do want to dig intosomething a student said,
I can reframe the question orask an additional question.
(21:30):
But I do want to do a nationwiderepresentative survey to combat some
of these selection issues.
The second part is, yes,the worst fear of the selection issue
you're talking about is that,I happen to be getting really smart,
really special types ofconservative students.
(21:51):
For instance, at a school like Princetonand at Hillsdale, a really special,
more intellectually elite studentthat's liberal at Hillsdale.
And so I really try to focus on withinschool, differences between liberals and
conservatives, making sure within schools,
those conservatives are Comparable,and the liberals are comparable.
(22:15):
And actually, within schools,I do have data on things like grades and
SAT scores, and they're very,very consistent within schools.
I also have relative gender balancewithin schools, for instance, so there's.
There's some protection there.
But I do want to do a wider studyto combat some of those and
(22:36):
hopefully make the conclusionsmore generalizable.
But where I am in the research rightnow is I think the ethnography
is really helpful for theory building.
And then if hopefully, I do this largersurvey, I can ask more questions and
the interviews can inform whatshould be on that questionnaire.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (22:59):
Yeah, that sounds great.
That sounds great.
Yeah.I mean, obviously,
one of the concerns you hear from the.
From the right is sort ofthe indoctrination concern, right?
Yeah, I mean, soyou find it seems a lot of resilience.
And I would think that if allcolleges were like Hillsdale,
(23:20):
you might not picking on, butif all colleges had a conservative plan,
I would assume liberals might havesimilar concerns about whether.
So it's sort of interestingthat in your case,
you know,it seems that you find resilience,
though I realize the purpose of the studyisn't to kind of tease that out, it's to.
>> Lauren Wright (23:41):
Yes, but again, I mean, it is helpful, I think, that, you know,
that I do believe it's something aboutbeing in the experience of the minority,
and I don't.
To get into the exercise of comparingthe Princeton and Hillsdale students,
for instance, but the fact Thatthe liberal students at a school like
(24:01):
Hillsdale are having a similar experienceto the conservatives at Princeton,
I think, is interesting, yeah.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (24:08):
Definitely, okay, so you presented some data that was a lot
more heartening than a lot of the dataI've seen about censoring their views.
So that, as we both know,this can be a survey question,
kind of what are you prompting?
So FIRE, which you cited in someof the slides, the Foundation for
(24:31):
Individual Rights and Expression.
I mean, they ask about whetheryou're censoring yourselves once or
twice a month, maybe that's not in manypeople's minds, a regular censorship.
But they find that overhalf of those at Harvard,
which ranks low in their rankings,so this is half,
(24:52):
in terms of free speech, are censoringthemselves once or twice a month.
And at Harvard, the ratio of liberalsto conservatives is pretty high, right?
So the censorship isn't only comingfrom conservatives in this case,
it's also coming from liberals,from liberal students.
(25:15):
I mean, what do you think universitiesshould do to encourage an atmosphere that
would make students morecomfortable expressing their views?
You mentioned something earlier inside theclassroom where it wouldn't even have to
be their views.
It could even be just an intellectualargument, right, and trying something out.
But outside the classroom,
do you think there are things universitiescan do to foster that atmosphere?
(25:36):
Is that just sort of beyondthe purview of what you can do?
If you've got an eight to one,nationally, it may be four to one, but
if the ratio on some of these campusesis eight to one is just kind of, well,
that's the way it goes.
>> Lauren Wright (25:51):
[CROSSTALK] even worse.
Not that I wanna qualify it ina normative way, but actually,
the most recent stats I saw fromHarvard's Crimson newspaper
were 6.5% of the undergradsidentified as conservative.
Yeah.
Over 70% identify as liberal.
(26:11):
And then there is this 25%chunk who identify as moderate.
And I think, as you so aptly state,
those are probably some of the studentsthat are also self-censoring.
Well, it's over 50%, so I agree,Brits are definitely doing it.
It's every group for sure.
(26:33):
And I think a lot, you know,a lot of these reforms at
the university level vary in ease andfeasibility.
Something else I think would helptremendously is if more universities
adopted institutional neutrality.
I think it really sendsA message to students that
(26:54):
there's not a campus orthodoxy.
And it's really importantto see that from the start.
We also know from surveys likePew that the public really feels
that students are not beingfairly admitted to universities,
faculty are not being fairlyhired at universities.
(27:15):
And maybe faculty should takemore of an interest in these
orientation programs likethe ones I mentioned at the very
beginning that might beadministered by staff members,
perhaps not based in rigorousresearch about what best
acclimates you to the campus orto the university environment.
(27:40):
And so there are university policies andprograms.
I think it's very fair for faculty tolook at, even if it's not something
they see as part of their day-to-day job,like being in the classroom is.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (27:55):
Yeah, certainly agree.
We've got a lot going on in DC right now.
Sure you've noticed andmany of our audience.
I'm sure our audience has noticed.
Well, in general, butregarding higher education as well.
Given your findings, how would youtry to defend what universities do,
(28:20):
well, to those who basically are saying,hey, they're just too politicized?
We shouldn't be funding them inthe way we're funding them, or
are there things you might do to change?
You just mentioned some to kind ofaddress the underlying critique
(28:40):
because I think you never know,politicians can say things and
then they get fixated on another priority,even if they mean it.
But these seem like prettybig statements and so
universities may be in fora big political fight.
What are your thoughts there?
>> Lauren Wright (29:02):
Yeah,
I do understand a lot of the publicmistrust of universities.
I understand where that's coming from.
But it's such a shame that there'sthis view that what's happening on
universities is primarily indoctrination,
because really the purpose of a universityis to teach students how to reason so
(29:23):
they can resist indoctrination and so theycan question the environment around them.
And there's no better institution toteach students how to problem solve.
And that's what universities shouldbe trying to convince the public
that they're still good at doing,is building knowledge.
And the way you do that is byteaching the scientific method,
(29:48):
by teaching students how to build andevaluate evidence,
and how questioning your ownbeliefs is part of that.
And so I think if universitiescould get back to communicating
both their value from an empiricalresearch and knowledge creation stance,
(30:10):
but also for the liberal artsuniversities that maybe aren't
the R1 institutions to talkabout how they're teaching
students how to think andhow to evaluate other thinkers.
That's an extremely valuable life skill,no matter what industry you're in, even
(30:32):
if you're not going to be an empiricalresearcher as part of your career.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (30:37):
Excellent, so we have a lot of questions coming in.
This is such a great topic andfascinating research.
So I want to start to ask so thatthe audience can get these questions in.
So one question that's comein is whether universities
(30:57):
might require debate classesat the university level.
And that question refers as wellto the fact that high school
students are now comingin from high school.
Often with your researchis about universities.
But some students have had maybe a lackof debate in high school as well.
(31:19):
And so universities are sort ofencountering students who already might
think that what a universityeducation is is, say,
parroting to bath the teacher's views.
I guess, sort of two parts to it.
Would requiring some sort of debate,maybe if not a class within the class,
you know, some sort of taking the otherside in the classroom be helpful?
(31:44):
And how do we think about what'sgoing on in high schools?
Or have you encountered in yourinterviews any kind of evidence or
thoughts about that?
>> Lauren Wright (31:53):
That's a great question.
That could be a great exerciseif it's administered fairly.
And there are Aren't certainquestions that are off limits.
What happens with debate clubs,
especially on elite universitycampuses like Princeton or Yale, for
instance, is there's only a smallgroup of students that really want
(32:18):
to engage in that exercise,that participate in those clubs.
But if it's something everystudent has to do in a.
In a classroom,I think that's a great skill.
One of the fears students have, and
I didn't have as much time to talkabout this during the presentation, but
(32:38):
they often worry about getting engagedin some sort of debate, even if it's
in a formalized setting, because theyworry about the social repercussions.
And so I think what's helpfulabout requiring some sort of
debate setting style seminar oran exercise in class is
(32:58):
the professor assigned it to you andyou must participate.
And that might protect studentsfrom being embarrassed by holding
a certain viewpoint, especially if they'rebeing assigned to take a certain side.
I could, I could definitely see the valueof that high schools, I don't have as much
(33:21):
research on the students I interview comefrom a variety of high school backgrounds.
But there are many of the same issuesat play, especially for seniors and
juniors at high school, where studentsare scared to speak their mind,
their teachers make a pointof view that they have clear.
(33:44):
And so it's entirely possible thisis getting started before students
arrive at college.
But for a lot of students, particularlythat come from religious schools,
they come to orientation.
And the progressive orthodoxy,as they describe it,
is very shocking to them, andthat's the first time they encounter it.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (34:06):
Interesting.
We have a question about whetherthere were kind of different types.
There are students who mightsort of hear the other side, and
maybe they, you know,I don't know if moderate's the right word.
That's actually not the questioner, butcompromise is the word used by the.
(34:28):
The audience member.
We have a lot of polarization inthis count And there's some evidence
in political science,the polarizations has increased over time.
So, you know, sometimes you think, well,
hearing the other side mightmake you compromise in some way.
Are there kind of Is your evidence thatbasically the students come in with pretty
(34:51):
fixed views and hearing the other sidedoesn't really change their views at all,
they just learn to argue?
Or is there variation across students?
And that would be both at universitiesin your set like Princeton?
I'm trying to remember the set now,but Northwestern was in there,
but also at the BYU's from the other side.
>> Lauren Wright (35:15):
So the students that have the most opportunity to change their
views, I think, are the students thatare in the intellectual minority and
are hearing the other side.
One common fear, sort of about thisresearch design that's related,
that I'll mention quickly, is that,well, if you're silenced and
(35:39):
you're self censoring, how are yougetting the benefit of anything?
And I'm certainly sensitiveto that sort of argument.
But even if one group of studentsis secretly conservative, or
maybe they're secretly conservativeliberal at BYU or Hillsdale, for
instance, and they're just hearingthe other side through osmosis,
(36:03):
they go through this mental processthey describe in the interviews
where they might beembarrassed to speak out.
But on their own time they're thinkingthrough, why don't I agree with
what I heard and what do I thinkthe best argument is on the other side?
And so even if there isa culture of indoctrination,
(36:26):
at the most extreme level,the students in the ideological minority
are getting the benefit of hearingwhat the other argument is.
And cognitively on their own time,they're getting stronger.
The problem is at these eliteuniversities in particular,
(36:48):
there's so few conservative students andso few conservative views that for
most students, they're surroundedby people they agree with.
And so if their views change andyou're progressive at
a progressive institution, forinstance, your views might be
(37:09):
getting hardened because youdon't even hear the other side.
And so you might end up in a placewhere you came in thinking,
I basically feel this way on this issue,but I'm not quite sure.
And then you come out thinking,actually this issue is the questions
being posed are sodangerous I shouldn't even consider them.
(37:32):
And you come out even morein favor of censorship and
that certain questions shouldn't be asked.
And that's what I see with a lot ofthe liberal students at Princeton.
And actually, after I wrote an op ed inthe Atlantic summarizing my research,
one of the students at Princeton wrotean op ed in our campus paper and
(37:56):
her argument was that certainconservative beliefs are so
harmful that we should takethem very seriously and
we should not engage with them at all.
And that's how a lot ofthe progressive students feel.
And they're surrounded bypeople that they agree with.
(38:16):
That was a little bitof a roundabout answer.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (38:20):
Okay, mo, terrific, thanks.
No, that's okay.
That's okay.
I want to ask, this is.
Well, first let me, let me shift gears andI, then I want to come back to this
because I think there's some followup questions from the guests and
then, and I want to focus onthe audience rather than my own.
But someone's asked something about sortof how to think about the organization
(38:45):
of universities and whether the board oftrustees plays an important role there.
This is the quote.
The administration and
faculty are hopelessly lostin their liberal orthodoxy.
This is not specific to any university.
But they're saying, I mean,sp should the board of
trustees take a more activerole on this issue at campuses?
(39:08):
Do you think that the faculty.
Are you more hopeful than the audiencemember that the faculty and
administration might reform from within?
What are your thoughts?
>> Lauren Wright (39:21):
Yeah, I mean, the delicate balances between the academic
freedom faculty have to do andsay and teach what they want and
protecting the reputation of the schooland the culture of the school.
And that's exactly the argument William F.
Buckley made in God A Man at Yale, if youremember that book going way back when,
(39:45):
is he argued that it's really forthe trustees and
the donors to protectthe reputation of the school.
Many of them went,they're alumni, they care.
And there's nothing wrong withthe people that go to a school.
Sharing the particular culture ofthat school and its traditions and
standing up for western institutions andstanding up for capitalism.
(40:09):
And so he saw a very active role forthe board of trustees.
So, you know, that's, that's definitelyan argument that's been espoused before.
But I think there are other thingsfaculty can do, if administrators can
do that can start to fight this mistrustthat the public has of universities.
(40:35):
I was looking at a Pew survey ofthe other day, for instance, and
the public views on what should beimportant when you're admitted to
college are completely differentfrom faculty views on what,
what should be important whenyou're admitted to college.
The public thinks SAT scores, grades andcommunity service should count.
(40:58):
Faculty really believe thatidentity based factors should count
essays letters of recommendation,they put more emphasis on those things.
And so I think there's somecompromise to be made there.
But any active,vibrant university has a role for
(41:18):
the trustees to play andfor alumni to play.
That's an argument I've heard for.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (41:28):
And we have a question.
Just noting the audience member notesthat this may be outside the scope
of what you've studied.
>> Lauren Wright (41:36):
Okay, >> Brandice Canes-Wrone
the more extreme views of the majoritypolitical views on campus have led
people to identify as moderate and so
they shift how they would haveidentified before entering college?
And the audience member doesn't specify.
But you could see this going in two ways.
I could think of.
One is simply that theythought they were liberal, and
(41:58):
then they see what these extremes are.
Whoa.I guess I'm
really moderate because relative to them,I'm actually moderate.
So these are actually liberalfrom the national point of view.
Another would be I'm almost afraidto identify as a conservative.
Because now I'm in this beleagueredminority, and I'm gonna face
(42:18):
possibly social ostracism of some sort orsome sort of social exclusion.
And so being moderate is more acceptable.
So do you think that kind of eitherof those could inflate the moderate
estimates?
In some ways, yeah.
It's very interesting because it's almost always,
at least at the elite schoolsI'm looking at that a much
(42:40):
larger percentage of studentsidentify as liberal than do moderate.
And so you would think like thismoderate percentage would be growing and
most students would justfall flock to that category.
But that's not really what's happening.
Most of them are progressive orliberal self identifying.
(43:02):
I do find anecdotal evidence of both.
There are students that see what's goingon on campus and moderate their views.
And there are a lot of students thatare afraid to say they're conservative.
And you know, we just had the,the eating club process and
you know, recruitment andinitiation that's called
(43:23):
bicker at Princeton take placeover the last few weeks.
And the students were tellingme that they really try to
hide their political views becausesocially it has such severe repercussions.
But once you get out of college in thereal world, I do still think, you know, I,
(43:46):
I don't think being sociallyostracized is a good thing.
I'm completely on board with,you know, the sentiment that these
are terrible things that are happeningto conservative students.
But they do excel at communicatingwith other students,
at seeing the other side andthey do get more real world
(44:11):
skills it seems on average in thatregard from these bad experiences.
So anecdotal evidence of both ofthose possibilities you mentioned,
not widespread enough for
me to say that it's overwhelmingin one direction or the other.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (44:30):
Related to students views there's a question about
how much of the liberal undergraduateperspective is just the fact that
undergraduates don't have a lot ofreal life experience in terms of
having to earn a living.
And so that actually some of the, I meandoesn't negate any of your findings,
but that some of the, these liberals areactually going to become conservative or
(44:54):
moderate in the not too distant future orI realize that maybe outside the scope,
but have you read anythingthat comments on that?
>> Lauren Wright (45:04):
I mean it's just a common, I mean it's a common theme in our
political culture that as you getolder you get more conservative.
And the Wall Street Journal just hadan analysis that says more people
are Republican now than ever before and
they have the slight edge on partyID this last election cycle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What are the implications of that?
(45:26):
So I do think there are interestingtrends society wide.
I'll also just mention, I think fora lot of these students and
you know it's, I think it'sa strength of the research design and
it speaks to the applicability ofit that most of the students I'm
(45:47):
interviewing are interested ingoing into politics or government.
So actually there are pretty severeimplications for these differences and
I think a lot of them are unfoldingon the Democratic side.
If you look at Harris's campaign forinstance,
(46:08):
it was staffed by a lot ofthese Ivy plus graduates.
She had certainly professors fromIvy universities advising her.
And there's an argument to be made thatuniversities are part of the reason
that campaign wasn't very in touchwith the views of the public.
(46:28):
I also just think, you know,elite universities are still really
important because we know almost 25% ofCongress is made up by Ivy plus graduates.
It's 75% of the Supreme Court.
It's a little less than 11% of Fortune 500companies are led by IV plus graduates.
(46:51):
And so if you have this experience wherethe liberal students are coming out so
under prepared andunaware of the other side,
I think there actuallyare real implications.
And I'll just tell one quickanecdote from one of my interviews
with a liberal student thatgraduated from Princeton and
(47:13):
now she works trying toget Democrats elected.
And she said during our interview,
I've cut off all contact withTrump voters in my life.
It's just a values difference.
I can't communicate with those people andthere's no value in doing so.
(47:33):
Well, it was very strikingto me because again,
she works in politics andit is her job to defeat Republicans.
And it's really hard to defeat Republicansif you don't know the Republican
arguments andyou don't talk to Trump voters.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (47:51):
Yeah, that's certainly seems sensible in the case.
Okay, we have a question about kindaputting aside the religious schools for
the moment.
Have you found that any of the elitecolleges do a better job of
respecting students views whohave conservative points of view?
(48:16):
And if so, is this because of the faculty,the administration,
the alumni, something aboutthe student body, something else?
Have you found some variation?
>> Lauren Wright (48:27):
I mean, I think there are bright lights at every campus.
I mean, there are campus Republicanclubs that are getting more
popular than ever by somemeasures at schools like Harvard,
because students sort of see that astheir opportunity to look out for
the other side and learn more aboutpeople that disagree with them.
(48:52):
Campuses do have active pro life clubs.
They do have activereligious organizations.
You know, Princeton has bothan undergraduate wing of
the Federalist Society, and
we have programs likethe James Madison program and
(49:13):
certainly Stanford has its own version ofthese sorts of clubs and associations.
And so I would say at every schoolthere are opportunities to combat this,
but students have to be veryactive in seeking those out.
And that would just be my advice forany undergraduate looking to sharpen
(49:36):
their views to make sure they're gettingthe most out of their education.
Is the responsibility is really on them togo to the groups that they disagree with
to hear the other side, because it mightnot happen right away in the classroom.
It's really hard tochange university policy.
(49:57):
But if students take the responsibilityon their own shoulders and
really try to be open and really tryto go to speakers they disagree with,
for instance,then that's something they can immediately
do that doesn't requireany institutional change.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (50:17):
Yeah, your comment reminded me.
I know Robbie told me George,who runs the James Madison program,
told me it was a few years ago,where either a liberal publication or
in a publication, even if it wasa general one, liberal students said,
don't join the James Madisonprogram because that's what
(50:41):
people do just to get greatjobs after- How terrible.
It was as if he had planted it.
They never had so many students wantto join the James Madison program.
He had not planted it.
It was here, they were saying,you're a sellout.
And that was a greatrecruitment mechanism.
So if only people could plant these,these comments.
>> Lauren Wright (51:03):
Actually, you know, it is an important point.
There's a lot of.
And I've encountered somuch of this in my interviews.
There's a lot of judgment thatstudents cast on one another for
what they do after graduation.
And one of the problems the studentstell me at Princeton is if
(51:23):
you do pursue a career in business orconsulting or you want to go to medical or
law school,there's a judgment that happens by your
progressive peers where theythink you're profit seeking and
there's a social judgmentassociated with that.
(51:44):
And there is a cost to joining the JamesMadison program socially at Princeton that
some of the conservativestudents have told me about.
And one of my most talented liberalstudents joined the program to try to
hear some arguments on the other side andto meet more conservative students.
And he said he was immediately judged.
(52:07):
And people said, but you're justdoing that as an exercise, right?
You're not actually conservative.
And it was very concerning.
And it's unfortunate because if you're nota student that can withstand that kind
of social pressure, obviously those areobstacles that are really hard to combat.
And college students have a lot goingon in their personal lives too.
(52:29):
So yes, there's, there's a lot ofjudgment across students for sure, in a.
Lot of these ways, unfortunately,related to these postgraduate plans.
There's a question about whetheryour research points to students
postgraduate plans being altered bytheir undergraduate experience and
(52:51):
whether they're now more interestedin careers related to their views on
political or policy issues becausethey're being challenged or crystallize.
But maybe, you know, they started asa STEM major, but they're now heading to
law school would be an example becausethey were compelled by their experience.
Do you see any of that?
(53:12):
I haven't seen many examples of that,but I'm really interested in
tracking the political career paths of theconservative and liberal undergraduates.
And if you just look at it from,again, kind of the,
the backwards direction, if you lookat the college anti Semitism and
(53:34):
free speech hearings that broughtdown three university presidents,
you know, back in December 2023.
And Elise Stefanik,a Republican Harvard graduate
that had many of the sameexperiences as an undergraduate
that I'm learning aboutwhile writing this book,
(53:58):
I don't think it's verydifficult to make the jump that
a lot of the conservativescoming out of elite institutions
are really well trained forcareers in politics.
And a lot of the liberal studentswho go to work in politics
either are sort of met witha rude awakening that there's
(54:23):
those really sharply trained conservativesand have to adjust for that.
Or, you know, if you,if you looked in an over simplistic way,
maybe that's the reason Democrats aren'twinning a lot of elections lately.
They're, you know,our institutions are feeding staffers and
(54:45):
advisors into mostly Democratic campaigns,but
the Republican politicians trained atthese schools are doing really well.
And soit's an overgeneralization I'm sure.
But it is a question I'mreally interested in,
just to see how theirpolitical careers shape up.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (55:04):
Great. We have, I think, time for
one more question.
We have a question from an attendee whoseson attends what's been described as
a slightly more conservativepublic university.
Okay.
And by the audience member's description,
not an elite school likethose you are studying.
(55:24):
He's a liberal arts major andhas on many occasions experienced
verbal hostility to hiscounterpoints from professors.
In this case, due to the professor'snegative reactions combined with
his personality, the son is developingmore entrenched views, which is,
(55:45):
of course, what I think a lot of socialpsychology research would expect,
although apparently the professors are notreading that or can't help themselves.
But the audience member saysthat they would describe.
Describe this as kind ofentrenchment rather than resilience,
although I guess you could saythe views are not changing.
(56:07):
Instead, what the sun is learning is howto play the game of publicly disowning.
And the audience member wonderswhat your thoughts are.
And I assume this is both about kind ofwhat's resilience versus entrenchment.
And then I think given the focus onthe news of elite universities and
kind of some of the policies thatare targeting them particularly,
(56:30):
it makes sense to focus on them.
But, you know,the question does bring out, you know,
are some of the problems even bigger?
You know, you could be at a conservative,
a slightly conservative publicuniversity that's not as elite.
You could be experiencing maybe less onthe social side, but in the classroom,
some of these same dimensions.
>> Lauren Wright (56:49):
Well, it's a really bad dynamic for professors, and
I wish I could have talked aboutthis a little bit more, but
this is somewhat rampant among faculty,too.
If they're not routinely challenged,they don't have very good answers.
Some of the times my studentstell me on questions,
(57:10):
they should really havemuch better answers, too.
And that makes studentsdoubtful of academia.
There's students who are turned away fromthat profession because they think it's
intellectually dishonest andthey think it's not serious.
And, you know, that that's very sad, too.
But for this other student, you know,
(57:30):
learning how to sort of hideyour political views or
not wearing them on your sleeve, it'sreally unfortunate that that's happening.
But that is, you know, I don't,I don't expect someone who's college
age to go out in the world and shoutfrom the rooftops their political views.
(57:51):
And so they're kind of learning a lessonin a way that's disappointing for
the institution thatthey're learning it at.
And if you don't have a professorwho is routinely challenged and
thinks about their own beliefs critically,then, yes, that possibility exists.
(58:13):
You're not opening a student's mind, theycome in with exactly what they had, but
they think you're not a serious person,and their views haven't changed at all.
So, I mean, it's a point that's entirely,possibly more widespread.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (58:35):
Lauren, thanks so much.
This has been terrific.
Really appreciate it.
I think we'll all look forwardto your upcoming book.
I'm going to turn things back to Erin,who I hope will remind us that we
have several exciting webinarscoming up during the spring which
relate broadly to these topics offree speech and higher education.
(58:57):
We'll have Senior Fellow Eugene Volokh,who will be doing a webinar related
to free speech, and then senior fellowLt Gen. H.R. mcMaster, who will
be talking about developments in the fieldof history, specifically on campuses.
Thanks again, Lauren andErin, over to you.
>> Eryn Tillman (59:17):
Absolutely, thank you, Brandice.
Thank you, Lauren.
What a great discussion.
We appreciate the audience foryour great questions and
thank you for the events team forall your assistance.
I want to remind you that this recordingwill be available on Hoover.org event
webpage in the next three to four days andwe encourage you to join the next event
here at Hoover,the National Forum of Civic Learning Week,
(59:40):
which is an RAI co hosting withiCivics on March 3rd 13th.
We're gonna put a link in the chat, but
you can also find that@hoover.orgeventsciviclearningweek/nationalforum.
That'll be a great event.
And then to what Brandice wasspeaking to on Wednesday, April 30,
from 10 to 11am we will have a discussionwith Senior Fellow Eugene Volk and
(01:00:03):
Jacob Machenga, the founder and ExecutiveDirector on the future of free speech and
a research professor atVanderbilt University.
They will be discussing how foreignspeech restrictions affect American free
expression.
We're going to also put a link intothe chat about our next webinar series,
Imagining American Institutions,where you'll find it, and
(01:00:26):
I hope you will sign up soyou receive all of these emails regularly.
Have a wonderful rest of the day andthank you for joining.
Hello, my name is Eryn Tillman,
an Associate Director at the HooverInstitution, and we'd like to welcome you
to today's webinar organized bythe Hoover Institution's center for
Revitalizing American Institutions,also known as rai.
Today's session will consist of briefopening remarks from our panelists and
a facilitated discussion with ourmoderator, followed by a period of where
(00:28):
our panelists will respond to questionsand answers from audience members.
To submit a question, please use the Q and
A feature located at the bottomof your zoom screen.
We will do our best to answeras many questions as possible.
A recording of this webinar willbe available@hoover.org rai within
the next few days.
Rai operates as the Hoover Institution'sfirst ever center and
(00:50):
is a testament to one of our foundingprinciples, Ideas Advancing Freedom.
The center was established to studythe reasons behind the crisis and trust
facing American institutions, analyzehow they are operating in practice, and
consider policy recommendations to rebuildtrust and increase their effectiveness.
RAI works with and supports Hoover Fellowsas well as faculty, practitioners and
(01:12):
policymakers from across the country topursue evidence based reforms that impact
trust and efficacy in a widerange of American institutions.
To date, our webinar series has coveredtopics relating to transitions in
the executive branch,trust in elections, and
how polling helps us understandwhat is on the minds of Americans.
Today, our focus is on Americancolleges and universities.
(01:34):
This is a particularly relevant topicbecause post secondary institutions have
experienced some of the steepestdeclines in confidence in recent years.
According to a 2023 Gallup poll, only 36%of Americans expressed a great deal or
quite a lot of confidencein higher education,
a future that has dropped21 points since 2015 57%.
(01:56):
It gives me great pleasure to introducetoday's moderator, Brandice Canes-Wrone.
Brandice is the Maurice R Greenberg SeniorFellow and Director of the center for
Revitalizing American Institutionsat the Hoover Institution.
She's also professor of Political Scienceand Professor by courtesy of
Political Economics atthe Graduate School of Business.
She served on the faculty at mit,Northwestern and Princeton until several
(02:19):
years ago, where we were able toentice her return to the farm.
Now I'll hand it off to Brandice KanesRoan, who will introduce our guests.
Brandice.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (02:28):
Thanks so much, Erin.
I'm delighted to introduce Lauren Wright,who's an Associate Research Scholar and
Lecturer in Politics andPublic affairs at Princeton University.
Lauren is the author of multiple books,including Star American Democracy
in the Age of Celebrity Candidate andOn Behalf of the President,
Presidential Spouses, andWhite House Communication Strategy.
(02:51):
Today, Lauren's a frequentguest political analyst on TV.
So you may recognize her.
She's appeared on Fox News,CNN, CBS, Cspan, and
the BBC, among many other outlets.
She is a board member of the White HouseTransition Project and previously served
as field representative for Meg Whitman'scampaign for governor of California.
(03:13):
Today, as Erin mentioned, Lauren will bespeaking about her most recent research
project, which is about an institutioncertainly close to my heart and
close to home universities.
She's going to be discussing her new work,
why Conservative Students getthe Most out of Liberal Education.
And Lauren, you mean liberal educationnot just in the liberal arts sentence,
(03:35):
but the politically liberal sense as well.
So we're going to begin with Laurendescribing an overview of her
research as an introduction.
And then I'll ask somequestions of Lauren and
then we'll open it up to leaving a goodbit of time for audience questions.
Lauren, thanks so much forjoining us today.
>> Lauren Wright (03:54):
Thank you so much.
Brandice, let me go ahead andshare my slides here.
And the point you madeabout terminology is great
because you probably saved me about30 seconds there on defining terms.
I'm really excited to hear the feedbackfrom the audience today and
some of your questions.
Thank you for having me.
Just to get going here.
(04:16):
So when freshmen students arriveat Princeton, here we go.
They're immediately confrontedwith something like this called
a privilege wheel.
And this example is fromthe University of Michigan.
But a lot of these orientationexercises have cropped up at top
universities acrossthe country in recent years.
(04:38):
So what is this privilege wheel all about?
Well, I asked one of ourconservative senior undergrads at
Princeton about her experience with it.
Her name's Danielle andthis is what she told me.
She said, I signed up to bean outdoor action leader.
So taking 17 and 18 year olds hiking.
And to do that, I had to do a training ina multipurpose room with something called
(05:02):
the privilege wheel, where you pick oneaspect of your identity that defines
you the most, religion,class, disability, status.
I think height was evenon there somewhere.
And you go in the corner of the room setaside for people with that attribute and
talk about it.
Normal people don't think like this.
I was really uncomfortable andI know other religious kids who were too.
(05:24):
But Danielle also told me thatbeing in the intellectual and
ideological minority atPrinceton was valuable for her.
It caused her to question her ownbeliefs and she elaborated like this.
If I had gone to Christian college ora very conservative college,
I never would have had to followliberal students on Instagram.
(05:46):
The first year forme here was like boot camp.
I would read their Instagram posts in myhead and then have to go back and forth.
Why is that point they made wrong?
Why do I disagree with it?
Like I hate it, but intellectually,what is the reason I do?
Every single day I'm getting sharper andsharper and
they're not because they'renot hearing the other side.
And it's like, in a lot of respects,I should be thanking these people in
(06:10):
the end of the day because I'm coming outso much more on top than they ever will or
ever could,because they don't even have a chance.
How can you have a good argument againstan argument you've never heard before?
And experiences like Danielle's informthe thesis of my book in progress.
Basically, elite universitiesare unwelcoming to conservatives.
(06:34):
Conservative students face social andintellectual challenges because of this.
They're constantly made to defend theirviews because they're in the minority.
And so ironically,they develop these skills and
this knowledge thatliberal students don't.
They become, for example,more perceptive and self aware,
more resilient, more prepared fora class debate and discussion.
(06:56):
And so, in a nutshell, conservativestudents are getting more out of
the college experiencethan liberal students.
And just to put a fine point on this,
conservative students are inthe severe ideological minority.
They make up about 19% ofcollege students nationwide,
compared to 48% of college studentswhich identify as liberal.
(07:19):
And these data are from the foundation forIndividual Rights and
Expression that keep tabson about 300 colleges and
universities acrossthe country consistently.
And perhaps because of this, conservativesare much more likely to self censor than
liberal students in a variety of settings,in classroom discussion,
(07:39):
with other students, with professors.
It's not the majority ofconservative students.
It's about 14 to 16% whosay they do this regularly.
But it is much higher than liberalstudents at about 4 to 6%.
And what's also interesting isconservative students appear to be more
open to opposing points of view.
(07:59):
View to their own.
So here fire asked college students,which of the speakers with
the following extreme views wouldyou be okay with having on campus?
And so you can see that for speakerswith left leaning extreme views, both
liberal and conservative undergraduatessupport having those speakers on campus.
(08:21):
But for speakers with right leaningextreme views, it's really only
the conservative students who are open tohearing those liberal students are not.
And my books, the first in depthethnography of conservative students
detailing these sort of silverlinings of hostile environments and
(08:42):
elite liberal spaces,
one of which is this open mindednessthat we seem to see in national surveys.
To be clear, this idea that universitycampuses have left wing bias is not new.
For example, Greg Lukianoff and
Jonathan Haidt say in their bookCoddling of the American Mind,
something's been going wrong on manycollege campuses in the last few years.
(09:06):
Speakers are shouted down.
Students and professors saythey're walking on eggshells and
they're afraid to speak honestly.
Keith Whittington similarly says andspeak freely.
Free speech is under attack atcolleges and universities today.
Conservative students and professorsoften find themselves beleaguered.
And Fox News even has an entirestreaming series dedicated to
(09:28):
the decline of Ivy Leagueuniversities put censorship
of conservative thoughtat the center of that.
But these accounts of universities ashostile to conservatism are incomplete.
They don't include the firsthandexperiences of conservative students.
(09:48):
And part of that is conservative studentsare really guarded about sharing those.
And they also don't explore thispossibility that the adverse experiences
of conservative students teach them tobe more resilient and critical thinkers.
And there's lots of reason to believethat this is what's going on.
(10:09):
For one, there's decades of psychologyresearch that show facing and overcoming
challenges promotes well being andcognitive growth helps build resilience.
And that's exactly what the conservativestudents in the interviews I conduct
describe.
They face adversely, constantly,intellectually and socially.
When they're asking questions in class,professors might dismiss or
(10:33):
even demean them, other studentsassume the worst or attack them, and
they describe becomingsocially radioactive.
But in order to deal with those obstacles,
conservative students becomemore calculating and self aware.
They over prepare for class discussion,they become excellent at alternative
perspective taking, andthey ultimately express gratitude for
(10:57):
the college experience andwhat they call real friendships.
So I don't have time to go through thedetailed plan for the book with you today.
We could save some for the Q andA, but basically I'm planning for
surveys with more of thesedescriptive statistics establishing
the experiences of conservatives andliberals on Campuses are different and
(11:20):
planning forover 200 interviews with liberal and
conservative students atthe following institutions so far.
And the reason that group of schools isgood is they vary different positions
both on fires, free speech rankings andoverall college rankings.
And I also include some conservativeschools where conservatives are in
(11:44):
the majority in my sample.
And there's a really interestingevidence of an opposite trend.
I hope we can talk about a little bitwhere the liberal students are getting
more out of their collegeeducation in those environments.
And I've completed almost 70 interviews sofar,
pretty evenly split among conservative andliberal students.
Again, I'm going to rush throughthe interview sample and
(12:07):
protocol because I want to get tosome quick examples of findings.
But what I'd really like you to focus onhere is that in these interviews with
liberal and conservative students,when I ask,
ask them what they think about policy andpolitics, it's on their turf.
So I'm asking them what are your mostimportant issues that you care about?
(12:28):
What's your position on that issue?
What's the best argumenton the other side?
What are the obstacles to yourpreferred policy passing?
So it's really politically involvedstudents being asked about their politics.
And one of the most interesting findingsis I see these gaps in knowledge on
the students self reported mostimportant issues with conservative
(12:52):
students excelling at counterarguments and liberal students really,
really struggling in this regard.
So let's take an issue thata lot of conservative and
liberal students say is their number onemost important issue, Israel, Palestine.
Here's an example of a conversation witha conservative student on this issue.
(13:14):
He said, if I were a single issue voter,it would be Israel.
I asked, so you're pro Israel.
You think Israel has a moralhigh ground in the conflict?
He says, yes, I think the way Israelhas conducted itself in the course of
the conflict actually demonstratesa commitment to protecting civilian life
that's unmatched by any military conflict.
(13:35):
If you look at the ratio of targetedstrikes to casualties, it's better than
the US operations in Fallujah orMsul against Isis for instance.
I ask, well, what are the downsidesto Israel's military operations?
What's the best argumentthe pro Palestine side has?
And he says it's one Idon't hear that often,
which is that Israel's campaign in Gazais just going to get more antipathy and
(13:59):
more hostility toward Israel in the longrun and breed more terrorism and it's not
going to set the population up in sucha way that a two state solution is viable.
So you can see he has examples andevidence.
And he's thought about bothsides of the issue a lot.
Here's how a conversation went with asenior that's pro Palestine at Princeton,
(14:23):
a liberal Princeton senior.
He says,my roommates really know their stuff.
We talk about issues, sometimes for hours.
I asked what are the issues you're reallyinformed on that you talk about the most?
He says, the war stuff in Ukraine orin Israel, we talk a lot about that.
I ask him what his viewson the issue are and
(14:43):
he says,I think Israel is an apartheid state.
Clearly they treat Palestinians as secondclass citizens and there's no defending
this callous medieval style siege on Gazawhere people are in an open air prison and
they bomb and tell them to leave.
It's insane.
I asked what do you think Israelshould have done instead?
In response to October 7th?
(15:04):
And he says, that's where it gets tough.
Obviously they can't do nothingthat would show weakness, but
I can tell you they should nothave indiscriminately bombed.
So this student in contrast, says thisis his number one most important issue,
but he hasn't really thoughtmuch about the other side.
And this trend is really widespreadacross different political issues.
(15:29):
Just looking at the interviews I'veconducted at Princeton so far.
22 liberals, 24 conservatives.
It's really common for liberal studentsto fail to articulate a counter
argument on their selfreported most important issue.
It's extraordinarily rare for
conservatives to fail toarticulate a counter argument.
(15:50):
And again, part of the reason I thinkis they're in the ideological minority.
Some other differences gleaned frominterviews Conservatives are more likely.
Likely to attend events withspeakers they disagree with.
When they do speak up in class,they're much more likely to be challenged.
They're more likely to have been excludedfrom a social group because of political
(16:13):
beliefs, and they're more likely toexperience attacks on social media
as a result of their political views.
And so to summarize here, conservativestudents in elite college settings
constantly are exposed to different pointsof view and they're made to defend theirs.
Liberal students are not.
Interviews with liberal students pointto many downside, one of which is that,
(16:36):
they're unfamiliar with and sometimescaught off guard by counter arguments.
And interviews with count, conservativestudents point to many strengths and
this sort of silver lining ofan adversarial experiences, for example,
resilience and intellectual development.
And again, at the conservativemajority schools I look at,
(16:57):
liberals are the ones experiencing this.
I think these findings havereally important implications for
life after college andhope we can talk about that more,
but particularly for students that wantto go into politics and government.
Thank you so much,I'll stop sharing my slides.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (17:16):
Lauren, thanks so much for that terrific overview.
So I'm going to ask a few questions andthis is a great time for
those of you who haven't yetwritten in to the Q and A or chat to start
writing in and share your own questionsfor Lauren over the next period.
Lauren, so your findings on the one hand,as you say, have the silver lining, right?
(17:40):
That conservative students get moreout of their education because they're
challenged.
It seems like a fairly straightforwardimplication would be that all students,
whatever your political beliefs orbackground,
should receive some sort ofchallenge to those beliefs.
So that sounds sort of, [LAUGH] seems likethere's a particular group of students who
(18:02):
aren't particularly experiencing that.
What should universities andcolleges do to make that happen?
You know, I think actually oneof the easier fixes Brandice,
is in the classroom.
There are many well meaning professorswho just really struggle not
to wear their personalpolitics on their sleeve.
(18:24):
But when that happens,
when you share your personal politicalviews with students, it's easy for
them to assume there's a privileged pointof view or a preferred point of view.
And it really stiflesthe ability ability or
openness of students tosharing their own views.
And actually something like thisjust happened in my master's level
(18:49):
class earlier this week.
I'm teaching women in politics thissemester and one of my students said,
you know, one of the biggest problemsis we have a patriarchal society and
that it might sound likea given to some people.
But you know, I Asked her,what do you mean by that?
(19:09):
What are the hallmarks ofa patriarchal society?
How do you know we're in one?
Can we measure those attributes?
And if professors, I think,could try actively to make sure there's
an environment where the students know,no matter where you're coming from,
your premises, your beliefs,your assumptions will be challenged
(19:34):
no matter where you are onthe political spectrum, then I.
It's easier for them to stop assumingthat there's a preferred point of view.
And that's just something wecan all do in the classroom and
try to be more careful of.
Yeah, no, I'll certainly agree there,
that faculty should be doing that andmaybe there should be more.
(19:57):
I mean, it's sort of a question.
At some business schools, for instance,faculty, you know, the way, you know,
because of the kind of biases fromteaching evaluations, what some business
schools do is the faculty actuallysit in and evaluate other faculty.
Of course,
we'd need to make sure the evaluatorsagreed with the sister I proposed.
[LAUGH] Sure, but some sort ofincentives to take this on., kay, so
(20:22):
an interesting part of your study is thiskind of counterpoint at universities or
colleges such as Hillsdale oruniversities such as BYU,
right, that liberal students get out,get more there.
So as a social scientist,right, I sort of wonder,
okay, there's some elementof selection here.
(20:45):
No one's really forcing, whether it'sthe liberal students to go to Hillsdale or
the conservative students to go to,you know, Princeton or Harvard.
So how might that affect the sort ofsilver lining aspect of your results?
Or are you concerned about that?
Or have you done things, you know,
how should we interpretthe kind of selection issues?
>> Lauren Wright (21:08):
That's a really good question.
Well, I think with this type of research,there's pros and
cons to an ethnographic study.
On the one hand, I get really in depthaccounts during these interviews.
I can switch on a dime.
If I do want to dig intosomething a student said,
I can reframe the question orask an additional question.
(21:30):
But I do want to do a nationwiderepresentative survey to combat some
of these selection issues.
The second part is, yes,the worst fear of the selection issue
you're talking about is that,I happen to be getting really smart,
really special types ofconservative students.
(21:51):
For instance, at a school like Princetonand at Hillsdale, a really special,
more intellectually elite studentthat's liberal at Hillsdale.
And so I really try to focus on withinschool, differences between liberals and
conservatives, making sure within schools,
those conservatives are Comparable,and the liberals are comparable.
(22:15):
And actually, within schools,I do have data on things like grades and
SAT scores, and they're very,very consistent within schools.
I also have relative gender balancewithin schools, for instance, so there's.
There's some protection there.
But I do want to do a wider studyto combat some of those and
(22:36):
hopefully make the conclusionsmore generalizable.
But where I am in the research rightnow is I think the ethnography
is really helpful for theory building.
And then if hopefully, I do this largersurvey, I can ask more questions and
the interviews can inform whatshould be on that questionnaire.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (22:59):
Yeah, that sounds great.
That sounds great.
Yeah.I mean, obviously,
one of the concerns you hear from the.
From the right is sort ofthe indoctrination concern, right?
Yeah, I mean, soyou find it seems a lot of resilience.
And I would think that if allcolleges were like Hillsdale,
(23:20):
you might not picking on, butif all colleges had a conservative plan,
I would assume liberals might havesimilar concerns about whether.
So it's sort of interestingthat in your case,
you know,it seems that you find resilience,
though I realize the purpose of the studyisn't to kind of tease that out, it's to.
>> Lauren Wright (23:41):
Yes, but again, I mean, it is helpful, I think, that, you know,
that I do believe it's something aboutbeing in the experience of the minority,
and I don't.
To get into the exercise of comparingthe Princeton and Hillsdale students,
for instance, but the fact Thatthe liberal students at a school like
(24:01):
Hillsdale are having a similar experienceto the conservatives at Princeton,
I think, is interesting, yeah.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (24:08):
Definitely, okay, so you presented some data that was a lot
more heartening than a lot of the dataI've seen about censoring their views.
So that, as we both know,this can be a survey question,
kind of what are you prompting?
So FIRE, which you cited in someof the slides, the Foundation for
(24:31):
Individual Rights and Expression.
I mean, they ask about whetheryou're censoring yourselves once or
twice a month, maybe that's not in manypeople's minds, a regular censorship.
But they find that overhalf of those at Harvard,
which ranks low in their rankings,so this is half,
(24:52):
in terms of free speech, are censoringthemselves once or twice a month.
And at Harvard, the ratio of liberalsto conservatives is pretty high, right?
So the censorship isn't only comingfrom conservatives in this case,
it's also coming from liberals,from liberal students.
(25:15):
I mean, what do you think universitiesshould do to encourage an atmosphere that
would make students morecomfortable expressing their views?
You mentioned something earlier inside theclassroom where it wouldn't even have to
be their views.
It could even be just an intellectualargument, right, and trying something out.
But outside the classroom,
do you think there are things universitiescan do to foster that atmosphere?
(25:36):
Is that just sort of beyondthe purview of what you can do?
If you've got an eight to one,nationally, it may be four to one, but
if the ratio on some of these campusesis eight to one is just kind of, well,
that's the way it goes.
>> Lauren Wright (25:51):
[CROSSTALK] even worse.
Not that I wanna qualify it ina normative way, but actually,
the most recent stats I saw fromHarvard's Crimson newspaper
were 6.5% of the undergradsidentified as conservative.
Yeah.
Over 70% identify as liberal.
(26:11):
And then there is this 25%chunk who identify as moderate.
And I think, as you so aptly state,
those are probably some of the studentsthat are also self-censoring.
Well, it's over 50%, so I agree,Brits are definitely doing it.
It's every group for sure.
(26:33):
And I think a lot, you know,a lot of these reforms at
the university level vary in ease andfeasibility.
Something else I think would helptremendously is if more universities
adopted institutional neutrality.
I think it really sendsA message to students that
(26:54):
there's not a campus orthodoxy.
And it's really importantto see that from the start.
We also know from surveys likePew that the public really feels
that students are not beingfairly admitted to universities,
faculty are not being fairlyhired at universities.
(27:15):
And maybe faculty should takemore of an interest in these
orientation programs likethe ones I mentioned at the very
beginning that might beadministered by staff members,
perhaps not based in rigorousresearch about what best
acclimates you to the campus orto the university environment.
(27:40):
And so there are university policies andprograms.
I think it's very fair for faculty tolook at, even if it's not something
they see as part of their day-to-day job,like being in the classroom is.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (27:55):
Yeah, certainly agree.
We've got a lot going on in DC right now.
Sure you've noticed andmany of our audience.
I'm sure our audience has noticed.
Well, in general, butregarding higher education as well.
Given your findings, how would youtry to defend what universities do,
(28:20):
well, to those who basically are saying,hey, they're just too politicized?
We shouldn't be funding them inthe way we're funding them, or
are there things you might do to change?
You just mentioned some to kind ofaddress the underlying critique
(28:40):
because I think you never know,politicians can say things and
then they get fixated on another priority,even if they mean it.
But these seem like prettybig statements and so
universities may be in fora big political fight.
What are your thoughts there?
>> Lauren Wright (29:02):
Yeah,
I do understand a lot of the publicmistrust of universities.
I understand where that's coming from.
But it's such a shame that there'sthis view that what's happening on
universities is primarily indoctrination,
because really the purpose of a universityis to teach students how to reason so
(29:23):
they can resist indoctrination and so theycan question the environment around them.
And there's no better institution toteach students how to problem solve.
And that's what universities shouldbe trying to convince the public
that they're still good at doing,is building knowledge.
And the way you do that is byteaching the scientific method,
(29:48):
by teaching students how to build andevaluate evidence,
and how questioning your ownbeliefs is part of that.
And so I think if universitiescould get back to communicating
both their value from an empiricalresearch and knowledge creation stance,
(30:10):
but also for the liberal artsuniversities that maybe aren't
the R1 institutions to talkabout how they're teaching
students how to think andhow to evaluate other thinkers.
That's an extremely valuable life skill,no matter what industry you're in, even
(30:32):
if you're not going to be an empiricalresearcher as part of your career.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (30:37):
Excellent, so we have a lot of questions coming in.
This is such a great topic andfascinating research.
So I want to start to ask so thatthe audience can get these questions in.
So one question that's comein is whether universities
(30:57):
might require debate classesat the university level.
And that question refers as wellto the fact that high school
students are now comingin from high school.
Often with your researchis about universities.
But some students have had maybe a lackof debate in high school as well.
(31:19):
And so universities are sort ofencountering students who already might
think that what a universityeducation is is, say,
parroting to bath the teacher's views.
I guess, sort of two parts to it.
Would requiring some sort of debate,maybe if not a class within the class,
you know, some sort of taking the otherside in the classroom be helpful?
(31:44):
And how do we think about what'sgoing on in high schools?
Or have you encountered in yourinterviews any kind of evidence or
thoughts about that?
>> Lauren Wright (31:53):
That's a great question.
That could be a great exerciseif it's administered fairly.
And there are Aren't certainquestions that are off limits.
What happens with debate clubs,
especially on elite universitycampuses like Princeton or Yale, for
instance, is there's only a smallgroup of students that really want
(32:18):
to engage in that exercise,that participate in those clubs.
But if it's something everystudent has to do in a.
In a classroom,I think that's a great skill.
One of the fears students have, and
I didn't have as much time to talkabout this during the presentation, but
(32:38):
they often worry about getting engagedin some sort of debate, even if it's
in a formalized setting, because theyworry about the social repercussions.
And so I think what's helpfulabout requiring some sort of
debate setting style seminar oran exercise in class is
(32:58):
the professor assigned it to you andyou must participate.
And that might protect studentsfrom being embarrassed by holding
a certain viewpoint, especially if they'rebeing assigned to take a certain side.
I could, I could definitely see the valueof that high schools, I don't have as much
(33:21):
research on the students I interview comefrom a variety of high school backgrounds.
But there are many of the same issuesat play, especially for seniors and
juniors at high school, where studentsare scared to speak their mind,
their teachers make a pointof view that they have clear.
(33:44):
And so it's entirely possible thisis getting started before students
arrive at college.
But for a lot of students, particularlythat come from religious schools,
they come to orientation.
And the progressive orthodoxy,as they describe it,
is very shocking to them, andthat's the first time they encounter it.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (34:06):
Interesting.
We have a question about whetherthere were kind of different types.
There are students who mightsort of hear the other side, and
maybe they, you know,I don't know if moderate's the right word.
That's actually not the questioner, butcompromise is the word used by the.
(34:28):
The audience member.
We have a lot of polarization inthis count And there's some evidence
in political science,the polarizations has increased over time.
So, you know, sometimes you think, well,
hearing the other side mightmake you compromise in some way.
Are there kind of Is your evidence thatbasically the students come in with pretty
(34:51):
fixed views and hearing the other sidedoesn't really change their views at all,
they just learn to argue?
Or is there variation across students?
And that would be both at universitiesin your set like Princeton?
I'm trying to remember the set now,but Northwestern was in there,
but also at the BYU's from the other side.
>> Lauren Wright (35:15):
So the students that have the most opportunity to change their
views, I think, are the students thatare in the intellectual minority and
are hearing the other side.
One common fear, sort of about thisresearch design that's related,
that I'll mention quickly, is that,well, if you're silenced and
(35:39):
you're self censoring, how are yougetting the benefit of anything?
And I'm certainly sensitiveto that sort of argument.
But even if one group of studentsis secretly conservative, or
maybe they're secretly conservativeliberal at BYU or Hillsdale, for
instance, and they're just hearingthe other side through osmosis,
(36:03):
they go through this mental processthey describe in the interviews
where they might beembarrassed to speak out.
But on their own time they're thinkingthrough, why don't I agree with
what I heard and what do I thinkthe best argument is on the other side?
And so even if there isa culture of indoctrination,
(36:26):
at the most extreme level,the students in the ideological minority
are getting the benefit of hearingwhat the other argument is.
And cognitively on their own time,they're getting stronger.
The problem is at these eliteuniversities in particular,
(36:48):
there's so few conservative students andso few conservative views that for
most students, they're surroundedby people they agree with.
And so if their views change andyou're progressive at
a progressive institution, forinstance, your views might be
(37:09):
getting hardened because youdon't even hear the other side.
And so you might end up in a placewhere you came in thinking,
I basically feel this way on this issue,but I'm not quite sure.
And then you come out thinking,actually this issue is the questions
being posed are sodangerous I shouldn't even consider them.
(37:32):
And you come out even morein favor of censorship and
that certain questions shouldn't be asked.
And that's what I see with a lot ofthe liberal students at Princeton.
And actually, after I wrote an op ed inthe Atlantic summarizing my research,
one of the students at Princeton wrotean op ed in our campus paper and
(37:56):
her argument was that certainconservative beliefs are so
harmful that we should takethem very seriously and
we should not engage with them at all.
And that's how a lot ofthe progressive students feel.
And they're surrounded bypeople that they agree with.
(38:16):
That was a little bitof a roundabout answer.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (38:20):
Okay, mo, terrific, thanks.
No, that's okay.
That's okay.
I want to ask, this is.
Well, first let me, let me shift gears andI, then I want to come back to this
because I think there's some followup questions from the guests and
then, and I want to focus onthe audience rather than my own.
But someone's asked something about sortof how to think about the organization
(38:45):
of universities and whether the board oftrustees plays an important role there.
This is the quote.
The administration and
faculty are hopelessly lostin their liberal orthodoxy.
This is not specific to any university.
But they're saying, I mean,sp should the board of
trustees take a more activerole on this issue at campuses?
(39:08):
Do you think that the faculty.
Are you more hopeful than the audiencemember that the faculty and
administration might reform from within?
What are your thoughts?
>> Lauren Wright (39:21):
Yeah, I mean, the delicate balances between the academic
freedom faculty have to do andsay and teach what they want and
protecting the reputation of the schooland the culture of the school.
And that's exactly the argument William F.
Buckley made in God A Man at Yale, if youremember that book going way back when,
(39:45):
is he argued that it's really forthe trustees and
the donors to protectthe reputation of the school.
Many of them went,they're alumni, they care.
And there's nothing wrong withthe people that go to a school.
Sharing the particular culture ofthat school and its traditions and
standing up for western institutions andstanding up for capitalism.
(40:09):
And so he saw a very active role forthe board of trustees.
So, you know, that's, that's definitelyan argument that's been espoused before.
But I think there are other thingsfaculty can do, if administrators can
do that can start to fight this mistrustthat the public has of universities.
(40:35):
I was looking at a Pew survey ofthe other day, for instance, and
the public views on what should beimportant when you're admitted to
college are completely differentfrom faculty views on what,
what should be important whenyou're admitted to college.
The public thinks SAT scores, grades andcommunity service should count.
(40:58):
Faculty really believe thatidentity based factors should count
essays letters of recommendation,they put more emphasis on those things.
And so I think there's somecompromise to be made there.
But any active,vibrant university has a role for
(41:18):
the trustees to play andfor alumni to play.
That's an argument I've heard for.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (41:28):
And we have a question.
Just noting the audience member notesthat this may be outside the scope
of what you've studied.
>> Lauren Wright (41:36):
Okay, >> Brandice Canes-Wrone
the more extreme views of the majoritypolitical views on campus have led
people to identify as moderate and so
they shift how they would haveidentified before entering college?
And the audience member doesn't specify.
But you could see this going in two ways.
I could think of.
One is simply that theythought they were liberal, and
(41:58):
then they see what these extremes are.
Whoa.I guess I'm
really moderate because relative to them,I'm actually moderate.
So these are actually liberalfrom the national point of view.
Another would be I'm almost afraidto identify as a conservative.
Because now I'm in this beleagueredminority, and I'm gonna face
(42:18):
possibly social ostracism of some sort orsome sort of social exclusion.
And so being moderate is more acceptable.
So do you think that kind of eitherof those could inflate the moderate
estimates?
In some ways, yeah.
It's very interesting because it's almost always,
at least at the elite schoolsI'm looking at that a much
(42:40):
larger percentage of studentsidentify as liberal than do moderate.
And so you would think like thismoderate percentage would be growing and
most students would justfall flock to that category.
But that's not really what's happening.
Most of them are progressive orliberal self identifying.
(43:02):
I do find anecdotal evidence of both.
There are students that see what's goingon on campus and moderate their views.
And there are a lot of students thatare afraid to say they're conservative.
And you know, we just had the,the eating club process and
you know, recruitment andinitiation that's called
(43:23):
bicker at Princeton take placeover the last few weeks.
And the students were tellingme that they really try to
hide their political views becausesocially it has such severe repercussions.
But once you get out of college in thereal world, I do still think, you know, I,
(43:46):
I don't think being sociallyostracized is a good thing.
I'm completely on board with,you know, the sentiment that these
are terrible things that are happeningto conservative students.
But they do excel at communicatingwith other students,
at seeing the other side andthey do get more real world
(44:11):
skills it seems on average in thatregard from these bad experiences.
So anecdotal evidence of both ofthose possibilities you mentioned,
not widespread enough for
me to say that it's overwhelmingin one direction or the other.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (44:30):
Related to students views there's a question about
how much of the liberal undergraduateperspective is just the fact that
undergraduates don't have a lot ofreal life experience in terms of
having to earn a living.
And so that actually some of the, I meandoesn't negate any of your findings,
but that some of the, these liberals areactually going to become conservative or
(44:54):
moderate in the not too distant future orI realize that maybe outside the scope,
but have you read anythingthat comments on that?
>> Lauren Wright (45:04):
I mean it's just a common, I mean it's a common theme in our
political culture that as you getolder you get more conservative.
And the Wall Street Journal just hadan analysis that says more people
are Republican now than ever before and
they have the slight edge on partyID this last election cycle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What are the implications of that?
(45:26):
So I do think there are interestingtrends society wide.
I'll also just mention, I think fora lot of these students and
you know it's, I think it'sa strength of the research design and
it speaks to the applicability ofit that most of the students I'm
(45:47):
interviewing are interested ingoing into politics or government.
So actually there are pretty severeimplications for these differences and
I think a lot of them are unfoldingon the Democratic side.
If you look at Harris's campaign forinstance,
(46:08):
it was staffed by a lot ofthese Ivy plus graduates.
She had certainly professors fromIvy universities advising her.
And there's an argument to be made thatuniversities are part of the reason
that campaign wasn't very in touchwith the views of the public.
(46:28):
I also just think, you know,elite universities are still really
important because we know almost 25% ofCongress is made up by Ivy plus graduates.
It's 75% of the Supreme Court.
It's a little less than 11% of Fortune 500companies are led by IV plus graduates.
(46:51):
And so if you have this experience wherethe liberal students are coming out so
under prepared andunaware of the other side,
I think there actuallyare real implications.
And I'll just tell one quickanecdote from one of my interviews
with a liberal student thatgraduated from Princeton and
(47:13):
now she works trying toget Democrats elected.
And she said during our interview,
I've cut off all contact withTrump voters in my life.
It's just a values difference.
I can't communicate with those people andthere's no value in doing so.
(47:33):
Well, it was very strikingto me because again,
she works in politics andit is her job to defeat Republicans.
And it's really hard to defeat Republicansif you don't know the Republican
arguments andyou don't talk to Trump voters.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (47:51):
Yeah, that's certainly seems sensible in the case.
Okay, we have a question about kindaputting aside the religious schools for
the moment.
Have you found that any of the elitecolleges do a better job of
respecting students views whohave conservative points of view?
(48:16):
And if so, is this because of the faculty,the administration,
the alumni, something aboutthe student body, something else?
Have you found some variation?
>> Lauren Wright (48:27):
I mean, I think there are bright lights at every campus.
I mean, there are campus Republicanclubs that are getting more
popular than ever by somemeasures at schools like Harvard,
because students sort of see that astheir opportunity to look out for
the other side and learn more aboutpeople that disagree with them.
(48:52):
Campuses do have active pro life clubs.
They do have activereligious organizations.
You know, Princeton has bothan undergraduate wing of
the Federalist Society, and
we have programs likethe James Madison program and
(49:13):
certainly Stanford has its own version ofthese sorts of clubs and associations.
And so I would say at every schoolthere are opportunities to combat this,
but students have to be veryactive in seeking those out.
And that would just be my advice forany undergraduate looking to sharpen
(49:36):
their views to make sure they're gettingthe most out of their education.
Is the responsibility is really on them togo to the groups that they disagree with
to hear the other side, because it mightnot happen right away in the classroom.
It's really hard tochange university policy.
(49:57):
But if students take the responsibilityon their own shoulders and
really try to be open and really tryto go to speakers they disagree with,
for instance,then that's something they can immediately
do that doesn't requireany institutional change.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (50:17):
Yeah, your comment reminded me.
I know Robbie told me George,who runs the James Madison program,
told me it was a few years ago,where either a liberal publication or
in a publication, even if it wasa general one, liberal students said,
don't join the James Madisonprogram because that's what
(50:41):
people do just to get greatjobs after- How terrible.
It was as if he had planted it.
They never had so many students wantto join the James Madison program.
He had not planted it.
It was here, they were saying,you're a sellout.
And that was a greatrecruitment mechanism.
So if only people could plant these,these comments.
>> Lauren Wright (51:03):
Actually, you know, it is an important point.
There's a lot of.
And I've encountered somuch of this in my interviews.
There's a lot of judgment thatstudents cast on one another for
what they do after graduation.
And one of the problems the studentstell me at Princeton is if
(51:23):
you do pursue a career in business orconsulting or you want to go to medical or
law school,there's a judgment that happens by your
progressive peers where theythink you're profit seeking and
there's a social judgmentassociated with that.
(51:44):
And there is a cost to joining the JamesMadison program socially at Princeton that
some of the conservativestudents have told me about.
And one of my most talented liberalstudents joined the program to try to
hear some arguments on the other side andto meet more conservative students.
And he said he was immediately judged.
(52:07):
And people said, but you're justdoing that as an exercise, right?
You're not actually conservative.
And it was very concerning.
And it's unfortunate because if you're nota student that can withstand that kind
of social pressure, obviously those areobstacles that are really hard to combat.
And college students have a lot goingon in their personal lives too.
(52:29):
So yes, there's, there's a lot ofjudgment across students for sure, in a.
Lot of these ways, unfortunately,related to these postgraduate plans.
There's a question about whetheryour research points to students
postgraduate plans being altered bytheir undergraduate experience and
(52:51):
whether they're now more interestedin careers related to their views on
political or policy issues becausethey're being challenged or crystallize.
But maybe, you know, they started asa STEM major, but they're now heading to
law school would be an example becausethey were compelled by their experience.
Do you see any of that?
(53:12):
I haven't seen many examples of that,but I'm really interested in
tracking the political career paths of theconservative and liberal undergraduates.
And if you just look at it from,again, kind of the,
the backwards direction, if you lookat the college anti Semitism and
(53:34):
free speech hearings that broughtdown three university presidents,
you know, back in December 2023.
And Elise Stefanik,a Republican Harvard graduate
that had many of the sameexperiences as an undergraduate
that I'm learning aboutwhile writing this book,
(53:58):
I don't think it's verydifficult to make the jump that
a lot of the conservativescoming out of elite institutions
are really well trained forcareers in politics.
And a lot of the liberal studentswho go to work in politics
either are sort of met witha rude awakening that there's
(54:23):
those really sharply trained conservativesand have to adjust for that.
Or, you know, if you,if you looked in an over simplistic way,
maybe that's the reason Democrats aren'twinning a lot of elections lately.
They're, you know,our institutions are feeding staffers and
(54:45):
advisors into mostly Democratic campaigns,but
the Republican politicians trained atthese schools are doing really well.
And soit's an overgeneralization I'm sure.
But it is a question I'mreally interested in,
just to see how theirpolitical careers shape up.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (55:04):
Great. We have, I think, time for
one more question.
We have a question from an attendee whoseson attends what's been described as
a slightly more conservativepublic university.
Okay.
And by the audience member's description,
not an elite school likethose you are studying.
(55:24):
He's a liberal arts major andhas on many occasions experienced
verbal hostility to hiscounterpoints from professors.
In this case, due to the professor'snegative reactions combined with
his personality, the son is developingmore entrenched views, which is,
(55:45):
of course, what I think a lot of socialpsychology research would expect,
although apparently the professors are notreading that or can't help themselves.
But the audience member saysthat they would describe.
Describe this as kind ofentrenchment rather than resilience,
although I guess you could saythe views are not changing.
(56:07):
Instead, what the sun is learning is howto play the game of publicly disowning.
And the audience member wonderswhat your thoughts are.
And I assume this is both about kind ofwhat's resilience versus entrenchment.
And then I think given the focus onthe news of elite universities and
kind of some of the policies thatare targeting them particularly,
(56:30):
it makes sense to focus on them.
But, you know,the question does bring out, you know,
are some of the problems even bigger?
You know, you could be at a conservative,
a slightly conservative publicuniversity that's not as elite.
You could be experiencing maybe less onthe social side, but in the classroom,
some of these same dimensions.
>> Lauren Wright (56:49):
Well, it's a really bad dynamic for professors, and
I wish I could have talked aboutthis a little bit more, but
this is somewhat rampant among faculty,too.
If they're not routinely challenged,they don't have very good answers.
Some of the times my studentstell me on questions,
(57:10):
they should really havemuch better answers, too.
And that makes studentsdoubtful of academia.
There's students who are turned away fromthat profession because they think it's
intellectually dishonest andthey think it's not serious.
And, you know, that that's very sad, too.
But for this other student, you know,
(57:30):
learning how to sort of hideyour political views or
not wearing them on your sleeve, it'sreally unfortunate that that's happening.
But that is, you know, I don't,I don't expect someone who's college
age to go out in the world and shoutfrom the rooftops their political views.
(57:51):
And so they're kind of learning a lessonin a way that's disappointing for
the institution thatthey're learning it at.
And if you don't have a professorwho is routinely challenged and
thinks about their own beliefs critically,then, yes, that possibility exists.
(58:13):
You're not opening a student's mind, theycome in with exactly what they had, but
they think you're not a serious person,and their views haven't changed at all.
So, I mean, it's a point that's entirely,possibly more widespread.
>> Brandice Canes-Wrone (58:35):
Lauren, thanks so much.
This has been terrific.
Really appreciate it.
I think we'll all look forwardto your upcoming book.
I'm going to turn things back to Erin,who I hope will remind us that we
have several exciting webinarscoming up during the spring which
relate broadly to these topics offree speech and higher education.
(58:57):
We'll have Senior Fellow Eugene Volokh,who will be doing a webinar related
to free speech, and then senior fellowLt Gen. H.R. mcMaster, who will
be talking about developments in the fieldof history, specifically on campuses.
Thanks again, Lauren andErin, over to you.
>> Eryn Tillman (59:17):
Absolutely, thank you, Brandice.
Thank you, Lauren.
What a great discussion.
We appreciate the audience foryour great questions and
thank you for the events team forall your assistance.
I want to remind you that this recordingwill be available on Hoover.org event
webpage in the next three to four days andwe encourage you to join the next event
here at Hoover,the National Forum of Civic Learning Week,
(59:40):
which is an RAI co hosting withiCivics on March 3rd 13th.
We're gonna put a link in the chat, but
you can also find that@hoover.orgeventsciviclearningweek/nationalforum.
That'll be a great event.
And then to what Brandice wasspeaking to on Wednesday, April 30,
from 10 to 11am we will have a discussionwith Senior Fellow Eugene Volk and
(01:00:03):
Jacob Machenga, the founder and ExecutiveDirector on the future of free speech and
a research professor atVanderbilt University.
They will be discussing how foreignspeech restrictions affect American free
expression.
We're going to also put a link intothe chat about our next webinar series,
Imagining American Institutions,where you'll find it, and
(01:00:26):
I hope you will sign up soyou receive all of these emails regularly.
Have a wonderful rest of the day andthank you for joining.
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