Replies

When one College Republican, who had resided on the Martin Luther King Jr. Social Justice floor asked to be temporarily moved to another location, and explained that several members had been harassed and assaulted, an administrator called the student's parents and told them that their son/daughter was "imagining things"

I'm going to make a couple of diversions, and I apologize if I'm taking the thread off topic -- it's in the interest of encouraging young conservatives, so please bear with me.

My initial advice: live off campus if you feel safer. You must be safe while you are studying, or else it disrupts your focus. Try to document the harrassment with witnesses, photographs, movies, and so forth. And please keep your parents informed. They will have insights into enhancing your safety while helping you to accomplish your political goals at the same time. And finally on the topic of safety, confrontation rarely solves problems or changes peoples' minds. But it can get you hurt, so think to write your arguments in the student paper later. Think to discuss in class and other formal settings later. We need you to finish university and move out into productive living as conservative intellectuals, not have you kicked out of school or hurt in a political scrapple!

In any case, has at least one dormatory floor been ambiguously named? Could its very name be inciting racial disharmony, when Doctor King sought the opposite? In any case, you may simply not be able to fathom the prejudice against College Republicans on campus when you first arrive and try to become active in your first year. In fact, MLK himself would have a lot of good advice as to how you should conduct yourselves. I'll try to pass on in a nutshell what he would have suggested:

First, it is your example as citizens and exemplary students that has to shine out and demonstrate for all to see that you are not the negative stereotypes they may have assumed that you are. Lefty kids are often raised with these stereotypes. You are all on campus to learn, and the only way they can learn from you about this is if you show them. Hints: get a variety of races involved with your conservative actions on campus. Point out how the Republican party has an outreach to all races and non-violent creeds. Help old ladies cross the street. Be honest in everything you do. And succeed in your studies! Nothing shows up the lazy, stoner lefties like your success.

Yur contribution to the social fabric of your campuses must be felt. Make a positive difference. I recommend reading General Douglas MacArthur's farewell speech (on a college campus to the Corps of Cadets at West Point) about duty to country. You can't pick a better role model for your lives, and General MacArthur would have supported you 100% in your pursuit of conservatism on campus.

Finally, you've suggested that the adults have treated you unfairly. This is the real world, and it often happens outside the realm of politics and ideology as well. Welcome to the real world, already toughening your skin on the campus! Show your (possibly) wrong-headed teachers just the opposite of what they expect.