Posted on 11/03/2005 12:46:43 AM PST by Roots
Young Republicans buck conventional campus wisdom
By Curtis Miller
In the 1960s, pot-smoking, tie-dyed hippies made up the university alternative lifestyle of an era. Today, staunch young conservatives are looking to find a similar niche on the other side of the political spectrum. In a country run by Republicans, college conservatives are steadily becoming a counter-culture to be reckoned with and more than the footnote they formerly were presumed to be.
According to one study from the Harvard Institute of Politics, before the 2004 election, as many as 31 percent of college students were identifying themselves as Republicans, in comparison to only 27 percent identifying as Democrats. Conservative critics view the trend as a weakening of academia’s traditional leftist monopoly on the universities.
From one perspective, the case has been similar with the emergence and growth of the College Republicans at UC Riverside, where many students can point out a prevalent void of conservative viewpoints in classrooms and on campus.
“We’re sort of the underdog,” said fourth-year biological sciences major Matt Nelson, webmaster of the group’s increasingly well-known website. “Campuses in general are for the most part liberal.”
Fourth-year political science and business administration major Matt Belardes, current president of the College Republicans at UCR, has been taking a certain pride in being the apparent “underdog” on campus since he founded the group roughly one year ago, a week before the presidential election.
“So many people don’t like us that they have actually made us bigger,” said Belardes.
He cites the more than 1000 hits on their website as well as an enormous membership increase on the College Republicans’ Facebook group after X-Factor, a left-wing student publication, ran a negative article about their group. Belardes commented that the radicalism of other political student groups on campus has also turned other students’ attention to his group, which has contributed to a unique membership variety.
“Some of our members went to a college Democrat group at first, and they found that it was so left wing, [that] it wasn’t for them,” Belardes said. “Then they joined our group.”
The College Republicans have grown significantly since their founding, and Belardes and other members cite the liberalism of college campuses as a definitely factor in fueling its growth.
“At school, there’s an attack on conservative values in general, and a lot of students feel that,” he said.
Before and even after the group’s inception, Belardes claim to have witnessed professors attacking conservative opinions, or attacking the President first hand in the classroom.
“We just felt like the conservative viewpoint was not being heard on campus,” said secretary Ana Rotar, a third-year political science major.
Nelson recalls a professor of 20th century history being vocal about his political view and his contempt for the President; neither of which Nelson throught was relevant to the subject of the class.
“Bush wasn’t even a president in the twentieth century,” Nelson said.
Belardes believes that students with such opinions face intimidation in expressing their views, even to the point of fearing repercussions in their grade for disagreeing with professors.
“The main problem is that students don’t speak out. Their natural fear is that speaking out can affect their grades,” Belardes said. “It’s things like that which make students uncomfortable.”
“They can’t say their opinions without being ostracized by their colleagues.”
Understandably, the College Republicans have grown with the addition of members who hold conservative values.
“Our group has become a rallying point for conservative students, and students who are generally pro-American,” Belardes said.
Though the College Republicans have attracted students who share a similar, mainly conservative outlook, members were quick to point out that they also share a love for debate, and debating each other in an arena of subjects.
“We haven’t focused all of our attention on politics,” said vice president Darin Schemmer, a third-year history and political science major. “We don’t start our meetings talking about the tax code.”
Belardes believes that his group is much more critical of politicians, including the president, than other students believe them to be. Debating over their criticisms, he believes, has energized the strength of the group..
“A lot of students consider us just a pro-Bush group. We’re not, we’re the College Republicans,” Belardes said. “We want someone more fiscally responsible than Bush is. We want politicians that are responsible to the people.”
In following the likes of nationally recognized, politically active clubs such as the Berkeley College Republicans or the UCLA Bruin Republicans, the UCR chapter has been busy with activism of its own, including counter-protesting anti-war crowds at UCR and Hollywood and precinct walking during the local elections in San Bernardino and San Diego.
During the last school year, they invited and sponsored several speakers on campus for special occasions, including Dr. Tom Slaton, a black member of the Republican Caucus in Riverside during Black History Month and Angel Sanchez, the Southern Region Vice Chairman of the California Republican National Hispanic Assembly who spoke during Cinco de Mayo.
Sanchez argued that Hispanic values, such as the importance of family, coincide deeply with conservative ideals. Through Belardes hopes his group can “reach out to other ethnicities,” he commented with disdain that the College Republicans have on occasion faced accusations of racism from students.
“A lot of people call us racist. I hate racists, and that irritates me,” Belardes said. “We want to reach out to different ethnicities.”
The College Republicans plan to continue projects that they have found to be successful last year, such as sending Halloween candy and boxes full of comfort items to troops in Iraq in collaboration with the sorority Gamma Phi Beta. They have also performed community service with Habitat for Humanity.
This movement is not centralized at the UC Riverside campus either. The conservative activism of the College Republicans at UCR can bee seen on a larger scale across college campuses n California and throughout the country.
“It’s more than this group that is expanding,” Belardes said. “It’s statewide.”
The University of California at Berkeley, for instance, bears a rich history of student activism. The 1960s brought throngs of students streaming across campus in protest of America’s involvement in Vietnam, forcing entire buildings to close or sitting down en masse in a silent, unified rebellion.
Paradoxically, this elite institution of higher learning, historically considered to be an epicenter of leftist thought and activism, has seen the strongest resurgence of the College Republicans of any UC campus throughout the nineties.
The Berkeley College Republicans’ membership has reached over 600 with 50 active student members, one of the highest numbers in the nation. Active in precinct walking for state elections, counter-protesting anti-war crowds in Oakland, they also are the masterminds behind producing the most widely recognized conservative student publication, the California Patriot.
The movement of the College Republicans has permeated through campuses across California. Nearly every Cal State University and University of California campus has an active chapter. With the addition of organizations at private and community colleges, the state of California alone is home to over 70 College Republican chapters.
Surprisingly, California College Democrats number only 24 active chapters in arguably the “bluest” state in the country.
“More than 90 percent of professors who work in the arts and sciences departments at leading college and universities belong to either Democrat, Green or Working Class parties, with very few registered as either Republican or Libertarian,” said a recent survey regarding the political view of professors at universities conducted by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture and the American Enterprise Institute.
Theories among the faculties of universities have differed as to why many students are increasingly choosing conservatism over leftist views. One popular explanation points to the fact that more students from the conservative Midwest are attending college than ever before. The study’s conclusion suggested that rebellious college students are more likely to “emerge from liberal classrooms as confirmed libertarians or conservatives.”
While the battle between conservative students and liberal professors appears clearly defined at colleges such as UC Berkeley, the College Republicans at UCR, though not exempt from clashes with opposing students or professors, feel that they are engaged in a different type of battle: the struggle to make a difference amidst a widespread political apathy among students.
“Leftism on campus is kind of surviving in a vacuum, but apathy runs rampant. I don’t think liberalism on campus is as bad as apathy,” Belardes said. “Apathy is the biggest problem. A lot of students don’t want to get involved.”
Some students outside the College Republicans similarly feel that sudent apathy is commonplace at UCR.
“The campus isn’t that politically active. It’s very politically apathetic,” said fourth-year English major Jeff Woo, who commented that he hasn’t been aware of activism by the College Republicans. “They’re not the kind of thing I’d go looking for.”
Others believe that the apathy does exist but is not a barrier that is easily overcome.
“We definitely have political apathy, but I’ve never been attacked by anybody for stating my views,” said third-year philosophy major Marc Kinon. “We’re a pretty open campus, and we are pretty welcoming of different views.”
The College Republicans believe that they have received some forms of discrimination for expressing their views on campus. Belardes expressed his personal frustration with students tearing down fliers for College Republican events after they are posted on campus.
“All of our fliers get torn down,” Belardes said, “which is why you don’t see them on campus. We have a ten percent market share between the other groups on campus, but people still have to tear them down. That’s outrageous.”
Belardes believes that opposition and even the traditional charges of racism the College Republicans face as a conservative organization will only strengthen their resolve to stand up for their values as well as encourage students to become politically involved on campus.
“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” Belardes said. “When the students are energized and want to debate things, that’s democracy.”
The College Republicans, he believes, thrive on competition. Whether they are contesting against other student organizations, leftist opposition or student apathy on campus, Belardes hopes the organization can survive and continue to expand.
“Competition produced the best product. We really do thrive on competition. Our idea is that we can provide a better service for the UCR student,” Belardes said. “Being the underdog on campus has really helped us. America loves the underdog.”
Source: Highlander. Tuesday, November 1, 2005. Vol 54, Issue 6.
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