Nathan Honeycutt’s Forbes article hit home for me in alot of ways. When it comes to diversity, higher educational institutions put a premium on ethnic and gender variance but ignore other diverse notions such as political views. When surveying four California State University campuses, Honeycutt and his coauthor “found that overall 71% of respondents were liberal (15% moderate, 14% conservative).”
Although these are interesting statistics, I do not believe they are a clear representation of all Universities. In my experience many people may consider themselves liberal, but are actually moderate / conservative in fiscal and / or social beliefs (i.e. an emphasis in religion being a part of public education is a conservative principle). With that being said, liberal ideas are most likely to be pushed in today’s educational system. Diversity in thought is just as valuable as diversity in ethnic and gender breakdown.
The biggest combatant with this are the racist and derogatory assumptions people label conservative views. As a conservative myself, there are many people who are just as passionate about issues plaguing under represented peoples as liberals and are looking for ways to solve them. Taking the worst of either party is never a good way to expand the nation’s thinking on various subjects.
Because of the low exposure to diversity in thinking, many people automatically become aggressive or combative of new beliefs due to negative media portrayals. Like any view, conservatism is important to reveal different perspectives on issues plaguing the nation. No it is not always the right philosophy, but neither is liberalism. A combination of both at a fair percentage is needed to help balance the knowledge obtain throughout this nation.
