Conservatives should love 'liberal' campus

Since at least the 1930s, the University has been incessantly accused of being too liberal. The complaints have come from both inside and outside the Orange Bubble, from alumni, undergrads, faculty and non-Princetonian critics, all based on the implicit assumption that exposing impressionable undergrads to liberal bias will dilute their abilities to work "in the Nation's Service" upon graduation.

Antiwar statements made by the 1936-37 student group "Veterans of Future Wars" got alumni riled up about Princeton's liberalism. And more recently, the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito '72 has brought renewed attention to complaints of Princetonian liberalism made by the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), founded in 1972. While CAP's attacks on coeducation and affirmative action have gotten the most national press, its alumni like Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano '72 describe the group as more generally committed to tempering "the University's anti-traditionalist leftist urges," as he told The Daily Princetonian.

And just last fall, complaints of Princetonian liberalism poured in from across the country when the 'Prince' reported that over 90 percent of Princeton faculty/employee political donations went to Democrats. It wasn't just alumni who objected, either; when the original 'Prince' coverage found its way to the Drudge Report, plenty of non-Princetonians responded with letters to the editor mocking the "little liberal fishbowl that is academe."

Current conservative faculty and students lament the University's liberal bias, too. The spring of 2004 saw the opening of a Princeton chapter of Students for Academic Freedom (SAF), a "nonpartisan" group founded by controversial conservative David Horowitz. SAF decried the lack of representation of conservative thought on campus and a "hiring bias" against conservative values. Conservative students, Tory editor Evan Baehr '05 told the 'Prince,' were "at risk," because Princeton's left-wing "ideological climate could erode" the "belief system they brought to the University." Robert George, a conservative University politics professor, had also told the 'Prince' in 2002 that "University policies reflect ideological commitments ... I myself do believe that hiring bias is significant because I know of cases, where I believe that the hire wasn't made because of conservatism or perception of conservatism."

Despite these complaints, Princeton has been awfully effective at producing politically successful conservative graduates. After all, almost every undergraduate alumnus who has achieved a position of political power in the last 30 years has been conservative.

Firstly, and most obviously, there's Bill Frist '74, Senate Majority Leader. We've also got Donald Rumsfeld '54, current Secretary of Defense; Frank Carlucci '52, Secretary of Defense under Reagan; George Shultz '42, Secretary of Labor and the Treasury under Nixon and Secretary of State under Reagan; James Baker '52, Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan and Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush; as mentioned earlier, current Supreme Court nominee Alito '72; and a slew of Republican governors.

There are but a few exceptions to our trend of pumping out successful conservative politicians — the most notable being Democrats Eliot Spitzer '81, New York State Attorney General, and Bill Bradley '65, U.S. Senator. But that's about it, except for a governor here and there. And I need not remind the reader that Ralph Nader '55 never made it to public office.

So, given the vast, suffocating liberalism that supposedly exists at Princeton, how did all those Republican Princetonians manage to sneak out of FitzRandolph Gates untainted?

A New York Times profile of John Roberts last August suggested that he and a number of conservative Harvard contemporaries have become prominent figures in the "conservative resurgence" because "being part of that often ridiculed minority [of conservatives on a liberal campus] left them with skills that have been essential in their movement's subsequent success." One Harvard alumnus told the reporter that "Unlike students on the left ... [conservative students] were constantly being challenged."

Should this really be the case, then, from a historical perspective, conservative critics of Princeton should stop their whining. If they really believe conservative values are best for America, the most effective way to employ Princeton in the nation's service is to keep the University politically monochromatic. SAF's cries for diversity notwithstanding, it's in conservatives' best interest to prevent the majority of Princeton students from receiving the benefit of an ideologically well-rounded education. Besides, it's only the elites that Republicans are supposed to care about anyway, right? Catherine Rampell is an anthropology major from Palm Beach, Fla. She can be reached at crampell@princeton.edu.