Campus Politics

TheDukeofEarl
Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:11:08 +0000

Here’s what I have been able to glean: The students are in some regards centrist, but mostly left of center. The administration is definitely right of center. The faculty is probably mostly left-leaning (even the Jesuits themselves tend to be the hippies of the Catholic Church), but they are not occupying buildings and making ludicrous “tear it all down” speeches in class as at some other schools. BC is likely viewed as being more conservative because higher education is largely controlled by people with left-leaning ideologies, and so any school that tends to be more centrist is viewed as akin to BYU or Bob Jones University.

So I guess if you want to hand out “Free Mumia” T-shirts on the quad at BC (or the “Dustbowl” is what BC calls their quad), you can freely do so. But unlike at many other colleges, there may be students at BC who feel fully empowered to challenge your view and engage you in a dialogue on it. At some other schools such students would likely hold their words for fear of being jeered by calls of “Fascist”. I have come away with the impression that unexamined and half-baked positions – whether from the right or the left – are not given a free pass at BC. Healthy and balanced and reasoned debate and dialogue seem to be a core value at the school. Balanced debate scares the hell out of many extremists on both ends of the political spectrum. If you are one of them, BC is not for you.