Swarthmore and Leftism

dramatica
Tue, 29 Dec 2009 09:48:22 +0000

I have a d at Swarthmore and a son who graduated from Brown undergraduate and Columbia graduate school. From conversations with them, it seems that my d’s experience about politics at Swarthmore parallels my son’s pretty much at his schools and they are probably typical of what any student would experience at most liberal arts schools in this country.

Academia by its very nature tends to be more liberal than the rest of the country, but these are places where discourse and debate are expected and encouraged. Specifically about Swarthmore, I can tell you that my D has not experienced any anti-semitism. I do not believe that the Israel divestment campaign garnered much support and I agree with ID that it is not going anywhere.

At Swarthmore, just as anywhere else, as long as you do not try to push your views and beliefs down anyone throats, you are not likely to get any trouble. But it is definitely a very liberal environment and my D, who has somewhat liberal views, complains that she wishes that there were more conservative points of views expressed in classroom debates.

Specifically to your point, I would not describe the sentiments at Swarthmore as being pervasively anti-Israeli.