Is Northwestern breeding political minions?
Having grown up in a conservative household and a liberal academic environment, I always struggled to claim whether I was conservative, moderate or liberal. I never thought of myself as apathetic — because I believe in voting and having strong opinions — but backing those opinions was always complicated. I am often sympathetic to most reasonable views with substantiated evidence and a fair perspective. However, I was somewhat dismayed to find that from the pool of random students I surveyed at Norris, responses to my political poll were nearly ubiquitously resolute in their alliance to liberalism.
While it’s unfair for me to assess these students’ political beliefs based on one line, I was secretly hoping for someone to overtly object to my survey, explaining that their political affiliation was “more complicated than overly simplified political labels.” I ask, are we questioning our upbringing and teachers enough, or are we just becoming political minions? There’s clearly diverse views on this campus, but it seems for the most part that we’re becoming so hyper-concerned with political correctness that we can be naive when it comes to certain issues. Just look at our neighborhood’s overt endorsement of the new government: the last time I was at the checkout counter of Whole Foods, nearly every magazine had a radiating picture of Obama on it.
 |
Urshila Durani, Weinberg sophomore Affiliation: Liberal Reason: “Whenever different issues come up, I always find myself feeling people should be allowed to do what they want, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.” |
|
|
Ari Hertz, Weinberg junior Affiliation: Liberal Reason: “I’m from Seattle, where it’s pretty hard not to be liberal. Also, I’m exposed to a lot of liberal media and classes here.” |
 |
|
 |
Julie Santella, Weinberg sophomore Affiliation: Liberal/moderate-leaning liberal Reason: “Besides being pro-life, I’m socially liberal. I am also fairly economically liberal and am a huge human-rights advocate. I’m anti-war and fairly anti-religion, especially when it affects public policy.” |
|
| David Weintraub, Weinberg junior Affiliation: Liberal Reason: “Mainly based on social issues like gay marriage, abortion and the death penalty.” |
 |
|
 |
Jeff Geiger, Weinberg freshman Affiliation: Liberal Reason: “I think that changes proposed by liberal politicians would have a major impact on my life.” |
|
| Rachel Gribben, Communication junior Affiliation: Moderate Reason: “It may sound strange, but I feel like I identify with some aspects of both parties.” |
 |
|
 |
Luke Rouser, Weinberg senior Affiliation: Liberal Reason: “I believe that progressive values focus on humane treatment of and fairness towards others.” |
|
| Print
Learn how someone who can't vote feels about American politics. Or you can return home.
The question of whether we are blindly following our superiors is a valid one, but these responses seem to suggest that campus liberals base their alliances on particular issues, instead of “just because.” I’d imagine campus conservatives would be similar.
Vince
February 23, 2009 at 12:06 am
Even though they all identify as “liberal” they don’t necessarily all support the same liberal issues or the same aspects of liberal government. It’s certainly an important question, but political identification does not necessarily equate to being an unquestioning minion. You can associate with a particular political leaning while still being critical.
The odd thing is that many people who identify as “liberal” might share the same political beliefs as someone who refuses to be labeled as one or the other. The lack of partisan identification certainly doesn’t mean that that person is better researched or more critical. What matters is how you come to your beliefs, not what you label them as. This article does do a good service in raising the issue, but I’m not sure how big of a problem it is. These people all seem to have a specific reason for their identification.
Anonymous
February 23, 2009 at 1:03 am
I agree, though- it does seem like NU is breeding political minions. Professors can barely stand to mention the Republican party without laughing, and there is no acceptable excuse for that. To me, the issue is not that the campus is full of liberals, but that the campus is full of people who cannot respect other opinions. I realize this won’t apply to most people who have read this article because they are clearly interested in discussion, but among the people in my classes, the response to conservatism is to laugh just like the professors. Republicans are likened to hicks, religious fanatics, and greedy money-grabbers. There is no excuse for this treatment and if you say “but those things are true,” then you need to take a good look at yourself and how you obtain your opinions.
hi
February 23, 2009 at 10:24 am
Whatever happened to presenting both sides of an issue especially in the classroom by a professor? The laughing professor at the mention of a students opposing party affiliation is rather bullying to say the least.
Susan
February 23, 2009 at 11:45 am
Unfortunately, it’s up to students to be skeptical and learn as much as possible while filtering through the liberal biases that do run through this school. I would consider myself moderately liberal, but I cringe at politically charged things my professors say, even in classes that have nothing to do with politics.
Our generation, in general, seems more open to people that disagree with us. The generation that makes up the faculty here does not seem to be that way, on either side of the political spectrum. I really believe that the technological advances that we grew up with, which no one before us had access to, will make our generation a far more respectful and peaceable one.
Whether or not that’s a good thing in all avenues of life remains to be seen. There’s an argument to be made that the attempted “bipartisanship” of our president, reflective of the attitudes of our generation, may not really lead to the most effective of policy decisions.
Sajid
February 23, 2009 at 1:13 pm
“Whenever different issues come up, I always find myself feeling people should be allowed to do what they want, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.”
Congratulations, Urshila Durani, you are a Libertarian.
Also, I also had a psych professor last spring who in the middle of lecture did, in tangential relation to some topic, a *yay* obama cry with this dumb little fist pump. Her political preference didn’t bother me as much as the fact that 20 minutes into a 200 person lecture she thought whatever she did was appropriate and funny, even.
LOLcano
February 23, 2009 at 5:19 pm
I think Zack seems to be looking for the problem he wants: his survey was set up to give him these results (I really just filled it out to be nice, not to argue his categories), and he doesn’t provide all the information. While I sighed and put myself down as “liberal”, I only did that because I felt it was the closest to left-libertarian. And Zack left out the news sources we listed: I follow mainly independent sites to get as much information about political issues as possible — I do my best not to follow the mainstream campus opinions and instead form my own ideas through my own research.
Yeah, this university is biased. But selectively gleaning information from a five-person poll doesn’t prove anything except that the author sees what he wants to see. As another commenter noted, we may identify as liberal, but that is because of the issues we think are most important, not because of pretty politicians or biased professors.
I am not a minion.
Luke
February 24, 2009 at 12:07 am
Luke, you’re perhaps the best example of all. The point is, is that you don’t necessarily associate yourself as “Liberal,” but yet you still consciously put “Liberal” down! No one was holding a gun to your head. The point of this article was for people to reconsider what labels they apply to themselves.
Re:Luke
February 24, 2009 at 8:35 am
Hey Eric, I highly suggest you take a Stats class. Or any methods class for that matter. It is beyond ridiculous to make assumptions about a population that was not based on a random sample (i.e. where all individuals in the population have an equal chance of being selected). Beyond this, randomly chosen samples can be small in size and still be effective, but seven kids out of the entire student body, even if this was a random sample, would simply not cut it. If you were serious about survey work, or even just wanted a quasi-legitimate taste of what is out there, you certainly should not have gone into the study with any “hopes” (you note that you “[were] secretly hoping for someone to overtly object to [your] survey”). Surveyors that go in with these hopes can consciously or unconsciously bias the results if they are pushing for certain results.
Survey design and implementation aside (for I assume you will just try to brush this off as a casual poll ‘just to see,’ which if that is the case, it should not be presented with the conclusions you draw), magazine covers are hardly any evidence of a local political persuasion. Obama is news. If McCain had won the election, he would be news. This is because that either one of them represents a dramatic change from the previous 8 years (even if, in McCain’s case, I personally think that change would only have been in visage). Thus, had McCain won, his face, while perhaps not as “radiant” as Obama’s, would be gracing these same covers.
In the end, I agree. We should be skeptical and never take anything at face value. However, this survey does nothing to prove that anyone does so.
Kaitlyn
February 24, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I’d also be interested in what prompts you gave for the affiliation category. Was there a fill in the blank? A none of the above? Question design highly influences the answers you are going to get.
Kaitlyn
February 24, 2009 at 12:46 pm