The Ivies: Perfect training ground for conservative activists

Because they have to research their arguments more and work harder to get their voices heard.

Travis Rowley's book, Out of Ivy: How a Liberal Ivy Created a Committed Conservative, tells how an apolitical football player became politically energized thanks to the prevailing liberalism at Brown University.

I was a junior by the time I finally decided to criticize particular segments of the campus. Again, I was a football player, and that took up a lot of my time. So rather than immediately join some leftist student-group, I was forced to be a spectator of campus activism at first. There was always a lot of controversy on Brown's campus, and I spent a lot of time observing the behavior of my classmates. I had an immediate repulsion to them for a lot of reasons. It wasn't that I was pro-life, and they were pro-choice. Or that I was against affirmative action, and they were in favor of it. Those weren't even opinions that I had formed or cared about. My objection to liberal activism was more about my classmates' zealotry, and the fact that I knew I was forbidden to disagree or disapprove of them. In other words, I had a negative reaction to the ethic and demeanor of liberals before I even disagreed with liberal thought. I found Brown's leading liberal forces to be deviant, oppressive, and improper before I reached any other conclusions. Ironically, they were viciously labeling everyone but themselves as mean, dumb, and racist. But I saw it in reverse. In fact, Out of Ivy documents the campus left's hypocrisy, and their readiness to lie, smear, stereotype, and discriminate-all accompanied by their assertion that they were the fluffy-hearted champions of tolerance and understanding.

Yeah, that self-satisfied repetition of liberal talking points can be hard to take. I think it probably helped push this formerly apolitical English major rightward.