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Outside of the most highly publicized campus-culture clashes, students and professors are more open-minded than critics give them credit for.
In between the stands of lavender lemonade and heirloom tomatoes, eight students from Linn-Benton Community College and Oregon State University were striking up conversations with strangers.
Democrats seeking to better understand the views of their Republican neighbors, atheists wanting to know why others believed in God. Students seeking not to win arguments, but to hear what others had to say.
The scene that unfolded on a recent Saturday morning at a farmers market in Corvallis, Ore., stands in stark contrast to the image of politically indoctrinated college students trapped in ideological echo chambers. That stereotype is contradicted by a closer look at what’s actually happening across higher education.
There is no question that, generally speaking, professors lean left, and conservative students often feel marginalized. It’s true that invited speakers, most of them right of center, have been shouted down by students who feel threatened by their messages. But step outside the handful of elite campuses where the most highly publicized clashes have occurred, often around the same speakers, and the reality of viewpoint diversity in academe is more complex.
Linn-Benton, in Albany, Ore., is the kind of ideologically diverse place that flies under the radar when debates rage over political correctness. There, thanks to the efforts of a student Civil Discourse Club and its faculty supporters, conversations across differences are happening.
Mark Urista, who teaches communication and advises the group, refers to the institution as "Red County-Blue County Community College." The college straddles a deeply conservative county dominated by agriculture and manufacturing, and an equally progressive county that’s home to Oregon State University. In the 2016 presidential election, 60 percent of Linn County’s voters went for President Trump, 32 percent for Hillary Clinton. In adjacent Benton County, it was the reverse, with 62 percent voting for Clinton, 29 percent for Trump.
That split is reflected in the student body. A recent survey showed that 27 percent of Linn-Benton students identified with the Democratic Party and 24 percent with Republicans. An equal share consider themselves independent. Given the 9-percent response rate to the survey, it’s hard to draw any firm conclusions, but Urista said it seems...