Liberal Students Don’t Want to Room with Conservatives

In the past, roommates were assigned sight-unseen, and college freshman arrived with hopeful expectations that their randomly assigned friend will pick up his or her socks and not snore at night. New technological developments, however, allow incoming freshman at large universities to actually select roommates with similar tastes and living standards, a sort of e-Harmony for rooming together.  That means that students develop profiles that explain just a bit about that they’re like — what colors they want to decorate with, how frequently they go to the library, and whether or not they sleep in.

But with this new customization, comes an unexpected twist.  According to new poll, liberal students don’t want to live with conservatives:

When asked whether they would be comfortable having a roommate with opposing political views, 69 percent of Republican students said yes. Among Democrats, on the other hand, only 39 percent said yes. This speaks volumes. It turns out being a conservative really does affect how you are viewed and treated on a university campus.

This resonates with what I often hear from fellow conservatives: while they feel afraid for liberals to know they are conservative, they don’t feel like the reverse is true. Liberals don’t seem worried about letting their political leanings be known. Academia is dominated by progressives, much like the mainstream media and Hollywood, so being liberal can feel like the “norm” while conservatism is an aberration.

Truth Revolt writes, “While conservatism is obviously not aberrant in the wider culture, it’s becoming rarer and rarer at institutions of higher education. Colleges have routinely been discriminating against conservative students, rejecting their applications if conservative beliefs are discernable. They’ve also rejected qualified professors who don’t pass a liberal litmus test. Even worse, they teach most subjects through the lens of “social justice,” which is code for “leftist politics.” Now, on the most basic social level of college life, conservatives have to worry about the added pressure of finding a roommate with whom they politically agree…”

Why? Because…liberal “tolerance.”  That’s why.  Liberals are tolerant as long as you follow the guidelines of the liberal thought police. Otherwise?  Not so much.

Image Credit: Lafayette College on Flickr