Republicans At Fordham

From the student blog The Fordham Observer Editorial Blog the post is entitled The Elephant in the Room: The Silenced Republicans of FCLC

An excerpt.

Between the anti-Bush greeting cards in the bookstore, the Obama flyers decorating the student plaza and the Bush-as-a-monkey printout taped up in the scene shop, it’s pretty clear where the political loyalties of most of our college’s population lie. But during this hotly contested Election 2008, we must not forget the Republicans in our midst - supporters of John McCain instead of Hillary or Barack. They’re the Few but Proud - the Republicans of Fordham College at Lincoln Center.

There is a longstanding College Democrats Club here on campus, but we’ve never had a College Republicans Club that lasted very long. In fact, when FCLC conservatives, in preparation for this historic election year, tried to gather support for a College Republicans Club, their efforts failed. This was in part because they just couldn’t get the required sixty signatures on their petition - liberal students weren’t very interested in helping the conservative cause, and there weren’t enough conservative students who wanted to publicly express their Republican politics.

Artur Jagielski, FCLC ‘09, who helped spearhead the movement to form a College Republicans Club at FCLC, said that the process was difficult because of “some of the criticism I received from several people [Democrats]. I’m sure there are more Republicans on this campus who don’t voice their opinion, and if we could reach out to them, maybe we could form a club here on campus.”

But who is it that’s really making the Republicans feel unwelcome at Fordham? It’s got to be the students, right? Everyone knows how hot-headed and opinionated college students can be. Actually, conservative students say that it’s not their peers who are the problem. It’s the people you’d expect to have a more reasoned approach: the professors.

While both the faculty and the student body are filled with Democratic supporters, Jagielski and Republican recent grad Howie Ray, FCLC ‘06, assert that while professors are very narrow-minded, fellow students seem open to debate. “I found a lot of the student body was open to intelligent political discourse,” pointed out Ray. Jagielski says that liberal politics aren’t even much discussed among students: “… I don’t hear much talk about it [liberal politics] outside of the classroom. All I see is pro-Obama posters here and there.”

Read the full post (here)

"Jesuits need Republicans and Republicans need Jesuits"