Before I get to my discussion I want to say I am a university student myself. I am young and I don't know everything. I want to start a discussion based off of my observations. I go to an Arizona University so my observations come from mainly here and also online as this is the generation of the internet. Also, in order to keep privacy I won't say names and certain details. It might sound a bit vague but bare with me please.
For a long time politics have been within the university campuses. And we can admit that this has had some side effects to our expensive education and our social lives on University campuses. Some personal examples and observations are listed bellow:
- Classes become biased and aren’t neutral. Making me feel a bit uncomfortable in class. I have been told that because I am a man I can’ t talk on a topic or I have been silenced with an attitude that is very confrontational. Not only that I have had to listen to comments that alienate all the men in the class making the men uncomfortable. It is uncalled for.
- If anyone knows I voted for Trump it causes an outrage from some people which can be quite dangerous. Some people get physically aggressive or they verbally say heinous things. Sometimes they ask me who I voted and if you refuse to answer they assume you voted for trump.
- Too much non-factual dangerous rhetoric is spread throughout the campus from guest and organizations that come onto campus to speak.
- In a class after election results were released the professor stopped the lecture and spoke on the election results. It was so uncomfortable. I didn’t want to speak on it I just wanted to learn. But during the time there was so many hateful things coming out of my peers mouths not only about trump but people who voted for him. I was a bit concerned for myself and felt cornered in the room. The professor then went on with saying “Deal with your choice that you made but you should have voted thinking about your community as one and not for yourself. And now you will have to deal with your choices.” I don’t think this is appropriate.
- I think without politics being spread around campus it can’t intrude onto our teaching and this really would be a place of learning and thinkers without restraint on ideologies and the like.
- Young people here have built their lives around politics and certain influencing people so much so that when kamala lost it has created a huge mental health issue among some young people. This is not healthy and a reason to why I don’t want politics on campus outside of classes and planned/prepared discussions.