COLUMN: True confessions of a campus conservative

From Mark Fiore's, "The Right Stuff," Fall '99 From Mark Fiore's, "The Right Stuff," Fall '99When the editors of The Daily Pennsylvanian asked me to apply for a weekly column last year, I did not jump at the chance. Having spent every semester of my undergraduate years working for the DP, I had been looking forward to a little reprieve after my tenure as an editor concluded. Just short of a year ago, I was busy brainstorming possible topics for my first few columns. I knew from the outset that the topics I would choose -- and the largely conservative positions I would take -- would often be unpopular with the more liberal Penn community. After all, for two straight years as a DP editor, my views were regularly put aside in favor of the majority viewpoint expressed in each day's staff editorial. So it was with a healthy degree of freedom and optimism that I settled on my first column ideas, ranging from a call for Bill Clinton's resignation to a critique of affirmative action. My goal in expressing such beliefs, at least initially, was nothing more than to share a philosophy largely dismissed at Penn -- by students, professors and administrators alike. Penn, indeed, is not known for embracing conservative beliefs. University President Judith Rodin herself has close connections to the Clinton administration and the Democratic machine of Philadelphia. A vast number of other administrators and scores of professors also regularly condemn conservative policies. And Penn students, of course, largely fall in line with the campus' liberal majority. Facing those facts, I aimed through my columns to articulate a perspective often in opposition to prevailing sentiments. One week, for example, I denounced hate crimes while raising questions about hate crimes legislation. I also, lest anyone forget, criticized Penn's financial aid system as a redistribution of wealth. And, just before graduation in May, I called on my fellow graduates to lead the way in restoring dignity and respect to the nation's institutions. I never expected the reaction that would result. Certainly, the opinions I expressed -- typically, but not always, similar to the beliefs of the nation's Republican Party -- are largely more popular in the nation as a whole than they are on campus. But I was not addressing the nation as a whole. Instead, on campus, my columns -- often to my amazement -- provoked responses ranging from utter contempt to begrudging acceptance, with a few words of support occasionally thrown in. Almost every week, I would be stopped on campus by students I had never met before, receive e-mails from alumni long since graduated and hear of professors discussing my columns with their students. The debate, at least to me, was overwhelming. And perhaps unconsciously, the emphasis of my columns shifted away from ideology and toward promoting a greater exchange of ideas. That was no small task. After all, it was not unusual for students to respond to my columns by demanding they not be published. What's more, the University, no matter what professors and administrators preach from their pulpits, has a sad history of trampling free speech. Who can forget the University's pathetic handling of the infamous "water buffalo" debacle in 1993? Or its decision that same year not to pursue charges against a group of students who stole almost the entire daily press run of the DP in response to another conservative columnist? I can only hope that if such incidents occur again, Penn would choose a different course. Universities, for what they're worth, should embrace and relish free and open expression. And students claiming that they hold open-minded views must rethink those claims when they simultaneously call for the suppression of opposing ideas. Indeed, with the challenges facing our nation over the next decade and century, the healthy exchange of ideas is essential. The challenges are many and large, but not insurmountable. We must, for example, confront how to promote individual responsibility and freedom over government handouts and dependency. To champion, not condemn, morality and religion. To embrace our differences, racial and otherwise, but not exploit them. We must also examine how to instill the values of education and employment in everyone. To foster a competitive and open international economy, while still protecting the nation's interests and security. And to keep pushing for unending improvement in the nation's schools. The goals, of course, are much easier to determine than the means for achieving them. But through the national arena of competing beliefs, the best path will be forged. I, for one, plan to help forge that path -- I hope you do, too.