This troper attends [=UMass=] and finds the political situation here hilarious. The Vice President of the Republican Club used to be the President until he was removed for sexual harassment, he was recently arrested for violating a restraining order, and when ultra-liberals protested the Republican Club's extremely conservative speaker until he called them Nazis and left the Club proceeded to hold a "Rally for Free Speech" on April 1st. At the same time, the campus ultra-liberals consistently allocate highly disproportionate funding to black social-justice groups despite having few black students on campus at all and have made the Palestinian-Arab side of the Israeli-Arab conflict into a ''cause celebre'' -- stopping their protest march outside the Hillel House on a Saturday afternoon to shout "Israel, Israel you can't hide! We charge you with genocide!". ''Every political group here'' is some kind of StrawmanPolitical come to life! Well, actually the [=UDems=] (the local branch of the Democratic Party) are reasonable liberals with thought-out positions, but they don't throw nearly as many actual events as the crazy ultra-liberal groups.

Further story from [=UMass=] follows. In Spring 2010 the school decided to host a Great Debate on six issues between Left and Right. To represent the Right, they chose the aforementioned former president of the College Republicans, known throughout campus as the King of Douchebags. To represent the Left, they chose a little-known figure who admitted, in his opening speech, to not being so much a leftist per se as an AngryBlackMan. Hilarity, unfortunately, did not ensue.

Also, Hampshire really is crazy. Occasionally Hampshire students with political views that ultra-ultra-leftists wouldn't agree with transfer to one of the other Four Colleges in the area.

Hampshire is just plain crazy. Politically or not.

The Hampshire-going troper disagrees. I'm a conservative third-year that's happy as can be on our tiny, weird little campus--sure it can be difficult sometimes what with the insane bias of the SS classes, but common sense keeps one sane. Beyond that, I went into Hampshire expecting it to be ultra-left-all-the-time...more than anything else, I've found Hampshire to be a pretty intensely geeky college, rather than just HIPPIES HIPPIES HIPPIES. Now, if our buildings weren't so hideous, maybe we'd be the perfect school!

This troper, who goes to UC Santa Cruz, would like to point out that 4/20 is celebrated countrywide, not just here. Also, banana slugs are far more common around campus than sea lions. Other than those little justifications, though...yeah...yeah, it's pretty weird.

Yes, but you people ''organize'' your event. And the police...

This troper also goes to UCSC, and would like to point out that like 80% of the campus cares nothing about politics.

I once got extra credit for showing up to a Santa Cruz class on 4/20.

On a related note, UC Berkeley appears to have calmed down from the radical liberalism of the '60's. At least we're not making news anymore....

Definitely true.

With the recent budget crisis, things are getting to be a little bit crazy on campus, but at least we're not under siege (yet).

This troper would like to note that some of the ruckus may even be caused by outsiders. But they again, he doesn't know everything that goes on on campus.

The political parties on this troper's university can't seem to agree which extreme it is, but all except for one appear to think it is, in fact, some kind of dystopia. The punchline? That one party holds 24 out of 47 seats in the uni parliament.

And I attend Ferris State. It's not nearly as crazy as some of the above examples, but definitely leans more towards Berserkely than towards Jim Jones. The surrounding town of Big Rapids, however, is almost the perfect Jim Jones type of town. We don't have a lot of 4/20 problems, but there is a hookah club which is very prominent. Also, if you're right-wing, you may not find a whole lot of on-campus groups that make you feel truly welcome. (Read: Don't discuss Democrats' flaws in front of ''any'' Anime Club member! It's usually a bad idea!) Also, don't expect others to respect your free speech. Put up a pro-GOP thing in the residence halls, and someone ''will'' take it down on you. While the teachers are usually pretty reasonable, don't expect to win bonus points for finding a way of defending Sarah Palin (or similar figure). Someone you're in class with will not be able to let it go.

That actually sound fairly moderate, to be honest. A few hardcore lefties aren't unexpected or unusual, in the same way that a few hardcore conservatives wouldn't be either.

Uh...you consider people not respecting your freedom of speech to be moderate? Plus, the person said the college was predominantly leftist. It appears we have different definitions of the word "moderate".

This troper dealt with a bunch of Objectivists in Berserkley once. They had dressed people up in costumes of Communist dictators, and BarackObama was among the dictators. They were spraying the "dictators" with pig blood. From super soakers. They were all launching into LONG rants, which made my mom tell them to "stop being Ayn Ranters and do something productive." They harrassed us, called us "fucking commies" and were arrested hours later for attacking a disabled man.

Must have been a riot during the height of the "RON PAUL RELOVE-UTION" craze.

Great ShutUpHannibal moment, though.

So basically a typical Berserkley protest. Except for the political side. And the getting arrested.

This curious phenomenon is certainly not limited to the USA. NUI Maynooth in Ireland is an historic bastion of Catholicism, being the most active seminary in the country, and definitely defies the stereotype of universities being filled with radical lefty types. The campus politics tend to get interesting, especially when anybody brings up religion, the Lisbon Treaty, abortion or stem cell research. And by 'interesting' I mean 'terrifying'.

In the War of Independance Macroom had a huge number in the 'RA. Have a look at its people now...

That's mostly St. Patrick's College, NUI Maynooth itself is pretty much free from rabid fundamentalists other than the Pro-Life Society and they just stick to themselves. Even with the student fee situation and the national strike most students just shrug and take it as a free day, and the Union Council is woefully underused. You could almost say that the students are too apolitical.

At the University this troper used to attend (in Australia) there were 2 Christian groups. One was the libral Christian group who were for 'love the sinner, even if you hate the sin' and the other were the Conservative 'All sinnners will burn in Hell' type. The first group was larger which led the second group to ''bus in'' supporters from the bush so that they would have a greater number to egg people with during 'Gay Pride' Day. I'm just proud of the liberal Christians who, in the best Christian tradition, threw themselves between the Gays and the bigots. I wish I was making this up... Straw Fundementalists indeed.

Why do you wish you were making this up? This agnostic troper thinks those liberal Christians were ''awesome''.

This troper went to ''junior high'' in a mini-Jim Jones U. The principal (and most of the staff, for that matter) was an incompetent moron, the vice principal was a manipulative CompleteMonster who was constantly preaching about hellfire and brimstone, and nearly all the students were either MoralGuardians in training or were just plain nasty. Also, guess where the school got its entire curriculum from, and the only place where potential teachers could graduate from to be hired? Yup, Bob Jones University.

You just described this tropher's high school.

This troper goes to the University of British Columbia, where two of our student union executives just got impeached for making a human rights appeal to the United Nations based on the complaint that ''school expenses were too high''.

Wesleyan University. The movie ''PCU'' was based on us. Nuff said.

This troper goes to Brigham Young University--Idaho, which is even ''more'' Jim Jonesy than the larger, more famous, more highly-regarded one in Utah. ''Shorts'' (this includes capris!) and ''flip-flops'' are not allowed on campus, and it really does feel like you're going to church every hour of every day. Even among Mormons it's known either as "that place you go when you didn't get into BYU-U" or, less charitably, "the breeding grounds," as marriage is a very common side-effect of matriculation. Also, this troper, who is a moderate Independent, is considered a flaming liberal by her classmates.

Zig-zagged by this troper's University. On one hand, this troper ran into his share of StrawFeminist manhaters, a radicalized "queer" lobby which argued that the battle for nonheterosexual acceptance was a Marxist class war, and the political science faculty is ''unmentionanbly'' intellectually dishonest. On the other hand, the philosophy faculty was emminently fair and listened to this troper's arguments (and gave him very good grades), ''and this troper is an Objectivist (!)''. Additionally, the economics department was very sane (like most academic economics departments), the professors were either pro-mixed-economy or pro-market-economy. Finally, this troper got a chance to present a discussion on the benefits of Objectivism to the University's secularist-atheist society, which was very well received.

Zig-zagged? So your school is like your average university - it has its strong liberals, its strong conservatives, and a lot of people inbetween?

This troper attends a small college deep in the hills of central West Virginia... thought it was a set up for a Jim Jonestown U? Oh so wrong. It has an entire "Green Studies" program, more hippies then you can shake a stick at, bizarre but understanding professors, and a town to match. Thoroughly averts this trope despite the possibilities and recent administration attempts.

Student groups are nearly always more radical than the general movement they represent. Feminist groups will always be full of Straw Feminists. Conservative groups will always be a mix of Bible-thumpers and people who whack off to Ayn Rand. This trope is really more about campuses as a whole which are one or another, not when you find individuals on campus who are like that.

My university has its share of lesbian separatists, who for some reason give an IfItsYouItsOkay to native guys. I say native even though most of us just say Indian because you can't even refer to yourself as the common word. And then there's Native American Studies, which is run by white guys who love Lynn Andrews...

This Troper's former alma mater is such a Berserkeley it's pretty much little more than a resort hotel that happens to hold classes. The school's paper is so left-leaning and corrupt it's a joke; they're more apt to report about a bunch of vandals stealing newspapers to cover up an embarassing story than the story itself (which was about a 17-year-old girl found legally drunk at a fraternity house, and to this day no one knows who she is and if she was a student or a townie). Most of the taxpayers' and donors' money goes to entitlement programs like sumptuous, wasteful buffets three times a day, big screen televisions with premium channels in all the dorms and common areas, and computer labs with high-speed Internet--while education, textbooks, and supplies go sorely lacking. Town girls, some as young as 15, regularly call the mens' rooms to proposition them for sex and freely gain access to residence halls, so campus security is laughable...and yet I hear no complaints because the aforementioned campus media don't report on it. I have written about AS(S)U and its denizens numerous times under many pseudonyms.

University of Maine Farmington. There are Republicans worth talking to, but you wouldn't know it by the actions of the official group, who are widely held in contempt even by conservative students. And the administrations makes noises about being progressive, eco-friendly, arts-friendly, supporting human rights. There was a proposal last year to tear down the Victorian houses on campus because they weren't "sustainable", with absolutely no suggestions about where they would put the programs that used those buildings and apparently no understanding that it is more eco-friendly and cheaper to adapt an existing structure than to tear down and build new, at least for the standards they claim to want. They are building a new (and poorly-designed; I've seen the blueprints) arts center, but they have slashed the Theater department, eliminated the theater tech major (which was a draw even for non-theatre majors), and told one of the theater faculty, "Oh, you can get all of that out of a book." ''HEADDESK'' They are also cutting the usable space for tech in half, and we are already overcrowded. And, oh yeah, even though the theater department is reposnsible for looking after the center, we're not allowed to use it. As for human rights- the administration has set up close ties to China. I am so glad I am out of here after next semester.

I went to UNC-Asheville, our state's Berserkeley. My teachers were all die-hard left-wingers who ranted about politics constantly. In many classes, we never even had to read any of the required reading because the teachers would be too busy giving us political lectures to actually teach anything. And our grades were based entirely on whether we parroted what our teachers said. I remember getting a perfect grade in Humanities 414 after turning in a long-winded anti-Ronald Reagan essay that had dozens of spelling errors, glaring historical errors, and no citations. I had several teachers who would give passing grades to students who didn't take tests or turn in papers because they were out of town attending protests. And many students were just as bad. There was one guy who protested anything the government did by standing in from the of the cafeteria and screaming about fascists. He also liked to mark the anniversary of 9-11 by buying a bunch of sidewalk chalk and writing a 20-foot long essay about how the America had it coming. Another classmate of mine majored in "Transgender Studies" and couldn't get into a class discussion without crying about the homophobic atmosphere of the class and then leaving.

I go to UNC-Greensboro, and am a member of the campus atheist-agnostics-skeptics group. We regularly "table" in the campus center (give out flyers and such), as do other clubs. Never had a Jim Jonestown moment. There's ''one'' guy who's a refugee from a Berserkely (or acts like one). Still, it helps to have something to whet the rhetorical blade on.

Okay, so it's not a ''college'' example, but this Troper's high school is so left-leaning as a whole it's really not even funny. At least half of my classes are spent talking to us about a "real-life issue," which is all well and good... Except the thing is, though, it's all hilariously biased, and we're never told a more conservative side of the story. (Concerning issues like illegal immigration, the budget crisis, healthcare, gay marriage, etc. I have no idea what those issues have to do with, say, English class, either.) The student body isn't really any better; GranolaGirls, scenesters, would-be hippies, the works abound; class discussions pretty much always end with almost the entire class agreeing that "Technology is bad!! Everyone hates gays!! Religion is illogical and evil!! Everyone should be freaking vegan!!!1!!" And this is all coming from someone who is fairly leftist, herself, albiet more moderately so. (And, yes, fully supportive of gay rights, before anyone accuses me of homophobia for the aforementioned comments.) I once had a conservative friend attending here who was pretty much driven insane before transferring to a school in the suburbs. Then again, it ''is'' an art school, so maybe I should've seen this coming.