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By Rachel Makabi
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The age of mass anti-war protests and bra-burning demonstrations
may be over, but freshman liberalism is at its all-time high in
three decades, according to the fall 2001 freshman survey report
released Monday.
The survey, which includes responses from 411,970 entering
freshmen from 704 colleges and universities, found that 29.9
percent of college freshmen label themselves “liberal”
or “far left” while 20.7 percent of students consider
themselves “conservative” or “far
right.”
The percentages of “liberals” on campus are
substantially lower than the 40.9 percent of students who viewed
themselves as liberals in 1971, according to the survey released by
the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA’s Graduate
School of Education and Information Studies and the American
Council on Education.
Education professor and founding director of the survey,
Alexander Astin, said the influx of corruption in contemporary
politics connects students today with those from the ’70s and
has contributed to liberal tendencies.
“Politics are so dismal, and students are growing very
cynical,” Astin said.
Though students do not identify themselves as
“liberals” as much as they did since 1971, Astin said,
their views on controversial issues are far more to the left than
before.
“The far right has successfully attacked the word
“˜liberal,'” Astin said, pointing to the 1988
election where Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis did not defend
himself when his opponent, Republican candidate George Bush Sr.,
called him a liberal.
“The word fell out of favor and most young people are less
likely to use it,” Astin said.
He pointed to the record-high numbers since the survey began in
1966 of incoming freshmen who believe same-sex couples have the
right to legal married status and the decrease in students who
believe in the death penalty as strong indications that students
are shifting to the left.
Astin first had the idea for the survey in 1966 to see the ways
in which college affects students. After taking an initial survey
of students right after they entered college, follow-up studies
four years later show how students were affected by college.
UCLA students are more likely than students from most other
schools to leave college more liberal, he said.
“My guess is UCLA students would come out more liberal
because it is very selective, and students with high SATs and GPAs
are usually more liberal to begin with,” Astin said.
Survey director and UCLA education professor Linda Sax said she
thinks students inherited their liberal tendencies from the Clinton
era.
“There was a very liberal agenda during the Clinton era,
and most students came of age during that time,” Sax said.
“Maybe some of it will turn around now that we have a
Republican president.”
While some freshmen said they think college will change their
views, others said they think their opinions are already
established.
“I don’t think I’ve become more liberal.
I’m open, if that’s what you mean by liberal,”
said first-year art student Jessica Gao. “If you already went
through that in high school ““ political issues, racism,
sexuality ““ it doesn’t change much in
college.”
First-year psychobiology student Mary Tran disagreed.
“At my high school, there was diversity, but there were
cliques, not as it is here,” Tran said. “I think
college will change me. It’s quite a learning
experience.”
Saxon said it would be interesting to see how the results,
submitted shortly before Sept. 11, would have been affected by the
attacks.
“I think we would have seen some differences in emotional
health and lower levels of well-being,” Saxon said.
A record-low 53.4 percent of freshmen currently consider their
emotional health above average, with 47.7 percent of women rating
themselves high on emotional well-being compared to 60.4 percent of
men.
Reports from Marcelle Richards, Daily Bruin Senior Staff.