Samuel J. Abrams at Minding the Campus:
The Left’s characteristic displeasure is rampant on our nation’s college and university campuses. A recent nationally representative survey by College Pulse of over 2,000 students offers new proof that liberals on campus are indeed less happy than their conservative counterparts. The data reveal that during these trying pandemic months, conservative, Republican students reported mental struggles at notably lower levels than their liberal, Democratic peers. Liberal students were also far more likely than conservatives to claim that their respective schools—institutions dominated by progressive faculty and administrators— did not understand them, suggesting that liberals may never be satisfied.
For instance, over the course of the pandemic, mental health understandably declined among many students. When asked if they personally struggled with anxiety and/or depression over the past four months, two-thirds (68 percent) of students reported that they faced either a great deal or a fair amount of struggle. Such a high number is obviously unfortunate, but the figure climbs to nearly three-quarters (73 percent) for strong and weak Democrats. The rate is much lower for strong and weak Republicans, at 56 percent.
Similarly, Democratic students were more likely to say that they struggle to fit in on campus. Four in 10 (42 percent) students reported that over the past four months, they struggled a fair amount or a great deal to fit in at their school. Even more (45 percent) Democratic students responded that they had troubled fitting in, while only 37 percent of Republicans reported feeling the same way. These numbers stand out given the legions of administrators hired to promote countless initiatives aimed at inclusion, tolerance, identity, and health, as well as professional, academic, and interpersonal development. Even more noteworthy is the fact that these administrators fixate on left-leaning issues such as social justice and equity, while in the classroom, faculty are overwhelmingly left of center. Nevertheless, liberal Democratic students are still appreciably more likely than Republican students to maintain that they are the ones who do not fit in on campus.
