ANN ARBOR, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – On America’s college campuses, a strange kind of masquerade ball is in full swing. Only, the masks aren’t sequined – they are ideological. Students aren’t just hitting the books; they’re hitting their marks in a script of socially approved opinions, carefully rehearsed for professors and peers.
According to a recent report from The Hill, contributing writers Forest Romm and Kevin Waldman, researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan, cite their two-year study that included confidential interviews with 1,452 undergraduates. While doing their interviews, they found a whopping 88% of undergrads admit to pretending to be more progressive than they actually are.
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This is about academic survival. In an environment where grades, leadership roles, and even friendships often hinge on reciting the “right” positions, students have learned that fluency in woke- speak and the right kind of virtue-signaling is as valuable as a well-written thesis.
Keeping up with the clichés.
The findings in their report aren’t about whether students are progressive or not – many are. The problem is that public expression and private belief have become two separate worlds. In front of the class, the progressive rhetoric flows: gender is a fluid spectrum, capitalism is bad, and climate change is the defining moral crisis of our time. In private? Not so much.
When the researchers asked about views on different issues, they found that 78% of the students self-censored on their beliefs surrounding gender identity, 72% on politics and 68% on family values. Additionally, 77% disagreed with the idea that gender identity should override biological sex in areas like sports or healthcare. But nearly all said they’d never voice that disagreement aloud for fear of academic suicide.
Grades over guts.
More than 80% of students admitted to having submitted classwork that misrepresented their actual opinions. The motivation isn’t hard to guess. A professor who hears exactly what they want to hear is less likely to tank your grade – and more likely to write you a glowing recommendation letter.
Even in friendships and dating, honesty has become risky. 73% of students say they don’t trust peers enough to speak openly about their beliefs. Nearly half hide their views even from their closest relationships.
A student’s perspective.
Michigan News Source reached out to an adult student who is taking classes under the Michigan Reconnect program, a scholarship program designed to help Michigan residents pursue a degree. She asked to remain anonymous for obvious reasons. We will refer to her as Beatrice.
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Beatrice’s statement on the subject is as follows: “I have been a student since fall of 2023. The saddest part of being a student is that I can quickly pick up on the political leanings of my professors.
Whether it is the material they force me to read and write about or the grades I receive for deviating from the woke agenda, it is evident what they expect – me to fall under the umbrella of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) just like them.”
She says, “I have to physically control my eye rolls during class lectures while I listen to them drum about ‘that guy,’ clearly meaning President Trump. I play along and I have my liberal-leaning, college student daughter read my papers to see her reaction. If it is good, I submit, if I see steam coming from her ears or she begins to call me names (like ignorant, for example), I rewrite it.”
Disappointed, but not surprised.
Beatrice continues, “Last semester we were asked to write about a current controversy. I chose to write about men in women’s sports. I had a 98% in the class so I took the chance to write the paper with my opinion about how wrong it is for men to be allowed to participate against women. I received an 80% on it. The comments were astounding. When I quoted the White House, the comment was ‘so what, who cares what he thinks?’ When I referenced a high school volleyball player who had a traumatic brain injury from a volleyball that hit her in the head (spiked by a boy on the girls team who identified as a girl), I was told that the source was not ‘credible.’”
She concludes by saying, “I can say I was disappointed by the grade, but not surprised in any way that I would receive it. For reference I received a 100% on all of my other papers for the class prior to the final assignment. I feel dirty and like I have to betray myself, my values and my beliefs just to obtain a GPA. I have a 4.0 and I am not going to let their venomous mindset take that away from me, so I play their game. It is a sad state of affairs what goes on in college classrooms. I hear the echo of political sentiments from the young students as well. It is lonely, and it takes away from the goal of self improvement.”
Authenticity on academic life support.
Once upon a time, college was where you learned to test your ideas, challenge authority, and maybe even change your mind after debating a subject. Now, it’s where you learn to say what you don’t believe in order to avoid the social and academic penalty box.
Universities justify this climate in the name of “inclusion,” but when inclusion demands dishonesty, it stops being inclusion and starts becoming identity regulation. The result is a generation that’s being trained to be morally certain in public (compliance), but privately unsure of where they actually stand with their own convictions.
The most radical thing a student can do now? Tell the truth.
