Campus Reform: American Jewish University

One year ago, I first visited California State University, Northridge, a commuter school in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. To my amazement, there were no conservative students tabling at their annual "Meet The Clubs" event. A lot of you probably go to colleges just like this.

Students at these schools are busy. Many of them work and take classes. Some live in the nearby community, but others may have matriculated from smaller schools in the region, making a trip to class more of an ordeal.

With all of this going on in the background, commuter schools can be difficult places to set a solid foundation for any student organization, let alone a political one. That's why the fall is such an important time to commit to leadership and find your initial members.

Hosting a table at the student organization fair on your campus is critical at any institution, but especially at a commuter school. Depending on their schedule and courseload, the students you meet at this venue might never see you again for any other recruiting opportunity.

But there's a dilemma, you say. The club fair is tomorrow and you didn't register a spot. Of course, at some colleges you couldn't have. You weren't part of a Registered Student Organization (RSO) to begin with. Don't fret, fellow conservative. I have a solution. Just show up, start recruiting and let them pry your freedom away from your cold, dead hands (metaphorically speaking, of course).

This post is part of CampusReform.org's guide to the nation's top 100 colleges as ranked by US News and World Report. Each day, CampusReform.org profiles a different college, examines its political climate, and offers items of interest to conservative students, parents, and alumni. Click here to see the full list of college profiles.

The University of California - San Diego (UCSD), located north of San Diego proper in La Jolla, is a public research university. It was founded in 1960 and today enrolls more than 22,000 undergraduates and 5,000 graduate students. UCSD is one of the 10 schools in the University of California system.

Campus Life

UCSD has six conservative groups: College Republicans, Tritons for Israel, Young Americans for Liberty, Young Americans for Freedom, the California Review and the Marksmanship Club. The italicized groups are affiliated with CampusReform.org's Campus Leadership Program, which provides them with free advice, assistance, and many kinds of support.

Some of these groups are well established. The California Review, a conservative student publication, has been publishing since 1982. Others have only recently appeared on campus. The Young Americans for Liberty and Young Americans for Freedom chapters on this campus, for example, are each only one year old.

An honorable mention should be given here to LiNK: Liberty in North Korea, which is not specifically conservative, but is certainly doing good work opposing a horrific Communist regime.

The presence of the Che Cafe, a vegan dining area for left-wing radical activists says quite enough about which political group controls much of the discussion on campus.

This post is part of CampusReform.org's guide to the nation's top 100 colleges. Each day, CampusReform.org profiles a different college, examines its political climate, and offers items of interest to conservative students, parents, and alumni. Click here to see the full list of college profiles.

The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is an unusual combination: a major research university with a campus on a beautiful California beach. UCSB is one of the 10 schools in the University of California system; it is located in Santa Barbara, California, about 100 miles from Los Angeles. The school, with just more than 18,000 undergraduate students, is the fifth largest in the UC system.

Campus Life

Of the politically oriented student groups on campus, 15 are liberal and four are conservative.

The liberal student groups include CALPIRG; Campus Democrats; the socialist group Campus Left; Bisexual Discussion Group; Muslim Student Association; Students for Justice in Palestine; Progressive Christians; the Queer Student Union; Reproductive Justice Coalition; Voices for Planned Parenthood; Student Labor Action Project; and Students for Gavin Newsom.

But conservative and libertarian students should take note of the clever fusion of left-wing politics with ethnic identity groups.

UCSB has a substantial history as a center of left-wing Latino activism. Santa Barbara's campus was the meeting place for the 1960s conference which gave rise to the Chicano Nationalist group MEChA, which seeks to reclaim the Southwestern United States (Aztlan) from the gringos. Their own bizzare founding documents can be viewed on the university website.

This post is part of CampusReform.org's guide to the nation's top 100 colleges. Each day, CampusReform.org profiles a different college, examines its political climate, and offers items of interest to conservative students, parents, and alumni. Click here to see the full list of college profiles.

The University of California - Irvine (UCI) is located in Orange County, California, which is known as a conservative stronghold in a deep blue state. But UCI is much different from the surrounding community. Just this year, for example, UCI has been noted for many, heated exchanges between activists devoted to the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

Campus Life

Unquestionably, the left is the dominant political force on the campus, though they now face challenges from conservative and libertarian student organizations.

The 10 known left-wing groups on this campus include CALPIRG; MEChA; the Muslim Student Union (which will likely be suspended next year); the Radical Student Union; the Worker Student Alliance; Young Democrats; Irvine Queers; the Sustainability Coalition; Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance; and Student Advocates for Reproductive Responsibility.

Until recently, the UCI College Republicans and Students for Life were standing alone as conservative-leaning groups against an overwhelming number of left-wing organizations.

The number of groups advocating for conservative ideas has now expanded to six, and also includes Young Americans for Liberty, Anteaters for Israel, Young Americans for Freedom, and the Ayn Rand Club, an Objectivist organization. The italicized groups are affiliated with CampusReform.org's Campus Leadership Program, which provides these students with free advice, assistance, and support.

Give the left some credit. They were the primary founders of the Free Speech Movement (though there were conservatives involved). Fast-forward fifty years, though, and now that they're running the show on campus, the left is a hot mess when it comes to free speech and civil liberties.

The so-called "California Scholars for Academic Freedom," whose website indicates that they are a pro-Palestinian faculty group more than anything, have released a statement in support of the so-called "Irvine 11."

The Irvine 11 are Muslim Student Union (MSU) members who planned and then shouted down Israeli ambassador Michael Oren during his speech at the University of California, Irvine earlier this year.

Following a university investigation, the entire MSU was suspended for the 2010-2011 academic year for being involved in a premeditated heckler's veto of the event.

It was the university's finding that the MSU and its members knowingly acted to violate Oren's right to speak. They had even written in a meeting agenda that their intended message from the act was that: "he can't just come to a campus and say whatever he wants." 

Somebody must have flunked out of constitutional law.

This post is part of CampusReform.org's guide to the nation's top 100 colleges. Each day, CampusReform.org profiles a different college, examines its political climate, and offers items of interest to conservative students, parents, and alumni. Click here to see the full list of college profiles.

Set on the Pacific coast in Malibu, California, Pepperdine University is a private university affiliated with the Churches of Christ. Pepperdine enrolls 3,439 undergraduate students and 4,294 graduate students; it employs 636 faculty members. It is known for its graduate programs in business, law and public policy, which have attracted conservative talent in students and faculty alike.

Campus Life

Pepperdine is one of those rare schools where conservatives are more organized and active than liberals in student activities. This may partially be accounted for by the school's religious tradition, which influences the mission and tone of many of its student organizations.

Intstead of organizations for international socialism, there are clubs for international aid efforts. Instead of a one-sided campus condemnation of Israel, there is a neutral campus group for the promotion of Middle Eastern peace and understanding.

Johnathan Zasloff is an accomplished professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles.

But he is also a very loyal Democrat, once serving as an advisor to the Democratic California Speaker of the House. His participation in Journolist, an online discussion list for left-wing journalists, in which he questions whether the Federal Communications Commission could stick it to Fox News by prohibiting that media outlet to broadcast, has raised criticism.

On March 12, 2010, Zasloff posted to Journolist that President Obama should revisit his adversarial tone toward Fox News, which began during his presidential campaign and continued into the early months of the administration, ending his post: "Is there any reason why the FCC couldn't simply pull their broadcasting permit once it expires?" This question is easily answered -- and dismissed.

Let me firstly say that the comment itself, while silly, is not the cause for concern to campus reformers. I'm not about to go ballistic over a web post he probably gave less than a second's thought in writing. It's worth remembering, though, that this kind of perspective exists in a university system where arbitrary media censorship has already occured.

While Zasloff claims that he is not an expert on the FCC and the First Amendment, it does seem more than a bit questionable that an experienced law professor would think to engage an educated group of peers with this question. The fact that it is within the realm of acceptable discussion in leftist company is precisely the reason we should worry this could translate into decision-making on campus. 

Here's the write up of the event YAL and YAF held at CSUSB.

While it may be out of the high-profile spotlight of UCLA and it can't quite match the history (and infamy) of the far-left Berkeley, students at the University of California, Riverside are in no way removed from the many political conflicts found on other UC campuses today. There were 19,439 students at UC Riverside for the 2009-2010 school year, including 16,996 undergraduates and 2,443 graduate students. The school is one of ten general campuses in the UC system.

Campus Life

Riverside is subject to all of the institutionalization of leftist ideas that are prominent on many other campuses these days, including specialized centers for specific student ethnic and gender groups, which pretty much exist for facilitating on-campus advocacy.

After the University of California - Irvine's student government hurried through a resolution calling for the disciplinary immunity of the so-called "Irvine 11" -- students who shouted down Israeli ambassador Michael Oren on campus -- I had very little hope that the university would take any steps to discipline them.

I'm glad to have been proven wrong.

The administration, while not publicly speaking on the matter, has been required by a Freedom of Information Act request to release documents showing that they have issued a reccomendation that sanctions be carried out against the school's Muslim Student Union (MSU), which coordinated the disruptive, embarrassing student protests.

While the final decision will be issued by a university judicial body, the organization could be suspended for the 2010-2011 school year, meaning it will not receive funding or resources from the university. They would also be required to perform 50 hours of collective community service and an additional year of probation.

No prominent civil liberties organization is standing behind the MSU (other than CAIR, obviously), because it's widely acknowledged that they engaged in disobdience that violated the civil liberties of Ambassador Michael Oren by repeatedly interrupting his speech in February.