On October 30th, The Daily Cardinal published an editorial titled, “Conservatives say they’re silenced at UW-Madison. What they really want is immunity from criticism.” A quote from the article reads, “We here at The Daily Cardinal fully support free speech on our campus, but we also recognize when bad actors weaponize discussions around ‘ideological diversity’ to suppress free and open dissent to their ideas.” As someone accused by the Cardinal of being “a bad actor” who is “weaponizing” an important issue, I feel the need to respond.
The Daily Cardinal claims that any efforts by the university to increase ideological diversity on campus would just be “legitimizing a manufactured problem.” I find it hard to believe that anyone could look at our campus environment, defined by suffocating ideological conformity, and say this is a manufactured problem.
There has been a culture created on the UW-Madison campus that is hostile to conservative ideas. It is a culture that has been simultaneously perpetuated by faculty, administrators, and dogmatic liberal students alike. The Daily Cardinal has played a major role in this toxicity, from accusing Charlie Kirk of spotlighting “far right-wing talking points” in his visit to campus to saying President Trump’s electoral victory was “built on authoritarian impulses.” I could give countless examples of how this environment has negatively affected me, my organizations, and my conservative peers.
In classes, the readings assigned are overwhelmingly from left-leaning scholars and publications, leaving little room for genuine viewpoint diversity. Assigned articles frequently portray Republicans and conservatives in an extremely negative light with little opportunity for pushback. While I welcome the criticism of my own ideas, it becomes a problem when professors choose to only frame us negatively and rarely subject the left to the same scrutiny.
For example, an article I had to read in a history class said Republican elected officials are complicit in “the rising tide of white power activity and its overt, violent racism.” No reading that expressed a viewpoint challenging this was assigned.
Professors have also echoed sentiments that the current Republican administration is a far-right authoritarian regime or that the Republican base is antisemitic.
The aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk brought out the worst in the left’s intolerant hostilities. About a week after Kirk’s assassination, my co-president of College Republicans, Ben Rothove, received a call from an anonymous individual who said that he was going to watch the Kirk assassination video repeatedly and laugh.
The response from many faculty members on campus can only be described as perverse. Some examples include an administrative director who reposted a statement suggesting Kirk should “rest in piss” and an assistant mathematics professor who shared various disgusting Bluesky posts about Kirk, including one that called him a “bad faith, incendiary, anti-democracy white supremacist.”
Moreover, the Badger Herald posted a video on its Instagram page capturing students’ initial reaction to the assassination. One person on campus suggested he would “dance in the street” and “drink some champagne” to celebrate Kirk’s death. Another said, “He should be happy that he got shot,” attempting to tie his beliefs to a justification for being murdered.
This isn’t new, though. Last spring, when I was crowd-building for an event with former Governor Scott Walker to discuss the American Dream, I had a community member email me back saying, “Every day I hope for the mass extinction of conservatives.” For that event, we had fliers torn down and defaced, and Redditors suggested that Walker’s face was “punchable.”
It’s not just that our ideas face criticism. Dissenters increasingly try to dehumanize conservative views to justify shunning right-of-center thought entirely, even excusing violence toward those who express it. This isn’t about avoiding criticism or playing the victim; it’s about wanting a campus where students aren’t socially or academically punished for holding views shared by half the country.
The Daily Cardinal’s claim that free speech isn’t under attack, or that conservatives can always speak freely in the classroom, is egregiously wrong. Many people on this campus work hard to silence our voices.
The Madison Federalist has learned this firsthand. We recently discovered that employees of Memorial Library were throwing out entire stacks of our latest print edition so that no one would be able to read them. The same employees mocked the contents of the paper. When confronted about why the print editions were repeatedly removed, an employee cited an obscure statute that had nothing to do with distributing newspapers. Even after being assured that staff would no longer remove The Federalist by a higher-level library employee, the stack was again removed.
The Daily Cardinal’s editorial board insists that “UW-Madison is a far cry from the ideological echo chamber it’s being framed as,” but this claim can be very easily refuted by the fact that over 99 percent of faculty donations go to Democratic candidates or left-wing groups.
The number of conservative faculty on campus has experienced a sharp decline in the last decade, largely due to poor treatment by their liberal colleagues. Former political science professor Ryan Owens said UW-Madison is a “toxic environment for conservatives,” former history professor John Sharpless said the university is a “liberal bubble,” and former political science professor Richard Avramenko said, “The climate on campus is hostile.”
The issue runs deeper than this, though. Conservative candidates for faculty positions face both implicit and explicit bias from current liberal professors in the hiring process, reducing their chances of ever coming to campus in the first place.
The Daily Cardinal attempts to uphold its desperate claim that UW-Madison is not a liberal echo chamber by saying, “Groups of all political stripes routinely hold campus events, invite speakers to campus, and debate openly.” What this claim misses is that for every right-leaning event held on campus, there are dozens of left-leaning events. University departments and divisions invite hundreds of speakers every year, yet very few express right-leaning views. The limited number of conservative speakers are brought in almost exclusively by the Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy, the Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy, or the Tommy G. Thompson Center.
We do hold events almost weekly between YAF and College Republicans. However, the university and administrators have been anything but supportive. In fact, administrators have actively tried to shut down our events. In 2024, when YAF hosted Michael Knowles to speak on abortion, the university tried to charge our club a $4,000 security fee to protect our event and the building against liberal protestors. Only after we threatened to sue them over free speech violations did they back down.
For the first YAF meeting of the year, we hosted former Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch. The day before the event, Campus Event Services informed us they would not book the room. When I called them to ask why this happened, the employee I spoke to over the phone cited a pre-screening policy for potentially controversial speakers. We were fortunately able to book a room at Grainger Hall (though we did have to pay).
Hours before the event started, Campus Event Services said that the cancellation had been a mistake because “we have some new student workers in the office.” A later email clarified that an employee staff member had “relayed incorrect information” to me and that there was not going to be any change in policy.
The fact that there is such a need for metal detectors, bullet-proof vests, and extra security protocols for high-profile conservative speakers like Ben Shapiro or Michael Knowles says enough on its own. The same is rarely, if ever, demanded for speakers on the left. The tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk on a college campus proves these drastic protections are not paranoia but chillingly necessary.
To provide evidence as to why the lack of ideological diversity on campus is not a problem, The Daily Cardinal cited just one statistic: “Only 10% of students claimed they’ve faced social consequences for engaging in political dialogue, with the actual implications of these consequences not being reported.” Notably, the number itself is inaccurately framed.
According to the UW System’s 2023 Freedom of Speech Report, 10.1% of students say they faced consequences for expressing “political, social, or religious views by assembling or protesting with others on campus” (emphasis added). However, 58.5% say they have faced consequences for expressing “views on a controversial topic to other students while in a campus space outside the classroom.” That is the more relevant statistic, as a relatively small percentage of the student body participates in protests.
The Cardinal also ignores the 26.4 percent of students who say they have faced consequences for disagreeing with an instructor in a written assignment. Notably, that number was higher for both “somewhat conservative” and “very conservative” students.
Interestingly, 67 percent of Republicans on UW campuses say they are uncomfortable sharing their views on transgenderism, and 55 percent of Republicans say they are uncomfortable expressing their views on abortion. These extremely high percentages of discomfort can largely be explained by the fact that 45 percent of Democrats think that views they find “offensive” are an act of violence towards vulnerable people. This is compared to only 13 percent of Republicans.
Moreover, 33 percent of Democrat students believe that administrators should ban the expression of views that they feel “cause harm.” This is compared to only 9.5 percent of Republican students.
These are very alarming statistics, especially in today’s climate, where opposing political viewpoints are very frequently labeled as harmful or offensive simply because they fall on the other side of the partisan divide.
The willingness to silence opposing views does not stop at attitudes. Many liberal students believe that it is acceptable to attend speaker events that they find offensive and disrupt the speaker from giving their message. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a whopping 76 percent of UW-Madison students say shouting down a speaker may occasionally be acceptable, while 35 percent believe violence to stop someone from speaking on campus is acceptable in rare cases.
I can personally attest that students do, in fact, show up at our events and try to shout down or interrupt our speakers. For example, when College Republicans hosted state superintendent candidate Brittany Kinser in March, she was interrupted by protesters. Our event with Governor Walker was also briefly interrupted. Even liberal speakers deemed insufficiently dogmatic, such as Joe Biden’s former UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, have experienced disruptions from far-left students. That is not “an essential element of free speech expression,” it is an attempt at suppression.
Furthermore, 61 percent of Republicans report feeling pressured by professors to agree with certain political views and ideologies expressed in class. One of the top reasons why conservative students choose not to express their views is that they fear that their professor will give them a lower grade. According to FIRE, 40 percent of UW system students said they had self-censored in the last month when the survey was administered.
UW-Madison still has a free speech grade of “F” on the FIRE Free Speech Rankings. We also rank in the bottom 30 of all colleges and universities for how comfortable students feel expressing political and controversial opinions.
I want to pose a question to The Daily Cardinal that I hope prompts some genuine reflection. In light of reading these statistics and about my experiences, does this still sound like a “manufactured problem” to you?
For me, as a conservative student and the leader of both College Republicans and YAF, the answer is clear: the lack of intellectual diversity is a grave problem on our campus. This isn’t an abstract conclusion. When recruiting for my organization, I constantly hear from students that they want to join but fear social and academic backlash. The liberal editorial board does not understand what it is like being a conservative on this campus, nor did it make any effort to find out.
I walk into class every day knowing my views will be challenged, and I welcome that debate. However, as the content of this article shows, many liberals on this campus have no interest in taking part in the same challenge. In fact, they would rather suppress opposing ideas than defend their own.
I firmly believe that ideological diversity is an issue that everyone, whether they are liberal or conservative, should care about. Intellectual growth is dependent upon encountering viewpoints that challenge our ideas and strengthen our arguments. When academia becomes a liberal echo chamber, this process gets stunted.
Given the weakness of the arguments presented in the editorial and the number of logical fallacies used to make a ludicrous point, it is safe to say that the left at UW-Madison could really benefit from learning to defend their own stances. Liberal students would perhaps benefit the most from the kind of rigor and debate that greater exposure to opposing viewpoints would provide. I just hope one day they can see that too.
I long for a future where right-leaning scholars are not shunned from academia and conservatives can share their ideas without fear on our campus. I am optimistic that if we work hard, we can make our university a place where there is truly robust and civil debate, inclusive of all perspectives. Only then can we live up to the university’s ideal of “sifting and winnowing” rather than just “sifting” conservative viewpoints out.
 | A guest post by
|