“College is run by a bunch of 60s hippies that are imposing some draconian speech code,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said to a rupturing applause at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference at the National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md.
Often referred to as the conservative Woodstock or conservative spring break, this rings true for the hundreds of young people that find a conservative haven for the weekend.
Each year, CPAC spotlights the conservative fight on liberal college campuses and this year is no different. In addition to Cruz’s comments, CPAC’s mainstage discussions included “A Conversation with Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos” and “Kim Jon Un-iversity: How College Campuses Are Turning into Re-education Camps.”
“How many college students do we have out here right now?” Kay Coles James, president of the Heritage Foundation, asked the audience during her interview with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Hands shot up across the room.
“Higher education is a really important part of the role of the Department of Education,” DeVos told those students. “[Free speech] is a very timely and serious issue that I think that we have got to address from a multitude of angles. I think we have seen more and more examples on college campuses in recent years or shutting down free and open debate and expression of ideas.”
DeVos explained that her college experience was very different than that of today’s students. While she was able to test out new ideas and explore other ideas and opinions, today’s students only hear one line of thinking on campus. This is something that DeVos and the Department of Education are committed to changing.
“We have got to continue to exercise a very foundational part of our nation’s founding in the First Amendment,” said DeVos. “The place to have fights, so to speak, is in the battle of ideas. Let’s talk about them, let’s share our perspectives, but do so in a way that is open to alternative views and others ideas without censorship or without fear.”
Young conservatives on the stage agreed that there’s an imbalance of ideas on campus.
Marcus Fotenos of the Steamboat Institute called professors “moral cowards” that “don’t value reason or truth” and suggested that students take a stand for their pro-capitalism beliefs in the classroom.
Grant Strobl of Young America’s Foundation echoed that sentiment.
“When you stand up for what you believe in, people will follow you.”
