Tyler Yzaguirre vividly remembers the day when a UD professor taught him an important lesson about the potential restrictions on open discourse in an early 21st century democracy.

It was in his junior-year Political Science course, and the instructor had just told a conservative classmate that he was forbidden to use the phrase “illegal immigrant” in class. “Racist term,” she concluded.

Yzaguirre, AS15, decided it was now time to explore his freedom to speak out. He stood up in his classmate’s defense, but to no avail. As Yzaguirre learned that day, academic life for a conservative student can mean walking a sociopolitical tightrope, balancing the desire to coexist with the urge to challenge the status quo. But many right-leaning students agree: The University of Delaware is a good place to be walking that line.

Despite the occasional classroom dustup, Republican and Libertarian activists say UD should be proud of its relatively open political atmosphere, its institutional emphasis on diverse viewpoints and its faculty’s ethos of impartial instruction.

Since its very founding, the University has produced free thinkers on all sides of the political aisle, from signers of the Declaration of Independence to the campaign managers of the 2008 presidential election: David Plouffe, AS10, who gave the nation its first African-American president and Steve Schmidt, AS93, who led the late-Sen. John McCain’s drive for the White House. Notable alumni include Joe Biden, AS65, 04H, and Chris Christie, AS84, 11H, loyal Blue Hens with strikingly different political philosophies.

Still, students and staffers alike are mindful that in the liberal-aligned culture of higher education, it’s often easier to sit down and shut up. They’re routinely cautious about context before showing their political stripes. A “Make America Great Again” T-shirt at a weekend party, they know, is likely an open invitation to scorn. A few conservative-themed stickers on a laptop might be all it takes to get glares and some name-calling, one student learned. A right-of-center position in a humanities class, they’ve found, could end up producing more heat than light.

“It’s just hard to carry on a conversation when someone says the facts are ‘offensive,’ or ‘phobic,’” says Rebecca King, EOE20, who remembers enduring a fellow student’s classroom rant that “whoever doesn’t oppose Trump is literally a fascist.”

And yet, they say, the disagreements are a predictably frustrating, often invigorating and ever enjoyable part of the intellectual journey they hoped to find. Friction has a way of creating its own synergies and qualities of character: resilience, compassion, even empathy and understanding.

The college experience, in other words, may not have changed anyone’s minds, but it surely has opened a few. “It actually has been very beneficial,” adds King. “Those who don’t understand their opponents’ arguments often don’t understand their own.”

The quest for open dialogue

In an age of agonizing campus battles over ideology and free speech, the level of invective has been relatively low at UD, and right-leaning students say that in most academic situations, their views are welcome, though frequently disputed.

“But we don’t really advertise it,” King says of the political leanings she and her friends share, which include support for gun rights, tighter immigration policies and tax reform. “We’re worried there may be too many emotions involved.”

There is no question in their minds that in the halls and classrooms and dorms, outspoken liberal sentiments are far less likely to inspire impassioned pushback. In some places, certain concepts are culturally ingrained as “correct”—affirmative action, for example, or diversity training—while others are so wrong they do not even merit discussion, such as arming teachers or separating children from immigrant parents.

So conservative students begin to ask: Where’s the room in that dynamic for nuance and debate?

Polls reflect a clear plurality for the left—a national freshman survey by UCLA recently found that 35.5 percent of students consider themselves liberal and 22.2 percent conservative (the remainder were “non-partisan”). In the last presidential election, 55 percent of millennials voted for Hillary Clinton; 37 percent backed Donald Trump. In some academic disciplines like history and communications, Democrat professors outnumber their Republican colleagues 20-1, or even 30-to-1.

But some college researchers say the right’s cries of universities as liberal bootcamps are overwrought, and a 2012 book by Amy J. Binder, professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego, and Kate Wood, then a doctoral candidate in the UCSD sociology department, found little evidence for classroom “indoctrination.”

Instead, researchers say, students emerge from the college experience seeing the “opposing side” more favorably than when they started.

“At UD, we’re very lucky,” says Daniel Worthington, BE19, chair of the College Republicans at UD. “I’d say we’re an outlier from the rest of the nation. We get along with all the left-leaning groups.”

At the same time, there is clearly a quietbut-steady pressure to align with progressive ideals in and out of class, he and other conservative students maintain. “I don’t particularly look like a typical conservative,” adds King. “Because I am a woman and a person of color, sometimes leftists will tell me that I’m not pursuing my best interests and that I’m somehow betraying my background.”

“Before I went to college, I thought it would be a place where everyone’s ideas can be talked about,” adds Katie Mazur, AS19. “That’s not always the case.”

Although Mazur says her professors have been overwhelmingly supportive of open dialogue, her peers have been distinctly less accommodating. “People would hear I had certain beliefs and immediately shut down any conversation, like they thought I was a terrible person,” she recalls. “They’d spread rumors, like, ‘Don’t talk to this person.’”

“I have found that if conversations revolve around economic issues, then debate and discussion with liberals can be highly productive,” says Joseph Buxton, AS19, a College Republican. “But I’m generally afraid to discuss social conservatism with anyone, as most liberals believe social conservatism to be bigoted in any number of ways.”

Keeping it civil

To find some like-minded companionship and a platform for action, conservatives often turn to student-run organizations such as the Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) or the College Republicans. Within the structure of such official forums—in the sponsored debates and discussions—civility and tolerance are the norm.

“Compared to many other schools, UD is very open and fair, especially in terms of what RSOs are allowed to do,” says Alex Closs, EG20, vice president of the YAL. “UD has done everyone a service in its attempts to provide equal opportunity for groups to express their opinions.”

“Don’t get me wrong, we don’t agree on everything,” Worthington says. “But we manage to keep it civil.”

In part, they say, this ideological openness is instilled from the top down at UD. Worthington recalls meeting Biden in a sit-down with UD’s College Republicans last year. “He said, ‘You’ll always have a seat at the table.’ And that really struck a chord, because he didn’t have to do that. It did mean a lot.”

The University has made concerted efforts in recent years to foster a culture of “inclusive excellence.” In addition to resident student organizations that span all political affiliations, the Center of Political Communications holds a non-partisan “National Agenda” speaker series each fall, and the Biden Institute invites distinguished guests to campus from all parties, working to increase civic engagement for all members of the campus community.

“I don’t give a damn how you vote,” the Vice President said to students at a voter registration drive earlier this fall. “Just vote. Claim that power.”

Current students also commend the tone set by current President Dennis Assanis, who has publicly reinforced UD’s commitment to open dialogue.

“He is very good about promoting free speech, which is one of the points of academics, to benefit from other people’s knowledge,” says King. And when there is resistance to their opinions, or when they feel pressured to stay silent, the students say, it often serves to reinforce their character rather than undermine it.

“It made me question how much am I willing to fight for my personal beliefs,” Mazur said. “It helped me realize, this is who I am and what I stand for.”