Editorial Boards Police Conformity, Not Debate
There was a time when a student opinion page stood as ground zero for honest disagreements. Young adults tested ideas, challenged assumptions, and sharpened arguments under bright lights.
The Battalion, the student newspaper at Texas A&M University, proved how far campus media has fallen when its editors began guarding orthodoxy rather than welcoming debate.
Justino Russell, a university student, submitted an op-ed in response to an anonymous professor's open letter to the student body defending the woke faculty hiring and DEI-based curricula and urging students to resist "conservative political interference."
Russel answered with economic data, pointed to ideological slants, and warned that modern curricula often pigeonhole dissenting views.
You are profoundly detached from the real issues affecting us, our families, our country, and the world today.
We are the most depressed, anxious, suicidal, obese, addicted, and indebted generation in American history, and the first to be worse off than our parents. We are forced to take pointless courses, buy costly textbooks for information freely available online, and serve as a captive audience in a system where everyone—from publishers, administrators, and banks to professors like you—profits while we drown in debt.
The numbers don’t lie: almost 40% of students drop out, burdened by loans but no degree. Half of those who graduate end up in jobs that never required a degree in the first place. A bachelor’s degree has become a $100,000 high school diploma.
Read the entire letter at this link.
The Battalion rejected his op-ed, saying its point-by-point polemical style didn't match the opinion desk's "current editorial priorities."
Russell didn't sit idly by after that rejection; he analyzed nearly 200 pieces published in the paper's opinion section since last year's election.
Fifty out of 60 political-opinion articles leaned liberal or far left, seven were moderate, and only three were conservative; roughly a 17-to-1 liberal to conservative ratio. A publicly funded, student-run paper on a campus in a conservative state publishes conservative ideas 0.0589% of the time.
The Campus Culture Built to Exclude Opposition
Texas A&M once embodied tradition, calling itself the home of lifelong discipline, service, and honest character. A campus paper that throws out dissenting political voices abandons that heritage, opting for peace instead of debate.
It's a bias that can be seen in similar forms elsewhere. In The Badger-Herald, University of Wisconsin-Madison's student newspaper, a conservative columnist wrote in favor of policing at a time when many pushed to defund police. Editors called his piece too controversial, dismissed him, and buried his argument, even though the paper had earlier published strong pieces in favor of left-wing causes.
This is my shocked face.
The fear of backlash holds back many conservative students at UW-Madison and across America. A 2023 survey of the UW System showed that many self-identified conservatives said they hesitated to express their views in class or campus media.
A campus newspaper, or any publication expressing opinions, should exist to encourage argument, not shelter disagreement. What those editors forget is that burying conservative arguments doesn't prove conservatives are wrong; it proves editors are afraid of ideas that might stir controversy.
Silencing Dissent Under the Guise of “Standards”
When editorial boards reject conservative op-eds because they don't fit "style priorities," or what I call THE NARRATIVE, they are deciding which voices deserve airwhich amounts to gatekeeping, not editing. If dressing up dissent politely is the only way to get a dissenting opinion published, popular opinion wins by default.
When higher education costs soar (the tuition of my first semester in 1986 was $614), student debt crushes dreams, and cultural debates tear at communities, campuses need debate more than ever. Conservatives, such as Russell, bring data, analysis, and a worldview that sees human dignity resting on economic liberty, strong families, and free debate. Refusing to publish that voice doesn't protect the campus; it exposes the fear that open minds might upset comfort zones.
A Warning Sign, Not Anomaly
What happened at Texas A&M should trouble every parent, student, or citizen who cares about education. A campus paper that politically tilts doesn't educate; it indoctrinates. Suppressing dissent shows the rot coursing through liberal-leaning institutions nationwide.
It's a pattern repeated throughout the country: editors at student papers censor conservative takes, forcing conservative students to drop out of campus media, which is probably the overall goal. At UW-Madison, conservatives founded The Madison Federalist to restore ideological balance on campus after years of left-leaning dominance in student publications.
If enough editors keep silencing half the student body, college campuses become echo chambers that kill critical thinking, warping culture. It's a process that saps the next generation's ability to challenge ideas — even the flawed ones — and to build solutions.
Although they'll never see it, conservatives like Russell deserve respect for standing firm on hostile ground, shining a light on what campus media has become: not a marketplace for ideas, but a fortress of consensus.
Get More Voices, Not Less
Campus newspapers should treat opinion pages like town halls, not gated clubs. Students deserve exposure to more than one worldview; great universities once prided themselves on breeding independent thinkers who challenge authority, not become clerks repeating it.
Suppose editors keep turning thumbs down on conservative voices. In that case, they confirm what many already suspect: free speech on campus exists only when it comforts the woke left, a path leading away from knowledge and conformity.
I can't say it any better than Russell:
We need more Charlie Kirks, not more Ibram X. Kendis. We are your customers, your bosses, and your product is broken. Don’t gaslight us for demanding a better one.
Support Independent Thinkers
We need to support outlets that don't censor ideas by default if we truly believe in an honest debate. We should praise students who raise tough questions, while we demand transparency in campus media.
And maybe, just maybe, we can look forward to reporting that gives conservative thought a real, fair shot.
Want more essays like this one offering honest, unfiltered takes on campus culture, politics, and media bias?
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