Carbonated Debate

Thirsty for some political inclusivity? Try COCACOLA.

No, not the soft drink. It’s an acronym created by Jordan Cope, a senior and student government representative at the University of Texas at Austin. It stands for the “College of Conservative Arts and the College of Liberal Arts,” a name that Cope had hoped would gain traction among his colleagues.

It did not -- the representatives this week rejected a piece of legislation that supported such a name change to the university’s College of Liberal Arts. The students lack the power, of course, to change the name of the college, but the debate reflects campus tensions over politics and over the way many people perceive the phrase “liberal arts” as a political term.

Cope said in a phone interview he’s aware that “liberal arts” has nothing to do with politics. But he said that left-wing views tend to dominate campus, and he wanted to highlight the other side of the political spectrum in a meaningful (satirical) way -- the right isn’t tolerated at the university, Cope said.

He grew up an outspoken conservative in a Texas high school. When he told his friends he’d be attending the university’s College of Liberal Arts in a city that’s an enclave for liberal politics, they asked him, “How will you survive?”

Cope joked that by the time he was done, it would be renamed “the College of Conservative Arts.”

His junior year, Cope tried to convince a student government representative to sponsor the COCACOLA measure, but she later told him she feared campus backlash -- which in part prompted his run for representative.

“We’re very much a political minority,” Cope said. “And it’s OK to be a political minority. What’s not OK is the political status quo targeting other political beliefs. This doesn’t solely affect conservatives -- it affects many political orientations, communists, etc. Ultimately I disagree with those political narratives, but as an advocate of free speech and a proponent of intellectual, civil dialogue, I wanted to foster an environment more tolerant toward all views.”

He stressed that the legislation was meant to be funny, but also to drive home a serious point. And even if it didn’t reach the administration, Cope considered the attention to the measure a victory. It lost in a 14-to-11 vote, but still generated much public debate.

But Cope’s attempt at humor didn’t leave everyone feeling bubbly -- namely, the student council (another branch of the student government) that represents the College of Liberal Arts.

Asked if Cope knew the definition of “liberal arts,” the president of the council, Jordee Rodriguez Canales, sighed and said she wasn’t sure.

Rodriguez Canales was angry because there appeared to be no tangible goal with Cope’s legislation, and she already felt that university administrators didn’t take the student government seriously.

“I just think it would reinforce the view of student government and would give administrators grounds to ignore it,” she said. “It’s just something that wasn’t going to happen, and just making it a joke, I didn’t appreciate it.”

She derided the idea that campus conservatives are at all marginalized, though she did acknowledge they were the minority.

The university ensures that right-leaning voices are represented by admitting those students in the first place, and never do they face the same type of bigotry as racial or other minorities, Rodriguez Canales said.

She pointed out that conservative groups have held affirmative-action bake sales, charging different races different prices, which she said she found offensive. Once, the Young Conservatives of Texas organization tried to sponsor a “scavenger hunt” for undocumented students, she said. Members of the group would walk around campus with a label that read “illegal immigrant” and students who brought those roaming members back to the group table would receive a $25 gift card.

“I think that conservatives here can express their opinions well,” Rodriguez Canales said. “But I don’t think they can be outwardly racist, as I think shouldn’t be the case in any other part of this country. The College of Liberal Arts is ensuring all types of diversity -- political, racial, ethnic or sexual identity, gender identity. I don’t think other political minorities -- like the Communist Party on campus -- feels marginalized. And no one is renaming a college in their favor -- same with the Tea Party, or anarchists on campus. I just think that it’s stupid.”

Saurabh Sharma, a junior and chairman-elect of the Young Conservatives of Texas, said his organization remained agnostic on the bill, in part because it was futile. The College of Liberal Arts is due to be renamed after a wealthy donor, Sharma said. And the student government is a “ridiculous” entity, he said -- generally its members are overinflated and misjudge what they can accomplish. Previously, the student government has tried to ban the Young Conservatives, Sharma said.

He also objected to how Cope painted conservatives as victims, when Sharma said they consider themselves “happy warriors.”

“We aren’t looking to become a protected class, we’re not trying to become a victim class,” Sharma said. “Yes, it is true there are certain roadblocks on campus, but we don’t use that as currency to score social points. We don’t like to parade around like we’re so oppressed.”

Acceptance of conservatives does not come from a student government bill or top college administrators, but a cultural shift, Sharma said. The group has tried to approach other contingents of campus with the idea they want the same for the country, “we just come at it from a different direction,” he said -- and it’s not from a place of prejudice or hate.

Some politicians in particular have perpetuated the narrative that GOP values have been squelched on campuses. Research has revealed conservatives have little faith in the value of higher education, with 67 percent of Republicans in a Gallup survey stating they had “some or little confidence” in higher ed. Of those who indicated they weren’t confident in higher education, most of them said the reason why was because campuses were too liberal or politicized.

Brandon H. Busteed, executive director of Gallup's higher education division, penned an essay when the study was released last year, arguing that higher education had a branding problem around the term “liberal arts.”

“Although there is certainly a difference between the meaning of a liberal arts education and being ‘liberal’ politically, it helps no one to fight to the death defending the term ‘liberal arts’ in the context of today's climate,” Busteed wrote. “Let's face it: Other than people in higher education or liberal arts graduates themselves, who understands what the liberal arts are anyhow?”

A 2015 study by Caroline Hoxby and Sarah Turner, professors of economics at Stanford University and the University of Virginia, respectively, found that low-income, academically talented students weren’t applying to liberal arts institutions because they didn’t know what they were, or identified themselves as “not liberal.”