Experiences of an undergraduate contrarian at American University

by Juan Pablo Villasmil

Topping Niche’s “Most Liberal Colleges in America” list is American University, a place where diversity, inclusion, and equity have replaced the outdated virtues of courage, justice, and gratitude more than anywhere else. A place where many students pride themselves in being the most politically active, and a place where being extremely intolerant in the name of tolerance is the norm.

The same can be said about the modern university at large, but in the DC-based institution, the insanity is palpable. The conformists are rewarded, and the heterodox are blacklisted, attacked, and punished.

In my view, if nothing is done to course-correct these trends nationally, the entirety of America’s higher education will look like the walking dystopia of a university that I attend.

My first encounter with the culture of Wokeness began before I ever set foot on campus. I knew that I was going to be in the intellectual minority beforehand, but when evaluating options and costs, the reasonable decision was to move to the capital. I saw it as a challenge, and oh boy, it has been one. Still, I have no regrets.

Finishing high school in south Florida after living fifteen years in Caracas, Venezuela was an early exposure to the viral pathogen of ingratitude and ahistoricism infecting America’s youngest. If I have already stood up for the pledge of allegiance when my constitutional law teacher encouraged students not to, what other nonsense could I not endure?

I was wrong; it got worse, way worse.

Back in the Zoom Era, we had these massive group chats that in essence replaced the university quad. Instead of club-promotion in the courtyard and community-building exercises, we had GroupMe. It was in those chats where I learned that this was all crazier than I had thought.

Older peers would invite their incoming “freshpersons” to the most ideologically-driven events that I have ever seen, and every once in a while, back-patting sycophants would start witch-hunts against other students. The process usually looked like this: someone would find a conservative student online, then they would send their profiles to the group chats, and lastly, they would encourage others to insult them.

Eventually, a blacklist was created that included both conservative students and accused rapists. With time, I realized I was in it.

Another freshman had reached out to me online to inform me about my so-called “outing.” I was quite shocked. These kids had no clue who I was, but they saw a picture I had with Senator Rubio and decided to coordinate some sort of shame campaign. I started to receive tons of direct messages, and the intention was clear: they wanted to let me know that I was not welcome.

With me, they did not succeed, but I know some fellow students that had to leave the school as a result of the bullying.

One of the other “outed” conservatives was a girl that ended up switching schools. I had the chance to talk to her before she left because one of the good things about the witch-hunts was that it made it easier for all the witches to get together.

The girl, who I am not going to name here, left after starting a complaint-process with the school. In short, after some found out that she was an “anti-masker,” she started to receive threats. So, she reported them. In response, the school told her to contact the police, but when she asked about consequences for the involved students, in her words, nothing happened. One particularly ugly comment that I remember said that if she was raped, she would deserve it.

Another well-known witch-hunt was the Faith Graham case, which I can talk about more openly because she has publicly talked about it. Faith, a Mormon raised in Arizona who came to DC to get involved in Republican politics (and therefore is clearly a repugnant individual) had to leave school after other students mocked her for her religion and stormed her dorm.

When I finally stepped foot on campus, things did not get better. Quickly, I realized that in my university, verbalizing oppression is the ultimate act of bravery, and disagreeing with ridiculous DEI narratives is sacrilegious.

The most shocking thing was that not even my Venezuelaness could save me from the evils of whiteness! I had to face self-hating white professors and 20-year-olds from Massachusetts who claimed to know more about Venezuela than I did, especially since I am white, and, in their eyes, rich.

I tried to explain, many times, that although Venezuela is close to 50% white, more than 90% of the population lives under the poverty line, and 25% have left the country, but they didn’t care.  Their racialized worldview consumed them, leading them to believe that the United States is to blame for the Venezuelan crisis, and that those with white skin cannot talk about the issue honestly.

I could go on for pages talking about crazy AU stories, but I will close with a funny one that happened last year. In a class about socioeconomic development, we were talking about why some regions are more developed than others, and when asked about it in regard to the Americas, I said that one of the reasons may be that English thinkers developed better ideas about governance than the Spanish. After my comment, a student, who already knew about my politics, shrieked that I was regurgitating white supremacy. I guess she forgot that Spanish are also white. To her surprise, the professor, a black lady who grew up in Africa, who she assumed would instinctually agree, stopped her, and asked her to explain how she concluded that. Guess what? She couldn’t.

Like her, many of my peers see oppression everywhere. Some start their sentences with “as a white/black/latinx,” others feel the need to let everyone know about their invisible disability, and the rest are constantly trying blame any disparity on prejudice.

My undergraduate experience is sad, even scary, but not surprising. The solution is straight-forward. We need courage and ingenuity from our policymakers to fight the expansion of DIE ideology in our universities. We need anti-CRT bills and we ought to stop giving federal funds to universities that mandate DIE courses while refusing to teach proper American history.