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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a junior DS who's starting to become interested in LACs, and Dickinson has found its way onto his list.

My image of the school, formed in the 1990s, consists of buttoned-up, well-off prep school types who didn't quite have the stats for Williams or Amherst (a category my DS falls into, minus the prep school). The people I knew who attended weren't remotely political in college, and most either remained that way as adults or became centrists or country-club Republicans.

But some of the stuff I've read about Dickinson lately makes me wonder if, like many other colleges, particularly LACs, it's gone woke.

A few things that give me pause:

An article in the Dickinsonian (the student newspaper) a few years back advocated for white male students basically shutting up and not contributing to class discussions.

The school's response to Covid was over-the-top and draconian.

For at least two years after Covid, the school went fully test-blind, a policy I tend to associate with the DEI, tests-only-measure-privilege set. FWIW, it has since gone back to test-optional.

On this board, Dickinson is often touted over its rival Gettysburg (also on my DS's list) for its lack of Greek life and "bro" vibe.

For a variety of reasons, I don't think my son, with his irreverent sense of humor, oft-contrarian approach to current events and hot-button issues, and tendency to speak his mind, consequences be damned, would be happy at a fully woke college. (To preempt the "send him to Liberty" trolls who are sure to descend on this thread, he'd be equally miserable there, to say nothing of the lack of academic rigor he'd encounter.)

I feel my DS would do best, and he agrees, at a small school where he won't get lost in the crowd, where one political viewpoint doesn't predominate, and where free speech and free inquiry are not just permitted but demanded.

Should he keep Dickinson on his list or is it too woke for what he's looking for?[/quote]

What are his oft-contrarian takes on hot-button issues like? How would he align himself politically at the moment?[/quote]

OP here.

Oft-contrarian wasn't the best wording. He doesn't intentionally stir the pot or go out of his way to buck the mainstream, but he learned during Covid to question popular narratives. He has a healthy distrust of government and authority in general after watching his older sibling miss milestones because of the lockdowns.

As for the Israel/Gaza stuff, he sides with Israel but will eagerly engage with people on the other side, and to his credit he's cool as a cucumber and remains civil in debates -- he takes very little personally. That said, he doesn't want to be anywhere near a campus that has "encampments" and militant protestors. He'd be happy on a campus where the closest thing to "activism" is students pumping iron in the gym. [/quote]

As a Jew who was an AZYF rep for my state flagship during college in the 80’s, speaks Hebrew, and used to live in Israel, I think I’m a lot more “woke” than your kid.

I can no longer “side with” a country that deliberately targets aid workers and journalists, uses starvation as a weapon of war, and is clearly engaging in wanton destruction of infrastructure as a method of ethnic cleansing.

You and/or your kid may buy the narrative that the people protesting Israel’s actions are some sort of anti-Semitic extremists, but my and my children’s experience is that most pro-Palestine protests include a huge percentage of Jewish students who reject Israel’s war crimes.

Of course, much like the BLM protests where many, many off duty cops were filmed breaking windows and looting as agents provocateurs, the same is occurring in this situation, and students on many campuses are working to expose and reject far right fringe organizations who send people to both sides of demonstrations with then sole goal of starting fights.[/quote]

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