Out of Ivy - Prologue

All of us were sent to a private, Catholic, all-boys high school. My brothers and I were forced to wear a shirt, tie, and sport jacket every day. Shaven, and hair kept above the collar. Our mother was a housewife. Our father—an Irish-Catholic, 6’4” 260 lb. Rhode Island State Trooper.

I wouldn’t know how to begin to describe what it was like growing up in our home. There is no single word that can accurately describe the constant episodes of childhood activity, and our resilience to cause unforeseen dilemmas for my parents. Drives to Little League practice. Pop Warner Football. A packed refrigerator immediately emptied. Fights. All-out brawls, in fact. Scabs and scars. Then, spankings. Unwilling babysitters. New bikes. Hugs. Baseball cards. Holiday meals. Grandma. Grandpa. Cookouts. Christmas gifts. Chicken wings. Nintendo and Wiffleball. Detention. Drivers’ licenses. Car accidents. Proms. Girls.

A nice family, I guess. Four sons, the best of friends, excessively competitive amongst ourselves. Morning races to the bus stop. Afternoon races home. We were extremely hard on one another, competing in every facet of daily life. There were brotherly battles for victory and dominance of whatever the topic was at the time. Not just physical battles, but the more annoying and energy-draining intellectual exercises of argument. Of course, many of these did result in teeth being knocked out. Facial scars. We were a pack of youngsters with a seemingly endless supply of energy to eradicate any chance for a dull moment, and all under the supervision of the woman who would yell, “Just wait ‘til your father gets home!”

Just like thousands of 18 year-olds every year, I graduated high school and left the comfort of home and family to attend college, arriving in 1998 at the doorstep of the Ivy League. I hadn’t a shred of political knowledge, experience, or interest. I considered myself a pretty normal kid. I liked sports and girls. Any other passions or hobbies of mine were mild.

Ignoring politics in college, however, is virtually impossible. Especially at Brown University. Those who made up the framework of my alma mater were highly political, and they thrust their ideas and personal philosophies into the faces of as many as possible. So, without much say in the matter, I was forced to enter the political realm. Ironically, that is where I made my greatest contribution to Brown University, and for many at Brown, it is within that domain that they will remember me.

When I arrived on Brown’s campus I believed I was an extremely good athlete. I was an all-state football and baseball player from Rhode Island, and thought I would find my time on Brown’s football team an easy one, branded with many touchdowns and victories to speak of after graduation. That was not the case. It turned out that I was the slowest and weakest athlete among the group of thirty-five freshmen that had shown up for pre-season football camp. Mere playing-time turned into my primary goal.

I was also under the impression that I was a bright student. I had always received straight-As, and had graduated near the top of my high-school class. However, I would find out exactly how much intellect I lacked after encountering some of my Ivy League classmates. Right off the bat, Brown instilled in me a measure of humility, and it immediately became clear that in order to receive the most out of my experience, both athletically and educationally, it would take my best effort; something extra that I wasn’t even sure I possessed. I guess you could say I was intimidated, but I was also a very confident kid willing to at least attempt to meet Brown’s challenges.

I could never have predicted the culmination or conclusion of my college career. I ended up as the captain of the Brown football team, a controversial columnist for the school newspaper, a spokesman for Brown’s silenced campus right, and a wildly unpopular campus celebrity. It took a lot of personal reflection to realize how I arrived at that point, and I found my story to be a telling one; the tale of a politically naïve adolescent thrown into one of the most activist communities in the world; the story of an all-American-type kid, raised with conservative values, and his clashes with an army of liberals with no patience for foreign opinion.

My alma mater was like a broken seesaw—permanently fixed in a position of political imbalance. Brown University couldn’t escape academia’s common criticism. Its schooling was better described as liberal indoctrination, rather than a true education. Brown’s academic model was one that fostered educational sin, as it promoted collective thought, and restricted individualism. Intellectual limitations were placed on the students by denying us various perspectives, creating a culture that kept us out of touch with reality. The University’s daily message was this: Yes, there are other opinions out there, but the holders of those thoughts are either bigots, stupid, or not as enlightened as their progressive-minded counterparts. “I really had no idea that entire states were against gay marriage. I thought it was just small, radical groups,” a Brown student mused after the 2004 election revealed the overwhelming amount of support for a Constitutional Amendment to ban homosexual unions.(1)

The political oblivion of Brown’s pupils wasn’t their fault. It was the tragic end to a soft and deliberate scheme composed by today’s modern left. For decades, students have been denied intellectual diversity to ensure the survival of a left-wing ideology in the outside world, and Brown University has been protecting that educational dishonesty.

Currently Brown doesn’t allow the ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) onto its campus. This is primarily due to the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy concerning homosexuality. Taking an unusual stance for a Brown student, one pupil argued that Brown should make room for this military presence in order to cause change “from the inside, giving future generals four years of liberal learning.”(2) Even campus leftists recognized Brown’s political imbalance, and the ability of such a place to help radically transform a nation.

While Out of Ivy seeks to reintroduce the sad state of academia, and to lucidly demonstrate the enduring tyranny of campus left-wingers, it also reveals a captivating conflict of two particular persuasions—a private struggle that not only validates previous warnings of higher education, but also offers a glimpse at one student’s political development.

At 18 years-old I didn’t have the words to express my hesitancy to concur with modern-day liberalism. I just felt an uncertain negativity toward principles of the left, and also the people who were driving them forward. The values and virtues I was taught while growing up were not in sentence-form within my head, but rather in a collection of tiny life-lessons that formed my gut instincts—my own personal sense of right and wrong. Thrown into an activist whirlwind at Brown University, I was way out of my league—a political rookie amongst a rabble of seemingly intelligent and experienced liberals. I appeared just ripe enough for Brown’s campus left to begin their brainwashing. But I detected something erroneous and dishonest about the actions and beliefs of many of my classmates and professors. I just couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was that bothered me (and I wasn’t allowed to either).

With much trepidation and uncertainty, I set out to discover political truth, and the origin of Brown’s political barbarism. That is the story that I will tell. A straight, white, male. An athlete. An outmatched, right-minded campus underdog doing everything in his power to resist the pressure that was forcing him to abandon all he was brought up to believe in, and follow the path of the liberal Ivy mainstream.
While Out of Ivy is peppered with the stories I wish to share, much of it is editorial. My opinions and my evaluations. My own gut feelings and political instincts. Out of Ivy is as much about me and where I came from, as it is about Brown and the direction it steers tomorrow’s leaders. This may seem to be the writer’s obsession with himself, but it’s really an attempt to allow the reader to evaluate not just certain events, but also the conflicting mentalities that were there.

Of course, one of those present mentalities was liberalism. Reflecting back on my college years caused me to see the recklessness of this ideology. Liberalism is a political philosophy that contradicts true Americanism, the nation that was intended. It alters the character of our country, not in any positive dimensions, but in ways that incrementally deteriorate our way of life, and diminish our national allegiance.

Through resilient reflection and observation of campus occurrences that happened while I attended Brown—and then soon after I graduated—I became more cognizant of the battle I had engaged in when I decided to criticize the University’s campus left by becoming an opinion columnist for the Brown Daily Herald, the university newspaper. During my final two years as a student I bickered with my classmates, finally defying their campus politics. Toward the end of my Ivy tenure I became aware of just how significant a step this was onto the battleground of America’s ongoing culture war. Suddenly, liberal thought became one of the things I detested most. It was right up there with field hockey and the New York Yankees. I now saw Brown as a political weapon for radical progressives, a place intent on breeding the leftist mentality. I was suddenly fighting against the expansion of a mindset, one that I saw corroding a way of life that cherishes liberty. I was now confronting a mentality that was actually promoting hatred for America, and was turning the greatest nation in the world into a country of sniveling sissies.

Furthermore, upon graduating from Brown University I had learned to withhold credibility from anything spouted from the mouth of a liberal. Referring to the morality of Communist Russia, President Reagan informed the world that the communists would “lie, cheat, and commit any crime to further the goals of communism.”(3) I wouldn’t have to tone this line down too much to describe most components of Brown’s campus left.

How I came to hold this jaded perspective is the story I wish to share, and I invite anyone willing to listen to read the following pages.

Despite the fact that I graduated from Brown in May of 2002, I spent the next several years hovering around campus while I put my story down on paper. In a certain way I continued to attend Brown—not as a student, but as an observer of the campus structure. Therefore, some events I speak of within Out of Ivy occurred soon after my official departure. I have done my best to put together an honest and comprehensive book—one that is unique, informative, and entertaining. Within these pages you will read of certain accounts that were visible to the public, events that unveiled the state of Brown’s academic atmosphere. These events often placed Brown in the public eye, as they sparked debate over free speech, political correctness, and the role of the academy in American society.

However, much of my alma mater’s intellectual prejudice flew below national surveillance. These are the episodes that I believe need to be revealed in order to chronicle for the reader the development of a political mind. And these are the episodes that caused me to realize that the criticisms that have already fallen on our universities are not false admonitions, that the death of America begins on our liberal breeding grounds—our native institutions of higher learning.

To Brown’s current students: I want you to compare my description and dissection of the University with your own experiences. Indeed, I look forward to dissenting feedback. However, if my story begins to look unfamiliar to you, before assuming that I have intentionally exaggerated Brown’s campus conditions in order to create a livelier book, consider the fact that many of my stories were born before you arrived on campus. Within the past several years there have been slight changes brought about on College Hill, modifications that were prompted by events that happened while I was still a student. Brown’s president, Ruth Simmons, was arriving just as I was leaving. Anyone who paid close attention noticed her immediate focus on issues of intellectual tolerance on campus. This may be one of President Simmons’ favorite topics, but that’s not why she gave it so much attention. It was all due to several revealing episodes that you may not be aware of. Don’t worry, Out of Ivy will divulge them. Trust me.

You should also note recent University additions such as the Kaleidoscope Fund, a newly revived College Republicans, Students for Liberty, the Political Theory Project, and The Brown Spectator. Keep in mind that none of these existed when I was a Brown student. These additions, plus a sudden, lingering awareness of the importance of intellectual diversity have made strong improvements to the University’s political climate in only several years. Soon, however, you will discover why I am not so confident in Brown’s future. I only proceed with—to steal a phrase from a recent College Republican president—cautious optimism.