A new survey of students at Dartmouth College found that those who identified as Democrats are the least tolerant on campus.
In the campus-wide field survey, students of all political stripes were asked how comfortable they would be about living with a roommate who holds opposing political views. Of the 432 students surveyed, only 39 percent of students who identified as Democrats said they would feel comfortable living with a Republican, 16 percent said they felt neutral about the proposed arrangement, while 45 percent, a plurality, said they felt uncomfortable.
Tolerance. https://t.co/PDKE2NLPmk pic.twitter.com/0Re4DRzH0Z
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 26, 2017
A majority of students who identified as Republicans (69 percent) said they were comfortable living with someone of opposing political views, 19 percent said they felt neutral about it, and only 12 percent said they felt uncomfortable. Among Independent students, 61 percent said they felt comfortable living with someone with opposite views, 22 percent were neutral about it, and 16 percent were uncomfortable.
It’s no surprise that students who identified as Democrats were less tolerant than their Republican peers. Students across the country routinely protest against conservative speakers who visit their campuses, and in some cases, pressure campus administrators into cancelling them. Conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter told Fox News on Wednesday that she is cancelling a speaking engagement at the University of California at Berkeley after students threatened violence.
It also makes sense that Republican students are the most comfortable about living with those who hold opposing political views, because conservative college students often find themselves as a political minority on campus. If conservative students refused to live with their liberal peers, it would be more difficult to find a roommate.
