The iSchool is an incredible place that prides itself on the freedoms it gives its students and the ideals of individualistic learning it pushes for, but there is an issue that runs deep within the iSchool. The school has a great amount of activism embedded in its culture, something that many students are proud of and hold as a core tenant to the school’s philosophy. It shows that when there is something that students feel is wrong in the world, they go out and try to fix it. 

Many students, however, have found themselves under fire and attacked by the polarized reactionarism of the school. With three years of the Trump presidency and increasing authoritarianism and populism in the world, the younger generation finds themselves in a tragic world, making politics more important to the youth than ever before. 

These new political requirements from the youth has led to a very active school environment; with several marches and walkouts taking place on different issues ranging from gun control to climate change, this new responsibility given to the students of the iSchool has been abused. Being that great responsibilities are thrust onto the students, it can be observed that there is now an issue of students with different views feeling alienated and unable to speak due to the environment that the iSchool provides when it comes to politics.

Based on a survey sent out in September of 2019, the political demographics of the iSchool is 71% leaning to the left, 19% centrist and 10% right leaning. It is also important to note that the iSchool is one third non-left, and that the political diversity of the school is not necessarily the issue that needs addressing. 

The issue that needs to be fixed is that 26% of the iSchool does not believe they can share their views openly at the iSchool; specifically, 75% of students leaning right, 63% of students leaning center, and 10% of students leaning left do not feel that they can openly express their views here at the iSchool.

The iSchool does have an inclusion policy specifically addressing the way that students should engage and include others of different races, ethnicity, and cultures, however, when it comes down to ideas, there is limited practice of this policy. It should be made clear that at no point does the inclusion policy state that people should be respectful of other ideas only of identity. The policy can be found in the iSchool family handbook and says that if students see discriminatory actions or language, it should be reported or  engaged in a way to make students feel valued within our community. Still, there is very little done in regards of this to promote open, positive, bilateral discussion at the iSchool.

Last year, many students may recall the incidents about the iSchool conservative account on Instagram and the massive amount of controversy and upset surrounding it. The account would often post conservative messages with it inquiring as to the leanings of the iSchool general society, such topics included abortion, climate change, and the status of our current president.This was always met with uproar and anger from the iSchool community. 

After the account was reached out to, they responded with an open discussion over call. The owner of this account did not want to have their name disclosed for fear of angry response, however, they did reveal key points about their motivations and who they were. In place of their name, this article will refer to them as Sarah. 

Sarah is not from the iSchool, in fact, Sarah is not even from NYC but rather lives somewhere else in the North East. Sarah knew about the iSchool through personal connections and said that from what they heard there was a lot of great stuff about the school including our rich diversity.

However, there is a part to this school that is intolerance: the political environment. After an interview with Sarah last year and another more recently, they claimed that what they were doing was an attempt to show the iSchool how, “they were selectively tolerant, and they are remarkably intolerant of other things like conservatism.” Sarah said that they were not conservative and were in fact liberal, but that the way the iSchool handles conservative speech is ironic for a school priding itself on inclusion. 

Sarah stated that with over one year of the conservative account being up, they had received many angry messages but only had been reached out to for discussion. As an example, Sarah points out that simply posting a picture of the NRA logo led to them being told that their ideology is one of hate.

Sarah agreed to shut down the account after being made aware that the account was stirring up anger against conservatives rather than people realizing that the account itself was an ironic statement. The statement from the account on its closure was publicized via the NYC iSchool Bertram Instagram account.

So how do students feel about this? After interviewing several students from across the political spectrum, it becomes obvious there is a deep issue affecting every side of the school’s politics. Harrison Reinsisch, a self-identifying centrist, claims that “the community is mostly open and accepting.” Harrison also brings up the point that being surrounded by a large majority of students with different ideals may make some conservatives unwilling to share their opinion.

Jacob (not their real name) is a senior  at the iSchool, known by his peers as a more right leaning individual with a unique sense of humor, and does not believe that the iSchool is a truly open space. Jacob specifically says that the “school is a lot of times not open to discussion especially in NYC certain opinions are kind of mandated and school approved.” This idea of school sponsored ideas is not new to Jacob. Many students voiced their concern over a lack of tolerance of conservative ideas on a iSchool survey.

Students responded to the question of if they feel that they can openly express their ideas at the iSchool, and responses ranged from the casual “yes” to more unfortunate answers such as, “I don’t think it’s smart to share political beliefs very often because it can lead to heated arguments and bad relationships;” “I don’t feel I can publicly talk about my opinions;” “I have grown to realize that the students here can more often than not be quite respectful of one’s political views, except for when someone is a conservative;” and “if I say anything against them I immediately get attacked” just to list a few responses. 

When asked for a statement, a prominent and outgoing senior Butch, who had previously affiliated with communism, has shifted to a more libertarian position, spoke out about the nature of iSchool social censorship. Butch says that “they [more left individuals]won’t let you speak and attach your ideals to the extreme. Again, I never had to deal with this, probably because I was considered communist till the end of last year but it definitely occurs.” 

He also talks about how those who are not often outspoken have no way to express their opinion as they can’t overcome the volume. “From what I’ve seen smaller, less loud people get their opinions attacked relentlessly until they submit. They [the censors]don’t want to even hear the opposing side much less acknowledge they exist.”

Butch believed that this suppression is tied into a denial that people of other viewpoints and moral foundations cannot exist in an educated structure as it would mean the other side is not necessarily coming from a place of lacking education.

The iSchool has some serious biases and it is important to address the issues that students deal with, and the way the school responds to issues is significant in  how people will respond to one another in the school. In 2018, the NYC iSchool sponsored a school walkout in support of gun control in our country by allowing students to leave the building for one period and skipping class with no repercussions, not to be confused with the one that took place some time later where students left and did not return. 

Anyone who went on this walkout was allowed to skip a period of class in order to march in the surrounding area before shortly returning back. The school allowing political activity is not an issue, however, the aftermath of the event led to some conflict between students.

Some students who didn’t participate either for political reasons or because they had classwork to catch up on, found themselves in a peculiar situation with most of their peers, who now came back and viewed them as a resistance to the position. Many students began to judge their peers on this point with cases of yelling and anger being directed at those who did not go. This was pointed out by a student in an online survey saying, “When there’s a walkout people give you s**t for not going.”

When asked about how people treated each other after the gun march in 2018, senior Hayden Mosher-Smith responded with, “All I can remember is people being rude to each other.”

With such aggression and angst created by an event with no post-student support from the school, it is questionable as to why such events would be school sanctioned. 

Not even left-leaning individuals are without this environmental censoring pressure with one student detailing how on certain issues they are unable to speak their opinion without general disgust. Stephany (not their real name), an iSchool sophomore, who identifies as a Democrat without party loyalism, however, expressed her concern of iSchool politics saying that, “If anything anti-Liberal is brought up or anything, it is immediately shot down. I think that people aren’t really ready to listen to anything anti-liberal in the school, not even listen to it”. 

Stephany went into further detail about her views on the two sides she views: “I think that both the Democrat and Republican side are both so set in their ideas and are always so annoyed at the other side for not listening and then they don’t listen to the other side.” The mentality presented by Stephany is one showing a distrust within the students of their ability to communicate and actually be heard. The fear of deaf ears leads to the self-silencing of the community of the iSchool.

Well, why does any of this matter? The reality of the iSchool is that it creates a large echo chamber in its current state, with conservatives feeling unable to speak up or those who do speak up being shut down. A school that holds the core values of inclusion and diversity should make sure to uphold these values in every facet with use working to build ourselves as a community rather than shut down.

With many colleges being coerced into censoring speech, due to anger from opposing sides, it is important that schools do not continue to support the practice of a Heckler’s Veto. It should not be the iSchool that is sending students off with little experience dealing with political confrontation because of a closed off environment at the school.  

Even if you are not a conservative and find the ideas behind it to be wrong, it should be made aware that aggressive behavior is only a radicalizing force. Discussion is the key depolarizer when it comes to politics, however, sustaining an environment in which minority opinions cannot share will only polarize further. Even if the reasons for suppressing these ideas is because they are harmful, all suppression will do is build up until later. 

Ideological repression will only lead to further extremism and provide no actual push towards developing the political situation. Shutting down other students because of their ideology will not persuade them to develop another position and will only entrench them. Even former president Barack Obama has more recently said that there is no true gain in an argument based on small details and built on attacking one another for the sake of validation: “If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because ‘Man did you see how woke I was? I called you out!'”.

With regards to how politics is used between people with one another, it is important to address how politics is used within the classroom. The point of school is to educate oneself, and by nature politics is based on opinion and the morals that one person holds. So is there a way that politics can even be used within the classroom that would not be considered indoctrination?

In a NPR 2015 article,the argument of where the line should be drawn in terms of politics in schools was debated with the two sides agreeing on one specific point that the school should help set a question if one is to be debated; rather than say is climate change real, the question should be what should we do about climate change. This idea of which questions to ask our peers is key to building a proper environment in which all individuals will have the capacity to contribute positively.

With the iSchool being an active player, it is important to take a look into the way the faculty views our school’s current situation in regards to politics in the classroom. The question in regards to teaching is the way that teachers use politics in the classroom and how they if not can they express their own opinions in the classroom. In order to develop the understanding of politics in an iSchool classroom two teachers were interviewed: Ms Coughlin and Mr Jay. 

English teacher Ms. Coughlin, when asked about a possible issue at the iSchool with students having difficulty with foreign ideas, said that “I think its larger than the iSchool… I think the society we often reside and the bubble of New York. Maybe also with the youth like teens and people like my age and also people older there is absolutely a lack of tolerance.” 

When asked on the same topic, history teacher Mr. Jay stated, “I’d like to believe that the school is open to exploring all points of view, controversial, not controversial, and that students feel comfortable in the classroom express those points of view even though they might not be popular with their classmates, i’d like to hope that.” Unfortunately, Mr. Jay’s hope for the school does not match up with a lot of students’ statements.

When asked more about more about what the school should do and what the school has already done both teachers brought up interesting information with Mr. Jay reflecting on the Trump victory in 2020 and how the school handled it: “I know that the day after Trump was elected we had this whole thing for the students, like: Oh too bad people probably feel bad and then there was push back, but you know what, not everyone felt bad, some people were happy… so that was a case of maybe the school pushing an agenda.” 

When the idea of a forum for discourse, similar to that of the town hall done in march of 2020,  Ms Coughlin saying “people should go and say ‘I think this is an issue.’”

The two teachers, however, disagreed when it came to how to engage politics in the classroom in a way to create a good atmosphere for learning and discussion. 

Both Coughlin and Jay’s classes deal a lot with discussion with English and social studies classes being very centric on the subjective; due to the subjective focuses in the classes the views of a teacher may become joined with the curriculum of the class, so how do Mr. Jay and Ms. Coughlin view this? 

Mr. Jay expressed that “There is an unconscious bias that maybe some teachers have and by making me aware of it, I’ve tried to steer it back.”

Ms Coughlin also stated that  “our job should be to foster listening and challenging of your own thoughts and assumptions. … We want kids to think, we want kids to be successful, we want kids to be critical and to do that you have to not just critically think about others beliefs but your own beliefs and why you think that.”

What can the school do about any of this? Well, the reality is that it comes down to the individual students who feel suppressed to rise up and speak their minds. While the school could certainly change the way that it addresses politics in certain classrooms, this all resides within the students to express their views openly despite criticism. 

With such anger and angst built up in the school from years of the Trump presidency, it may be important for more discourse around the ideas thrown around with people that don’t necessarily agree. Proper and open discussion whether it be in the classroom, in the school, or even between individuals will prevent the alienation of students from the classroom and will test the ideas and values that the school holds to make sure that they hold up under scrutiny. 

Great change is made at the hands of individuals in discussion, and iSchool community has the potential to foster discussion in an increasingly polar era. it is just about if the iSchool community is willing to stay true to its values of inclusion and openness. The question arises: can the iSchool community say that it has stayed true to its values of openness and inclusion?