WHAT IF THEY THREW A REVOLUTION AND NOBODY CAME? | PAGE 1, 2
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Delgado is part of a growing backlash among academics who believe that to whatever extent higher education has fallen, conservative foundations have pushed it. In his book "No Mercy: How Conservative Think Tanks and Foundations Changed America's Social Agenda," Delgado and co-author Jean Stefancic argue that conservative groups have used superior media relations, strategic thinking and, of course, monetary resources to move public opinion in their direction and depict liberalism in an unfair light. Delgado sees the growth of ISI, YAF and their brethren not as a response to a liberal takeover, as such groups claim, but as part and parcel of the larger swing toward conservatism of the past 25 years.

"Campus wars," as Delgado calls them, "are just one visible part of the struggle conservatives are waging, with the aid of money and brains -- think tanks and foundations -- to shift America's social agenda radically to the right." He admits that most college students and professors are liberal compared to the dominant conservative strain in the nation, but reminds us that it all depends on perspective.

"If you are a social reformer," he points out, "colleges may not look very liberal to you. Most are happy to cooperate with the military-industrial complex ... [they] contain tiny numbers of faculty and students of color and seek corporate support for chairs and programs with little regard for how that money was made."

Delgado grants that in the '60s, conservative students might have had reason to call themselves a "marginalized minority," but now that claim makes him balk. They have "their own campus organizations, newspapers, leadership training institutes, internships at major newspapers and congressional offices and access to funding," he says.

David Kalstein might think he knows what it's like to be a marginalized minority, but he hasn't met Hillary Thompson. Thompson is a senior at Swarthmore College, a school with fewer than 1,400 students and about 10 active and "out" conservatives. As one of a tiny number of conservative activists on a campus where liberal politics are as safe an assumption as Christianity at Oral Roberts University, Thompson faces an uphill battle just to make her voice heard, let alone listened to and understood. Swarthmore has a long history of liberal dominance, which is why in the past decade YAF and ISI have poured tens of thousands of dollars into it to bring speakers, support the school's Conservative Union and fund the conservative newspaper. For both ISI and YAF, this "crusade carried out at Swarthmore College" (in YAF's zealous language) seems to be banking on the notion that where human advocates are too few to create a crowd's roar, money can speak volumes instead.

But perhaps what's most interesting about Thompson is not her status as an endangered species, but the fact that she deplores the groups who have invested so much in helping students like her survive.

As president of the Conservative Union, former editor of Common Sense, Swarthmore's conservative paper, and an attendee at numerous ISI conferences, Thompson has often benefited from such groups' financial largesse. But as someone who has been trying (albeit unsuccessfully) to puncture a hole in Swarthmore's dominant liberal culture, Thompson no longer appreciates such groups' expenditures and advice. "Their ways of convincing the typical student," she says, "are dodgy at best."

According to Thompson, the only thing matched by the extravagant perks lavished by conservative foundations on student-activists -- at conferences, all expenses are paid and an open bar is provided with no I.D. check -- is the groups' complete inability to do anything on college campuses but intensify resentment toward conservatives.

The "political tactics" she's heard touted at conferences have made her increasingly disillusioned. One young woman, according to Thompson, never used to go to church, but discovered in college that it "made people angry" and began attending every week just to piss off liberals. Editors of another conservative paper decided to mock their campus's "wear jeans if you support gay rights" day with a call for a "wear sneakers if you support the KKK" day.

Although these examples might seem extreme, Thompson insists that they spring from the generally hostile, "us vs. them" attitude that ISI encourages. "There is definitely a focus not on principles and not on the person's beliefs," she says, "but on a backlash against the liberal organizations on campus."

As the editor of ISI's flagship publication, Kalstein has a different assessment of conservative foundations' effectiveness and usefulness. "ISI and YAF," he says, "provide a much-needed outlet for students to be exposed to viewpoints that they normally do not hear about in classrooms."

For Thompson, however, whatever solace she might have found in attending conferences where she could share war stories with fellow beleaguered conservatives is not worth the frustration anymore. She no longer plans to attend any ISI events and has written an article blasting conservative foundations' work on college campuses, which she hopes to publish in the next issue of Swarthmore's liberal paper (the editor of Common Sense declined to print it, for obvious reasons).

"I need to give fellow students arguments that they can't dismiss," says Thompson, explaining her decision to bite the hand that feeds her.

It's often said that if you want to know what an organization's true motives are, you need only follow the money. Both ISI and YAF are funded primarily by conservative individuals and foundations, including such prominent names as conservative philanthropist and anti-Clinton crusader Richard Mellon Scaife, whose foundations donated a whopping $925,000 to ISI in 1997.

What exactly this tells us about these groups' "real" intentions depends, of course, on whom you ask. Richard Delgado sees their goals as quite obvious: "To turn our institutions to the right, limit government and regulation ... and strengthen religion, patriotism and similar traditional values."

Hillary Thompson, cynical about conservative foundations' ability to actually do anything, says their purpose is "simply a continued existence for their organization."

And, of course, David Kalstein, ever the optimist, says that "what ISI does is provide a non-indoctrinary, extracurricular means to cultivate [students'] intellectual interests."

To really understand an organization's purpose, however, perhaps it's best to go right to the source. When YAF reaches out to donors, its call is simple, clear and direct: "Young America's Foundation reaches society's most impressionable audience. Many college students are away from home for the first time. These 17- and 18-year-olds are open to new ideas and new experiences ... Those who make the effort, invest the most money and talents, will have the most influence on this age group. Conservatives need to be competitive or we will suffer an irreparable loss."
SALON | Feb. 19, 1999

Ben Fritz is a senior political science and economics major at Swarthmore College.