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few weeks into his freshman year, Ricky Miller got the grade back on one of his first assignments in college. It was a C+ on an essay about citizenship.

It was a bad grade for him, but as he glanced over the red ink he didn’t see any grammatical or technical errors. Miller noticed the professor had circled the main points of his paper and presented heavy counter-arguments.

Miller said the professor thought Miller, who drew his conclusions based on politically conservative ideas, had missed the point.

This was the first time Miller, now a senior, realized his political views might not always be welcome on the Syracuse University campus. Now, nearly four years later, he’s experiencing it again as a college student who voted for President Donald Trump.

College campuses are generally liberal places, a phenomenon experts say is in part facilitated by a majority liberal faculty across the country. In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton won 56 percent of the college-age vote, according to CNN’s exit polls. But scattered among the progressive halls of universities are some of the remaining voters: College students who voted for Trump for nuanced reasons but don’t feel welcome explaining themselves to their peers.

“I think that if a lot of people on the left, a lot of college students are going to preach this inclusivity, this message of diversity and inclusion, I think that also includes diversity of ideas as well,” said Miller, a policy studies and citizenship and civic engagement major.

Moriah Ratner | Staff Photographer

SU students who voted for Trump painted a picture of open hostility in some classrooms and a general attitude of self-censorship for the sake of self-preservation. One such student, Safet Mesanovic, said he has talked to faculty who had discussed their support of Trump with him in private after realizing his views.

As for his own views, Mesanovic, a senior economics major, said he is not afraid to share them with others but is rarely asked to. His close friends have always known he is ultra-conservative, even before Trump, but those finding out for the first time are usually shocked.

“It’s almost like I’m the tooth fairy to them,” Mesanovic said. “Like I don’t exist — they can’t believe it.”

While Mesanovic was a Trump supporter from the day he announced his campaign, the decision was more difficult for some other students. During a bitter primary race, traditionally conservative students found themselves with few options, and were swayed in the end by their own fears for the country.

Miller was initially a supporter of Mike Huckabee, then Marco Rubio, and then John Kasich, until he eventually dropped out as well. That was when he began to carefully weigh the differences between Clinton and Trump.

To Miller, Clinton was full of empty promises. He grew up in Binghamton, New York, with her as his senator, and from what he saw, she didn’t deliver. He was also concerned about her honesty, after the 2012 Benghazi attack and the leaked emails related to the attack.

At the same time, though, some things Trump said were offensive and unrealistic to Miller, who said he saw faults in the candidate. Miller doesn’t think Trump will have legal standing for some of his more extreme campaign promises, such as a ban on all Muslims entering the country, but did seriously consider those issues before ultimately voting for Trump.

“I didn’t do so blindly. I didn’t do so thinking everything he said is truth,” Miller said. “I’ve never thought that about any politician.”

Miller said he understands why people are upset and feels that they have valid concerns. After two and a half years of sensitivity training as a resident adviser, he is aware of the different experiences of other groups on campus and does not want to belittle them. However, he said he hopes his peers understand his unique experiences as well.

In a classroom last semester, Miller said he witnessed a teaching assistant verbally attack a student for wearing Trump’s trademark “Make America Great Again” hat to class. Miller said he thought the incident was unacceptable from someone in a position of power in a learning environment, though he added that he has experienced similar discrimination during his time at SU.

That type of public rebuke could seriously discourage a student from wanting to be honest in class, he said. Several student Trump supporters contacted for this story requested anonymity because of the potential for backlash similar to that.

Frankie Prijatel | Senior Staff Photographer

Roy Gutterman, director of the Tully Center for Free Speech at SU, said it is not surprising that more conservative students censor themselves on college campuses. He added, though, that the issue is not only a result of a liberal college environment.

“People are judgmental,” Gutterman said. “Everything moves so fast nowadays that we just jump to conclusions about people.”

There is a long history of political censorship in academia, Gutterman added. Just a few decades ago, scholars on the political far-left were ridiculed, punished and even put on watchlists for their point of views.

Josh Dunn, an expert in liberal bias in higher education, said there are consequences to marginalization of any kind in academia. Not only are conservative students worried about being punished by professors, he said, but they also have a more difficult time finding good mentors.

“Often times they are sort of left to themselves to figure out how to cope on campus,” said Dunn, a professor of political science at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. “I don’t think they often get very good mentoring simply because they don’t have conservative faculty there to talk to.”

When conservative students feel they are silenced, Dunn said universities suffer as a whole. The lack of diversity in opinion prevents all students from learning how to civilly debate one another, he said, which he added becomes an issue when students leave the cocoon of campus.

Mesanovic, one of the SU students who voted for Trump, said he thinks those who dislike the president and outright reject his supporters are only harming themselves. The accusations fuel the fire under Trump and his supporters, he said, which could very well lead to his re-election.

On the other hand, Miller said he wishes his peers and professors were more open to honest, respectful dialogue on campus. He said he wishes people would talk to him about his background and his feelings about the new administration before making snap judgments.

“I think far too often we focus on the ideas themselves or the decisions themselves, and we shut down to the person behind the decision,” Miller said.

As for that class freshman year, Miller said he intentionally wrote the next paper so it aligned with the professor’s’ point of view and received an A-. The professor, he added, praised him for changing his perspective.

Published on January 25, 2017 at 10:44 pm

Contact Delaney: dovanwey@syr.edu