Republican Students at UC Santa Cruz

Schools in the UC system are historically known as liberal environments, but there are conservatives who make up the student body.

KION met with one of the organizers of College Republicans at UC Santa Cruz and found out what life for a republican is like on campus.

We worked to interview more than just the one member but others weren’t able to do it. The student we spoke with was eager to talk about his life as republican and the group that he helped to organize locally.

“It started off with like, five people in the first meeting and then 10 in the next one. Then it just exploded to like 30 people” said Joe, a Republican student at UCSC.

Young republicans like Joe say they’ve been harassed and blamed for inspiring the violent protests at UC Berkeley last month.

Joe says members of his club have also been attacked for their political stance.

“A couple of people in the club have been assaulted at, like, protests and stuff just for wearing their hat or what have you.”

UC Santa Cruz students have recently held their own protests against President Donald Trump’s policies like the travel ban.

Despite opposition on campus from fellow students, Joe says college republicans are still engaged in the conversation, even if they don’t always speak up.

“They really didn’t really feel comfortable sharing their views to their friend and housemates, hall mates in the dorms” said Joe. “Because you get instantly called racist, xenophobic, all that crap.”

So why does a young republican like Joe come to one of the most liberal schools in the country? He says that political climate couldn’t be a factor in shaping his future.

“I didn’t think it would really matter what school I went to I think that all schools are pretty liberal across the entire country, I came here because I thought it was a good school and not because of the political climate.”

Now that he is at UCSC he and his fellow club members are working on ways to collaborate with their democratic counterparts.

“We want to do the research and then host a debate with the democrats so that people can watch and then see that you can talk about politics without screaming at each other.”

Joe says “College Republicans at UC Santa Cruz” have already held a successful event with democrats and continue to have peaceful dialogue with them on working together.