The only two Brown graduates in the U.S. Congress - Sen. Lincoln Chafee '75, R-R.I., and Rep. Bobby Jindal '91, R-La., - are both members of the Grand Old Party.
The election of many conservative Brown alumni to prominent positions at the state and federal level appears to dispel the myth of Brown as a homogenously liberal campus.
From Gov. Don Carcieri '65 to New Mexico State Rep. Justine Fox-Young '01, to 2004 Libertarian Party Vice Presidential candidate Richard Campagna '72 and former Nixon advisor Charles Colson '53, many alumni have shunned the Democratic Party and risen to prominence in a variety of positions and locations.
"Brown is a liberal institution, but it doesn't mean that everybody who goes through the institution is," said Professor of Political Science Darrell West, the director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy.
Jindal said, "I think there are many talented students who identify themselves as Republicans. Because of Brown's diversity, even if the majority are Democrats or not Republicans, it wouldn't surprise me that there are alumni who are successful and non-Democratic (party members)."
West and Jindal both told The Herald that the variety of politically-involved alumni is a testament to the University's diversity of perspectives.
"I think Brown is open to a variety of political perspectives," West said. "We have liberals, conservatives, socialists and libertarians. It's a tribute to the University that it produces persons of differing political persuasions."
Chris McAuliffe '05, the president of the College Republicans, attributed Brown's politically-uniform atmosphere to leftist, "activist faculty." Many of the radicals who were the leaders of the social movements of the 1960s and '70s have become members of the faculty and administration and have stymied intellectual freedom, he said.
Both Jindal and West said Brown's politicians show the limitations of the stereotype that Brown has a homogenously liberal student population. However, they did not cite political diversity as the only factor responsible for the success of conservative alums.
West attributed the increase in Republican Brunonian politicians to the changing political sentiments in America rather than an ideology shift at Brown.
"I think the political feeling in the United States has turned more conservative. So the alums who have won office have been conservative," West said. "They are tapping into sentiments that are more present in the overall community."
McAuliffe agreed. "Because at least half of the country is right of center, it wouldn't be surprising that a handful of Republicans come out of any college, including Brown," he said.
However, Alan Zuckerman, professor and chair of the Department of Political Science, dismissed the relevance of the election of a few Republican Brown alums to any characteristic of the University and cited the election of Jindal and Chafee as anomalies.
"This is a very small sample," Zuckerman said.
Non-traditional Education
"I think Brown is a university that encourages its students to care about others. I think Brown encourages its students toward direct service roles. I even had a friend from Brown join the clergy," Jindal said. "I think Brown is a place that encourages people to be considerate of others and help others."
Chafee agreed that Brown's education and environment prepared him for his current position.
"Sticking up for some of the programs for the disadvantaged all come from my experiences of that era (at Brown)," Chafee said.
Brown's commitment to effective service shaped his career, Jindal said. "I think the common theme was to make sure where I could make the biggest impact. What was common wasn't the topic or location, but the impact."
Campus Rarity
Despite being united to serve a greater good, Republican students and alumni said they felt like part of a small minority on campus. However, some said that the experience strengthened their views.
"I think many (social conservatives) tend to be quiet," McAuliffe said. "Their viewpoints are certainly ridiculed here and I think often to them, it's not worth taking the ridicule and (they) keep their opinions to themselves."
"Brown was a great place for me to get a balanced education even though I knew I was in the minority," Jindal said. "I certainly felt tested in my views because it was probably true that the majority of students and even professors would not share my views or political affiliations."
Jindal remembered certain moments at Brown where he felt challenged, but they only served to make him reexamine and reinforce his ideology.
UC11: Hard Choices was one of the classes that exposed Jindal to the schism that existed between him and many of his peers and professors, the congressman said. Unlike his classmates, Jindal thought the private sector should play more of a role in improving sub-par healthcare in the United States, he said.
"(It) probably left me more firm of my view," he said.
Campagna traced his interest in running for public office back to his experience as a political minority on Brown's campus.
"This group of individuals might be highly political themselves, really preferred not to get into debates with their college cohorts, (but) sit back, observe and develop their political opinions and essentially go off and do their thing outside of the college campus," Campagna said. "Perhaps those like myself might go off and run for office."
A lasting impression
Campagna said his politics that later developed into his libertarian ideology were a reaction to the politics of the liberal majority of the late 1960s on College Hill.
After graduating from Brown, Campagna earned a master's degree at New York University, a law degree from St. John's University, a master's from Columbia, and a Ph.D. from the American College of Metaphysical Theory. He has worked in the fields of higher education, law, business, and psychology. In 2004, Campagna ran as the vice-presidential candidate on the Libertarian ticket with Michael Badnarik.
"I think it actually helped create my ideology in a way that was contrary to the mainstream. I really had a very common-sense, middle-of-the-road philosophy which is now the building block for my libertarian philosophy."
Jindal was influenced by his experience at Brown beyond politics. At Brown, he was baptized a Catholic.
"I was also certainly influenced very deeply during my time at Brown. I don't think most students go to college with a completely blank slate, or leave college thinking exactly what they did when they got there," Jindal said.
As a student, Jindal wrote for the original Brown Spectator magazine and reestablished the College Republicans, according to McAuliffe. After a tenure at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, Jindal served in many high-level government positions including as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and assistant secretary for Planning and Evaluation for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Having lost a run for governor of Louisiana in 2002, Jindal won a seat in the House in 2004.
Chafee said the environment of Brown in the early 1970s exposed him to alternatives from the "traditional path."
"I was brought up a Republican and my family was Republican, but certainly my idols for the time were Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali and John Lennon," Chafee said.
"During my time, that era - the early seventies - many of the students were looking for alternatives from just going down the traditional path," said Chafee, who continued his education at Montana State University's horseshoeing school and had a subsequent seven-year career as a blacksmith.
Chafee later became the first Republican Mayor of Warwick in 32 years and then filled the unexpired term of his late father, Senator John Chafee. Chafee was elected to his first full term in 2000.
Not so radical, anymore
Some current students feel the Brown student body's liberalism is no longer as active or radical.
"I feel I look at it differently because I look at it from (the perspective of a native of) South Carolina," said Sheila Dugan '07, secretary of the College Republicans. "Coming to Brown was a big shock. (But) I haven't seen anything too big like protests since I've been here."
Dugan attributed the decrease in political activity on campus to the controversy surrounding the anti-slavery reparations advertisement David Horowitz took out in The Herald in 2001. The day after the advertisement appeared, a coalition of student activists stole The Herald's print run. Memories of the emotional responses to those events make students more wary of activism, Dugan said.
