Story by Walter Reinke
Cover by Adrian Tillman
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Protests on campuses, university presidents testifying in front of Congress, and the later removal of two of those presidents.
If you’ve been reading the news lately, you might have seen these things defined in terms of the “culture war”.
But what is the culture war, and how did it get so ingrained in our college campuses?
As Walter Reinke tells us, it depends on who you ask.
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SOT (Culver): “Culture wars, it’s not a term of art.”
It’s a term that gets thrown around a lot, and means a lot of things to a lot of different people.
To Dr. Kathleen Culver, director of the school of journalism at the University of Wisconsin Madison, it’s about talking politics.
SOT (Culver): “The sort of public battles over what and what should not be accepted practices in the country.”
Partisan politics has been a feature of American life since its founding, but Culver says it hasn’t always been a war. She puts the start point at 1987.
SOT (Culver): “I would actually put it at the removal of the fairness doctrine from the FCC.”
She says this led to the rise of talk radio, especially on the right, which then led to things like Fox News and social media algorithms.
SOT (Culver): “That to me is the point in time where we really learned the capitalist lesson that enraging and polarizing people can make a lot of money.”
Eventually, the culture war made its way to college campuses. Dr. Daniel Klasik, an education professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says it’s because of the unique role universities serve.
SOT (Klasik): “Universities, though, are one of the few places in society that really force people together in a way that we don’t see elsewhere. And so that really makes them a place that is kind of ready to see many dimensions of culture wars play out.”
For some students, that testing is perfect for a place like college.
SOT (Kelley ): “College is a unique time and experience where we have the freedom to do so and in fact, in my opinion, are encouraged to do so.”
Colby Kelley is a sophomore at UNC. He’s also a writer for the Carolina Review, the campuses’ conservative newspaper, and the co-president of UNC’s Turning Point USA chapter.
He defines the culture war as ideological clashes, often about cultural or social issues. On campus, that often plays out through things like protests or speakers.
He wants to see more of those events.
But other students aren’t so thrilled about the culture war on campus.
SOT (Duvall): “I think students are fed up. I think this agenda of culture wars, this platform of banning drag shows, demonizing people because of their gender, because of their race, because of, you know, their sexual identity.”
Sloan Duvall is the President of UNC Young Democrats. In her view, the culture war is a set of policies pushed by the Republican Party, and doesn’t belong on campus.
One thing she does agree with Kelley on: that the university has taken a neutral stance.
Klasik says that’s often the goal of universities.
SOT (Klasik): “They know, especially the public ones, that they are a place for like all of the people in their states. That everyone should feel like they have a place there.”
But even if they try to remain neutral, Klasik says it’s unlikely the culture war goes away.
SOT (Klasik): “I think the key takeaway is that because of this unique space that universities hold in American society, they really become a focal point for all of people’s kind of anxieties and concerns about kind of broader things that are going on in the U.S.
I’m Walter Reinke, reporting.
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The culture war on college campuses in North Carolina has also seen the state legislature get involved.
Last session, state lawmakers passed legislation that gave them more control over the trustee boards at UNC and NC State. The most recent state budget transferred appointment powers for the State Board of Community Colleges from the Governor to the General Assembly.
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