Changes
Princeton University professor Robert George observed,
:"If [a conservative] kid applies to one of the top graduate schools, he's likely to be not admitted{{Citation needed}}. Say he gets past that first screen. He's going to face pressure to conform or he'll be the victim of discrimination. {{Citation needed}} It's a lot harder to hide then than it was as an undergrad."<ref name="badger">Darryn Beckstrom, [http://badgerherald.com/oped/2005/09/01/confessions_of_a_con.php "Confessions of a conservative grad student"]. The Badger Herald, September 1, 2005.</ref>
A '''liberal friendship''' can occur wherever [[liberals]] apply [[peer pressure]] to spread their belief system. It can occur in college, in relationships, and in the workplace. Until exposed and criticized by this entry, there was even a website entitled "Ostracize a Republican," which justified the practice by comparing Republicans to Nazis using a parody of the famous [[Martin Niemoeller|"I did not speak up" speech]].<ref>http://ostracizearepublican.org/ (no longer active after being exposed and criticized here).</ref>
David Brooks of the [[New York Times]] published advice from prominent professors which said that conservative graduate students in humanities and social sciences are better off if they keep their conservative views in the closet. Brooks wrote:<ref>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A05E5DB133DF934A1575AC0A9659C8B63</ref>
Darryn Beckstrom, a graduate student at [[liberal]] [[University of Wisconsin]], confirmed it:<ref name="badger" />
:Mr. George is right. It is indeed harder to hide your political ideology. Not because of the Bush-Cheney ‘04 button on the ol’ backpack, but because your fellow graduate students — and future colleagues — expect you to be liberal. It’s as if these students have gone through their entire educational careers using the liberals’ edition of Webster’s Dictionary, and the definition for “intelligent” specifically forbids any association with conservativism.{{Citation needed}}
:I still remember the day several students from my cohort discovered the scandalous detail that I was a supporter of President Bush and the petrified looks on their Macintosh-loving faces as I gave a riveting defense of the War on Terror. (Disclosure: This column was written with a notebook purchased from the Texas-based, Dubya-supporting, capitalistic leviathan Dell Corporation.)
In contrast, there are many instances of [[conservatives]] not requiring acceptance of [[conservative]] principles as a condition of friendship. For example, [[Ronald Reagan]] had many close personal friends who were liberals, and dozens of political ones, like Speaker [[Tip O'Neill]] and Senator [[Ted Kennedy]]. These liberals were friends with Reagan although they knew he was a conservative. On the other hand, there have also been a few cases of [[liberals]] not requiring acceptance of [[liberal]] principles as a condition of friendship. For example, [[Tip O'Neill]] and Senator [[Ted Kennedy]] were both friends of [[Ronald Reagan]]. Reagan was friends with these liberals although he knew they were liberals.
Besides the loss of a friendship if you display disapproval of the liberal [[belief]] system, if a liberal knows you are a well known [[conservative]], they may wish you bad luck. {{Citation needed}} However, if you change by discounting your past conservative relationships / principles, they would embrace and reward you with '''liberal friendship'''. e.g. Press Secretary Scott McClellan of the Bush administration was hated by liberals just for working in the administration. After leaving his position and writing a book publicly criticizing President Bush, the typical left leaning media sources actually defended him.<ref>http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/05/29/mcclellan_publisher/ , Salon.com In Defese Of Scott McClellan, May 29, 2008</ref>
