At the start of the school year, Whittier invited the community to bravely explore tough topics in a thoughtful and respectful way. Of course, we recognize that doing so is an inexact art form, particularly because of the dearth of non-adversarial coverage in present media. Moving from the norm will take effort, and we are grateful to the Young Conservatives Club for accepting our offer to use this forum to better represent the purpose and perspective of their club. In Whittier’s coverage of student response to the first presidential debate, the club was spotlighted as an example of our community’s rich diversity. However, members of the club expressed concern that their group was inaccurately represented. As that was the opposite of our intention, we invite you to learn directly from the Club’s clerks – we asked them to share their mission statement, as well as to articulate a perspective that our community should consider throughout our upcoming discussions. – Sadie Proud ’17   

Extracurricular clubs are a positive to our community; they show student leadership, diversity of opinions, and can be a great gauge of the morals of the average Wilmington Friends School student. Looking down the list of clubs reveals what students are passionate about outside of the classroom. When I was researching all of these clubs I realized that every major group in America is expressed in some way at our school except the conservative point of view. Now I know that it couldn’t have been because there isn’t enough interest; plenty of Friends students identify with some aspect of conservatism. The problem was not lack of support, but rather the overarching liberal culture that envelops the school. This will not come as a surprise to anyone, as our Quaker ideals overlap greatly with many current liberal orthodoxies.

A few of us recognized this void and decided to make a change in the name of balance. We thought that the best way to fill this void was by creating the Young Conservatives club for Friends students who are more right-leaning on the political spectrum. Our goal is to generate  thoughtful discussions that provoke new insights and productive ideas. We want students of all political views, not solely liberals, to have a space in which they can freely share their opinions openly and honestly without fear of being ostracized. With that being said, it is our hope that a diverse group of students, varying across the political spectrum, will attend the club. These varying viewpoints will be the engines that drive the debates and discussions. With a presidential election unlike anything that the United States has seen before on the horizon, we feel that there is no better time than now to discuss issues such as this one.

The conservative viewpoint is definitely not one of outrageous statements, mockery, racism, and sexism. We can not in good conscience support a candidate who embodies ideals such as these. Our job is not to defend a particular political candidate, but rather be the voice for the other side, one that is undervalued in our school today.

Comparisons are often drawn between Quaker and liberal points of view in our community. However, I want to challenge you to consider that many conservative ideals also coincide with those of the Quakers, which is all the more reason for us to be a part of the community. Many conservatives hold close values such as family, treating your neighbors with respect, religious freedom, helping the less fortunate, and preserving the constitution. These values are almost always overlooked in classrooms and debates today because it happens on a small scale as opposed to federally. In other words, there is an idea that conservatives don’t care about social issues because they don’t push for them on a federal scale. A great example of why this is wrong is that self-identifying conservative families on average donate more money to charity than liberal ones do. Keeping our Federal Government small and letting local governments have more power has a very “Quaker” feeling; it is putting more power into our communities, and less in the hands of powerful figures.

The goal of the Young Conservatives is not to cause problems in the Wilmington Friends community. We refuse to fall to the level of sensationalism and ridiculous rhetoric. Rather, our mission is to simply provide our community with another viewpoint, and by doing so helping us all learn, grow, and challenge ourselves to think differently. We hope that over time, all Friends students, regardless of their political philosophy or party affiliation, will agree with the value of that purpose.