Liza Libes says she arrived at Columbia University as a liberal freshman but left with conservative views and a stronger commitment to free speech. She felt that, as a writer, she could not express her ideas openly in some of her English classes.
Libes said her grades seemed to depend on whether her arguments matched her professors’ views. She recalled receiving lower marks when she defended traditional ideas about gender and higher ones when she wrote about characters challenging gender norms. Over time, she said, those experiences added up.
One disagreement arose during a class on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Libes said her professor described the play as being about “queer desire,” but she chose to focus on other aspects of the work. She said the professor deducted points from her midterm for not addressing that interpretation.
Libes, who founded the Substack publication Pens & Poison, also said she disagreed with professors’ approaches to literature. In her view, some instructors used literary works to promote Marxist ideas. She said feeling constrained as a writer was ultimately the breaking point.
By her senior year, Libes said, she identified strongly with the conservative movement. She wanted to be able to express her beliefs in writing and in conversation without feeling held back.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature in 2019 and a master’s degree in English and comparative literature in 2020. Outside the classroom, she said, she sensed an expectation to share certain views and worried that expressing different opinions could lead to social isolation.
Libes grew up in a household shaped by her family’s experience in the Soviet Union. She spoke Russian with her immigrant parents and grandmother, and said freedom was a central value at home. Her family’s experiences had left them opposed to socialism, which they associated with oppression.
Libes said she once considered support for freedom and free speech to be part of liberalism. At Columbia, she came to feel that the left no longer embraced those principles and that people with dissenting views risked being pushed aside.
Her advice to young people is to speak honestly about their beliefs and resist pressure from peers to adopt opinions they do not hold.
Columbia University did not respond to a request for comment.
