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"[The stereotype is] that people here just smoke pot and talk about Buddhism, but I'm pretty positive I haven't had one conversation about Buddhism."
—The Insider's Guide to the Colleges regarding the Evergreen State College
A school stereotype that permits assumptions about the type of student the school will attract. Knowing the character attends a particular school implies a set of characteristics.
The schools used for this fall into the following categories:
Berserkeley
"Berserkeley" is filled with Granola Girls, rude skaterpunks, angry socialists/communists/anarchists/your choice of far-left political radicalist screaming about how Amerikkka is pure evil and that we deserve to die in a ditch, pissed-off black nationalists and militant minorities, angry radical feminists, irritating, pretentious, elitist hipsters wearing idiotic fashions and making nonsensical, offensive pieces of "art" (read: trash) to complain about the mainstream, Hollywood Atheists, and aging hippies.
Every third storefront is a coffee house with awful writers reading bad poetry and pretentious artists explaining how true their incomprehensible art is. The city council is packed with people who pass truly absurd and paternalistic ordinances.
Real schools used to invoke this one:
- University of California, Berkeley, of course. Useful for radical left political flavoring.Trivia Ironically, one of their alumni was right-wing Governor Pete Wilson.
- Wellesley College — This one is handy if a feminist overtone is needed.
- University Of Michigan, Ann Arbor — Great for pegging the character as an activist. Actually active, that is, rather than just slinging the activist lingo. Good one for anti-animal testing shenanigans.
- The University of Glasgow in Scotland fits the political part of this but not really the pretentiousness bit. That would be St Andrews or Edinburgh.
- Reed College in Portland, Oregon — they only tell students their grades if specifically asked to, the administration has an extremely lax drug-use policy even for hyper-liberal Portland, and about half of their traditions are weird hippie injokes note Which strangely has a nuclear research reactor on campus.
- The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington - does not assign grades to students at all in favor of "narrative evaluations" note Despite the flack about "no grades," they're actually like the performance evaluations one would get at an office job, many of the courses offered are political in nature, and there are no "departments" like you'd see at other schools - all classes are a form of "integrated studies" which approach a single issue from several different academic angles, with freshmen and seniors often in the same class. Professors are addressed by first name most of the time. The school operates an organic farm and a non-profit vegetarian restaurant staffed and operated by unpaid volunteers who manage cooperatively. note Out of the 100+ clubs on campus, only about 5 are not related to any left-leaning agenda. These are the clubs dealing with anime, tabletop gaming, and live-action roleplaying. Geeks do well there.
- The University of Colorado at Boulder — Much like UC Berkeley. A liberal college in a liberal enclave in a conservative(-ish, see The Several States) state, referred to as "9 square miles surrounded by reality". Ward Churchill
 (he of the infamous essay alleging that the 9/11 victims were "little Eichmanns") was a professor here.
- Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos from Perú, The National University of Saint Mark
- Virginia Commonwealth University, Particularly the school of Arts, is known for its highly liberal use of drugs and high amount of Hipsters.
- Kent State University, Kent, Ohio — Popular for anti-war-style liberals, thanks to the 1970 National Guard shooting that left 4 students dead.
- University of Wisconsin-Madison — likewise a history of 1960's Vietnam-era activism, long called "Berkeley of the Midwest."
- Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, has a reputation for "progressive activism" where students were known to adorn the interior hallways with left-wing graffiti. Or, as Aileen LeBlanc of NPR's All Things Considered put it, "The college stands proudly as a progressive place, with a reputation of breeding beatnik, toxic, hippy, gay, New Age, vegan weirdoes." And she was being sympathetic. The college was closed from June, 2008 to October, 2011 for "restructuring."
- Although many (most?) religious colleges fit easily into the Jim Jonestown University mold described below, a few don't:
- Ashland University (Brethren Church) in Ashland, Wisconsin, is fairly left-wing. One of the largest majors offered there is in Toxicology/Environmental Sciences.
- Earlham College (Quaker Church) in Richmond, Indiana, is so left-wing that everybody is addressed by their first name — calling an instructor "Mister", "Ms.", "Professor" or "Doctor" So-And-So is definitely frowned upon. Students are often at odds with the local and regional Yearly Meetings (the Quaker equivalent of a synod) over sexuality and drinking. (In case you're wondering, the Yearly Meetings are against both.)
- The University of the Philippines (or UP for short) in metropolitan Manila, Philippines has gained a reputation as a hotbed for activists and radicals spanning the entire political spectrum. Historically, it has been stereotyped as being both Communist and far-left, though with their ideological rivals very close behind.
- The University of Texas at Austin is noted for this, as Austin is very famously a weird and liberal place. It's somewhat unclear whether the university is weird because it's in Austin or the city is weird because UT is in it. Either way it often gets contrasted to Texas A&M.
Jim Jonestown University
Run by the harshest, most conservative Dean Bitterman imaginable and his goons, bordering on fascism. The only things in town are a huge church and a Walmart, and the school itself is filled with Jerk Jocks, Corrupt Hicks more interested in lining their pockets than teaching, Alpha Bitches, rich assholes who can't care less about education and bought their way in, fundamentalists who constantly teach lies and intolerance in the classroom, and Moral Guardians in training. The faculty and students will often be incredibly racist, sexist, and/or homophobic, and anyone who doesn't fit into the herd gets beaten down - literally, in some cases - or worse.
Anyone who has half a brain turns out to be either a Stepford Smiler, Holier Than Thou, or Ax Crazy. The city council, if it exists, will be packed with Corrupt Corporate Executives and oppressive, right-wing pastors who want to eject anyone who dares to be liberal. Being a historic university, its founding charter frequently comes with a long and detailed list of complex bylaws and regulations which just seem tailor-made for the Dean to abuse our plucky heroes.
Schools in this continuum:
- Religious schools that primarily turn out pastors and missionaries (Bob Jones, Regent, Liberty, Brigham Young, etc.).
- Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru) is a private university that has this characteristic with granola girls in the mix.
- Deep South schools big and small can get this treatment (Washington and Lee, Tennessee, South Carolina, Ole Miss).
- Texas A&M gets a big (not exactly unwarranted) reputation for this, especially compared to its more liberal and diverse neighbor/rival, University of Texas. Until 1960, it was closed to women and minorities and required all students to train as reserve officers in the Army (ROTC, basically). Even after the end of that requirement, A&M's Corps of Cadets is far larger than the average and A&M remains one of the most conservative schools in the country.
May overlap with a Wizarding School, Boarding School of Horrors or an occult-filled Miskatonic University. Will undoubtedly overlap with Politically Motivated Teacher.
Not to be confused with an upcoming Wii U title about scarecrows.
Examples:
Film
- PCU, in the film of that name, somehow manages to be both. The campus is, shall we say, polarized. This trope was basically the entire point of the movie.
- Faber College from National Lampoon's Animal House is a Jim Jonestown University. Politics don't come into play, thank God, but it's definitely a stuffy and stodgy place without Delta House's Wacky Fratboy Hijinx. (Toward the end of the movie, the Deltas also go on a road trip and pick up some women at a "socially activist" women's college that is hinted at being a 1950s/early '60s version of Berserkeley. The movie takes place in 1962, two years before the free-speech movement, when Berserkeley was still an Unbuilt Trope.)
- Not a college, but American Eagle Christian High School from the film Saved qualifies as a Jim Jonestown High School.
- In John Singleton's college drama Higher Learning. Columbus University is obviously supposed to be a stand-in for one of the University of California campuses — but the faculty, as represented by Professor Phipps, are actually quite reasonable folks who aren't angry at the world. A disproportionate number of the students, however, appear to be unhinged militants in full-blown Berserkeley mode, screaming everything from "White power!" (yes, even the neo-Nazis come off as lefties in this movie) to "Dead men don't rape!" and calling the school's namesake "nothing but a thief and a murderer." Even the "good guys" are misguided: one student, dismayed at the gang violence, organizes a schoolwide "Peace Fest." It doesn't end well.
- In Iron Man, Stark asks the annoying (but not evil) liberal journalist if she graduated from Berkeley. (She actually went to Brown.)
- In the Van Wilder prequel, Coolidge College is portrayed as a Jim Jonestown University. Van is able to turn things upside down by the end of the film, of course.
Literature
- The titular school in Neal Stephenson novel The Big U manages to avoid either extreme version of Strawman U, but the SUB and the unionized professors would fit in well at a Berserkeley, and the administration and Temple of Unlimited Godhead (a fundamentalist Mormon offshoot) are close to a Jim Jonestown.
Live-Action TV
Newspaper Comics
- In the early years of Doonesbury, Walden College was a Berserkley variety
Theatre
- If you think this is just a modern phenomenon, You're wrong. In Aristophanes' The Clouds, Socrates is running an ancient Greek Berserkeley and we see a debate with a strawman conservative from another school.
- Extreme Jim Jonestown example: The "University" in Sarah Kane's play Cleansed is really a concentration camp, run by the evil Tinker, where there are peepholes in the showers that lead to Tinker's private viewing room, for his pleasure, and students are tortured by Tinker and his goons.
Video Games
- Echo Bazaar has both - Benthic College is Berserkerly (to the point of having a few devils on its roster) while Summerset College is a Jim Jonestown University.
Jokes
Western Animation
- The South Park episode "Die Hippie, Die" features an invasion of hippies, the main group of which has a University of Berkeley bumper sticker. One of them continually called people "little Eichmanns," a reference to controversial (and discredited) professor Ward Churchill, who used the phrase to describe the American victims of 9/11.
- Side note: Ward Churchill was a professor at Trey Parker and Matt Stone's school - the University of Colorado at Boulder (another example of a Berserkley), though its unknown whether he actually taught them.
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