Life at MA

How MA Made My Peers Conservative

By Oscar Stowell ‘28 in Spring 2025

When I was applying to Marin Academy, I was warned that it was a “woke bubble” that left no room for conservative viewpoints. Even now, people outside and inside of MA hold the belief that it is ultra-progressive and suppresses conservative ideology. Parents and students alike love to assert that one of the wealthiest schools in one of the wealthiest areas in the country leaves no room for conservatism. From my experience, this has turned out to be almost the opposite of the truth.

While Marin Academy’s staff and curriculum tend to be very left-leaning, the same cannot be said about the student body, or, in fact, our entire generation. This contradicts the commonly held belief that the youth are always more progressive. You could equate the political mindset of teens to a pendulum. One that, about a decade ago, swung drastically to the left. Teens were “woke,” and actively so. In 2017, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) reported that youth protests had risen 7%, while protests among adults decreased by 4%. However, in the last few years, there has been a trend toward anti-woke culture among teenagers. According to a study done by the Walton Foundation, a philanthropic group created in 1987 by Walmart founders Sam and Helen Walton, teens are twice as likely to have conservative ideology as their parents were twenty years ago. This supports the idea that there is always a counterculture present in youth. That is to say, there is a consistent disdain for the dominant culture. However, this disdain does not necessarily lead to a more progressive viewpoint.

At Marin Academy, a school that is known for being “woke,” students are less progressive than might be expected. In an ironic sense, MA’s supposedly “woke bubble” may be responsible for this. There is always an anti-establishment, rebellious culture in youth. Though this used to mean being progressive, in a school that so strongly pushes those values, pushing back against the general atmosphere means being conservative, thus shifting the metaphorical pendulum towards more conservative ideologies. There is also a distinctly casual attitude toward acceptance. Misgendering someone or calling someone gay as an insult used to be a cancel-able offense. That is not the atmosphere now.

It is important to restate the fact that the right leaning atmosphere of MA is a result of the teaching, but not because of what is taught. By creating an environment in which being progressive is so strongly advocated for, the desire for students to be anti-establishment is a pull towards conservatism. This is not to say that MA’s lessons should be less “woke,” or less progressive. However, those who complain about Marin Academy’s supposedly woke atmosphere and curriculum should recognize that, in many ways, this atmosphere is the very thing that fosters a counterculture much stronger than what is taught in the classroom.