Purdue University — Restaurant in West Lafayette

Hoosier racism runs deep! The type of racism that exists here is very subtle and covert but it pervades all aspects of life on this campus. After a kind of 'southern hospitality' wears off, these people will show you their true, insidious nature.

Rich white kids from other states and rich kids from Chicago dominate the social scene on this very elitist campus through Greek life. The Greek community(honestly resembles a gated community like a lot of people here are from anyway) is undeniably the center of social life on campus, especially this campus because of it's sheer size. If you are not in it, you will miss out on everything until you turn 21 since there is absolutely nothing to do in or around West Lala because this school is in the middle of a giant cornfield. This mostly upperclass and white Greek community has a strong racist/elitist undercurrent. If you are non-white, you will be watched carefully. If you are non-white and you say or do anything against the mainstream beliefs, you will be a target, these people do not want to see a non-white with any kind of social or political power. And if they do let a non-white reach that status, you can bet that that person is more or less a lap-dog for the whites, a kind of "house-ni**er". This can be seen in who they select to join frats and sororities. They need a token black guy and a token Indian or Asian guy just so they don't seem racist. They will let someone join who is not too smart or someone who is easily influenced and will follow their orders and they only let only one of each join. This way they can dominate campus life.

One of my black friends that is in a frat is only there on paper so they don't seem racist; he is never invited to any of the events and when he used to be, he was given the duty of being either the doorman or the sober driver but if he got lucky, a bartender. He told me that to them he was just a "house-ni**er". If he was talking to some white chick or for that matter even an asian chick, some brother that liked her would barge in and redirect the conversation to himself, either to get the girl for himself or not allow my friend to have a chance. If you are a domestic minority in a frat you can expect to face occasional hostile attitudes and behaviors, and passive aggression such as ignoring whatever you say and talking over you for no reason whatsoever. Ironically, if you show any attitude, signs of protest or other frustration; they will not like that you took offense and label you a whiner.

There is an epidemic of constantly harassing minority students inside and outside the classrooms by students an professors alike. Now this is really tricky and hard to prove so I will give you a hypothetical scenario. Imagine there is a single black male in a classroom of 30 students. Today you are reading part of a story about slavery in America. The professor will purposely ask the only black student to read the part of the black man/slave. As he reads you will hear people snickering and giggling in the back of the classroom yet the professor will not say anything about that. Everyone would know what is going on but no one would be brave enough to mention the elephant in the room. And even if the black guy complains, it will be dismissed and forgotten because the professor can simply deny responsibility by pleading ignorance. And if something is done, it will not be a serious consequence, probably just an email telling the professor not to do it again. Other examples might include professors asking minority students rhetorical questions to the point of gaslighting. This is actually well documented by someone who answered a Quora question

All in all, Indiana is a cesspool of ultra-conservative beliefs, proudly Republican politics and all the bigotry, prejudice and racism that stems from that. Having been to other parts of the US, this place is only in it’s infancy when it comes to race-relations. The only university I can think of that is more racist than this one is the University of Alabama.

Just google...

If you are in engineering, agriculture, or applied sciences, this is a great school. Talented professors, nice campus, modern buildings with all of the amenities, a nice place for you. If you are in liberal arts or the humanities, avoid it.

Those in liberal arts disciplines will be shoved in the oldest buildings on campus and crammed into intro courses with professors whose intellectual resources are consumed by research and faculty politics over teaching. These courses will be filled with hundreds of other students, many of whom are from outside of your respective departments and who will not care about the subject at hand beyond getting the grade and the credential. At other schools, this diversity would create an interesting and collaborative learning environment; at Purdue, the liberal arts exist and continue to be funded mostly as lip service.

The current President of the university is a political hack who was revealed years back to be at the head of an effort to suppress the teaching of a historian, Howard Zinn, whose work is recognized as important by most actual historians. He undertook this effort while serving as the Governor of Indiana. This outlook has continued during his stewardship of Purdue, as he has diverted resources away from the humanities and focused it on the construction of new, lavish facilities for other disciplines he and his toadies in administration care more about. This is a broad problem in American higher education today which transcends Purdue, but Mitch Daniels is currently trying to stand at the forefront of that movement. Its result will be nothing less than the destruction of American higher ed.

The less said about how they exploit international admissions and the English as a Second Language test required to attend the...

Racism! The campus is plagued with subtle forms of racism, especially targeted toward foreign students and other minority groups. Purdue University is located in the backward state of Indiana, infamous for it's anti-gay religious freedom law, that allows businesses to reject homosexual and non-christian/ethnic customers. The hatred and ignorance against foreign students arises from false arrogance that America is the world's greatest country and everyone else is just inferior. Read a book, the greatest countries are probably Norway and Japan; I am Srilankan, so I have no bias toward those countries. Facing these frustrating social situations, many foreign students tend to develop mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety.

Nevertheless, the school also has many fantastic people, advocating for equality and inclusion. Many of these people belong to liberal organizations, international student clubs and ethnic organizations. Luckily, I have been able to create a good group of friends (almost all foreigners of course). I used to have more white friends in Sri Lanka than I do in Indiana, USA. Fortunately, most of the important people, i.e professors and smart students have the ability to treat people equally. But in general, Hoosier hospitality applies only to a certain category of people.

Apart from the unnecessarily hard task of finding a good group of friends, the academics are great! I am in a fantastic major that is very interesting and challenging. I just have to ignore the occasional side eye I get for being...