Student Spotlight - Toni Woods
“My family,” says Virginia high school senior Toni Woods, “is anything BUT conservative. My mother is a former member of Code Pink and an extremely pro-choice leftist. I learned very early the importance of thinking for myself. I understood I could not be afraid to disagree with my parents and family members.”
Toni’s philosophical journey began with the Clinton scandals. “I was so young when the Clinton scandal broke and so intrigued by the political scene. I bought Ann Coulter’s book, High Crimes and Misdemeanors, when it came out on my 8th birthday and was instantly hooked. I realized I didn’t want to be associated with a party that supports state-sanctioned infanticide, raises taxes [it affected her allowance!], and condones a president who rapes women and lies about it under oath.”
Ann Coulter is Toni’s favorite conservative leader because “she’s unbelievably brilliant and she makes liberals cry.” Coulter is the personification of “what a true woman should be: fearless and independent. She’s the exact same Ann Coulter in person as she is on TV; she’s real.”
Toni emulates that independence as an activist at her high school. She’s brought local soldiers, Delegates, and State Senators to speak at her campus. “Some of the liberal teachers at my school, who preach how this war is a scam, didn’t enjoy having soldiers who had actually been to Iraq come to speak and sing praises of how the military is winning the war.”
She also exhibits Coulter’s fearlessness. “I compete in a public speaking and debate team called Forensics, and for my piece last season I did a speech on the Vagina Monologues and how they are degrading to women. I won in my region and placed 3rd in the state of Virginia for Original Oratory. The looks on people’s (including judges) faces when I said the words vagina, feminazi, and Nuremburg in the same sentence was the highlight of my life … I truly felt alive.” She also had “great fun” handing out flyers opposing the play before performances at Sweet Briar College and Randolph Macon Women’s College.
Guiding Toni’s philosophical journey is a quote by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.
“The greatest challenge my generation faces is political apathy,” says Toni. “I find that simple questions, such as who is the governor of Virginia? … one of our U.S. Senators?, frequently puzzles students I presumed to be intelligent.” Suspecting others’ negative reactions spring more from ignorance than genuine philosophical disagreement, Toni doesn’t take ridicule of her conservative positions and activism personally. “People are more intimidated by what they don’t know than by what I’m doing.”
Toni will never be accused of apathy. She passionately defends conservative beliefs, especially her pro-life and gun-rights positions. The notion of a “constitutional right to slaughter unborn children on demand is utterly detestable,” says Toni. “As a woman, guns are a means of protection for me.”
The feisty activist founded and chairs her campus’s Young Conservative Club and currently volunteers for two candidates running for state office. The editor of her school newspaper, Toni is also a frequent columnist for local newspapers. She reenergizes at annual Conservative Political Action Conferences - “the highlight was sitting with [Luce Institute president] Michelle Easton at the women’s luncheon and talking one-on-one with her” - and the National Conservative Student Conferences.
Toni will attend Georgetown University next fall – “I feel I can make the biggest difference at a school where the majority doesn’t agree with me” – to pursue degrees in Economics and History. Her plans beyond college include a law degree with concentrations in Criminal and Constitutional Law, a position in a law firm in either Washington DC or Boston, and eventually, a bid for a seat in the United States Senate.
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