Thank You!

I needed a good laugh on this long weekend — thanks to both sides and to Scott for reporting this!

Dan Lundquist, at 8:50 am EDT on July 3, 2006

This is ironic especially since Google is the “king of diversity.” They won’t do one of their signiature “search images” for Flag Day or Memorial Day (for fear of offending others), but chose to celebrate the Persian New Year. I’ll be surprised if they indulge us on the 4th of July.

K.T., at 11:10 am EDT on July 3, 2006

An Excellent Content Analysis

Steve Balch and NAS have done a public service in performing a nicely executed content analysis of the ideological bias in universities. The NAS study is very much in the tradition of Harold Lasswell and from a methodological perspective compares favorably to the content analyses described in Klaus Krippendorf’s “Content Analysis: An Introduction to Methodology” and Kimberly A. Neuendorf’s “The Content Analysis Guidebook.”

Professor Hoover appears to argue that Halliburton is the moral equivalent of the post-modern university, and I believe that he is correct. Both top-tier universities and Halliburton are not racially diverse but likely feel compelled to create an image that they are so. In the case of universities it is because the admission rules necessary to secure their status conflicts with the political postures of their faculties, who are frauds. In the case of Halliburton it is because Halliburton depends on state largesse to succeed.

Unlike Halliburton, in universities harm is done to members of minorities because of the excessive diversity rhetoric. This occurs because students are admitted who then fail to gradsuate, their careers set back or ruined, and because the universities inculcate an entitlement mentality that causes incompetence. I have repeatedly seen this first hand among victims of the New York City public school system, which has been influenced heavily by the failed ideas of progressive education.

Thus, universities use diversity language as a pretext to suppress and harm members of the purported beneficiary group. This is done because diversity and affirmative action are fashionable and because the university professors could not care less about their students. Providing entitlement to admission without providing skills that will secure future success is subtly harmful and quietly racist. Universities and professors sacrifice their students’ lives so that they can call themselves enlightened liberals.

Like Haliburton, universities are rife with cronyism. Much has been made about the endless government contracts that have gone to Halliburton. Similarly, the peer review process is based not on achievement nor hard work, but on back slapping, political correctness, conformity to dead paradigms like socialism and liberalism and to the morally retarded precepts, like diversity, that guide our benighted faculties.

In short, Professor Hoover is correct that universities are morally equivalent to Halliburton. Likewise, the National Association of Scholars is correct that the overblown emphasis on diversity cloaks a rigid institutional totalitarianism and racism in universities.

Mitchell Langbert, Associate Professor of Business at Brooklyn College, at 11:30 am EDT on July 3, 2006

Flaws in content analysis

The biggest problem I see with the conclusions of this research is the fact that “diversity” is used in many other contexts in the university than just those discussing cultural or racial diversity. As the second study pointed out, many of the uses of the word on university websites are discussing diversity of plant life, diversity of literary genres, etc. The words “liberty” and “freedom” have more narrow applications, so it isn’t surprising that they show up less frequently. Content analysis is only valid when the content is contextualized properly—the conclusions of this study are mere propaganda.

Paulette Marty, Assistant Professor at Appalachian State University, at 12:10 pm EDT on July 3, 2006

NAS’s findings corroborate what anyone who teaches or works in higher education today already knows: there is a single party—the party of group preferences—and one belongs, or keeps silent. To dissent is to jeopardize one’s chances for advancement, or even one’s job. “Diversity” as it’s used on these college and university web sites should always be read with quote marks around it.

James Summerville

James Summerville, at 3:00 pm EDT on July 3, 2006

Theatre of the Absurd? Failure to communicate?

“Attacks on diversity in higher education are a diversion ..”

What we have, is a great unwillingness to agree on terms and language. In an era when “truth-seekers” try to explain 40:1 political biases in academia as “genetically-determined” (Larry Summers, R.I.P.), the situation is becoming surreal.

What’s next? “The Harvard Conference on Using Google in Faculty Selection,” of course. I’m seeing grant dollars ...

L.L. Berry, at 3:10 pm EDT on July 3, 2006

Fun With Google and Diversity

The results of the NAS study are entirely consistent with my own university’s obsession with “diversity.” But the problem with “diversity” is not just that it is valued more than any other academic value, such as freedom or truth or the disinterested pursuit of knowledge. Unfortunately, “diversity” is all too often a justification for the racial preferences in university admissions and facutly hiring that are inherently discriminatory and unfair. What is more, the paladins of of “diversity” in higher education have no interest in intellectual diversity, which is the only kind of diversity that is educationally advantageous, and thus the only kind of diversity that universities should be concerned with. If intellectual diversity mattered to the diversiphiles, they would take action to ensure the airing of conservative opinions on college campuses, where conservative faculty are either few or non-existent.

Jay Bergman, Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University, at 9:05 pm EDT on July 3, 2006

Google as “king of Diversity”

K.T., Google displays one of its doodles ("signature ’search images’") for every Independence Day. They also have celebrated Thanksgiving, St. Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Mozart’s birthday, hardly a pantheon of holidays of the politically correct. Google isn’t known for being afraid of offending people, and it is known as one of the most discriminating workplaces in the world (in favor of high-IQ problem-solvers). So you’re wrong when you say that it’s ironic that the NAS “study” used Google.

(K.T. wrote “This is ironic especially since Google is the ‘king of diversity.’ They won’t do one of their signiature ’search images’ for Flag Day or Memorial Day (for fear of offending others), but chose to celebrate the Persian New Year. I’ll be surprised if they indulge us on the 4th of July.")

Reader, at 11:00 am EDT on July 4, 2006

Isolation

That anyone — right or left — would have a problem with the word “diversity” in a nation founded with the motto, “e pluribus unum,” and which was entirely built through the labour of those welcomed from many lands and cultures, indicates that history education in the United States must be nothing more than a recitation of the accomplishments of white male protestants.

Russell Shorto, in his book Island at the Center of the World, points out the damage done to American self-understanding by the mid-19th Century decision to embrace the intolerant theocracy of Puritan Massachusetts as the nation’s “founding myth” rather than the welcoming pluralism of New Amsterdam and New York.

What makes America exceptional is not its freedom, other nations are surely as (or more) free. Nor its democracy, others are surely more democratic (better voting systems, more choices). Nor its opportunity, many other countries offer more economic mobility. What makes America exceptional is the diversity that brings the best of the world into common conversation.

I just wish American conservatives would stop re-writing history and understand what is great about their nation.

Ira Socol, Michigan State University, at 2:10 pm EDT on July 4, 2006

Response to My Comments on this Site

I just received the following response to my comments on this site, which I made today. The e-mail just arrived at my Brooklyn College e-mail address. I forwarded a copy to my attorney and to the head of HR at Brooklyn College. This is an example of the university’s concept of freedom of speech.

Quoting truetipsforever :

> Hey, Mitchell, given the views you hold, what in the world are you > doing > at a CUNY campus? > > Another thing: aren’t you getting kind of old to be an associate > professor? Don’t you think it would be better to spend more time on> your teaching and research, and less writing for these higher ed blogs?

Mitchell Langbert, at 8:30 pm EDT on July 4, 2006

NAS Replies to its Critics

Craig Smith of the American Federation of Teachers wants us to stop suggesting “that higher education is some monolithic sector that is marching in lock step to some liberal ideology". Does he believe it shouldn’t be suggested because it isn’t essentially true? If so, in what world is he living? Or does he believe it shouldn’t be suggested because it is true, but so downright embarrassing? How many evidentiary paths have to be followed to the same conclusion before higher education’s defenders become willing to admit the simple fact that this is a genuine problem?

What our study attempted to do was provide an additional quantitative dimension through which this problem could be measured. Content analysis is a recognized instrumentality of social science research, and search engines allow it to be carried out — albeit in a rough and ready fashion — on a grand scale. Such exercises may not have the precision of theoretical physics, but we think that in our study’s case the results show consistent and meaningful differences that certainly correspond to those disclosed, not only by overwhelming casual impression, but by other lines of formal inquiry into the academic/non-academic ideological divide.

Smith further objects that “diversity” can have many meanings — which is true. (As, indeed, can “freedom”, for which there are also wholly apolitical uses such as the statistical phrase “degrees of freedom"). But in point of fact, the use of “diversity” on academic websites — as I think most reasonable observers would expect — is predominantly ideological. We weren’t able, of course, to inspect each of the enormous number of “diversity” references on university websites, but we did do some spot checking in anticipation of this objection and found, for instance, that all the first 50 of the references to “diversity” our search turned up on UC Berkeley’s website referred to some variant of multiculturalism. So too were those found when we looked at the website of a rather different public institution, North Carolina State University – which had 117,000 “diversity” hits overall. We suspect that a similar pattern prevails at the great majority of American universities and colleges. Nonetheless, it’s worth noting that we mentioned in our study that there were some notable, if partial, exceptions to the pattern. A sizeable number of the references to “diversity” at the University of Miami, for instance, were non-ideological, generated by their Marine Sciences program. But Miami still had 80,000 hits overall for “diversity", as opposed for 19,000 for “freedom", and only about 800 for “liberty".

Moreover, we do not think that conducting searches for words like “corporation” and “war” (or “learning” and “success”, for that matter) are particularly helpful in mapping ideological fault lines, since they don’t have much discriminatory power. “Diversity”, as generally used today, is indicative of a distinctive set of philosophic priorities — a mindset if you will. “Freedom” is too. (Which is not to say that the same person can’t positively employ both terms in a single argumentative context). By contrast, the nouns “corporation” and “war” are neutral descriptors that by themselves convey little about the outlook of the individuals using them.

Hover’s juxtaposition of Halliburton and Berkeley is arresting, but not in the last analysis especially apt. Firms are a very different kind of organizational animal than those our study analyzes. Universities, the media, churches, political parties, national business lobbies like the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce, even national labor federations, are all groups that deal, in one way or another, in the contest of ideas. Collectively, they constitute America’s opinion leadership, have prominent rhetorical profiles, and can, with some conceptual legitimacy, be compared to one another – which is why we chose them for our analysis

Corporate websites, on the other hand, largely focus on their particular businesses. Ideas extraneous to the exigencies of their businesses (and the words that encode them) are unlikely to turn up with great frequency. If anything, their websites will strive to avoid political ideas and the potential for controversy they arouse. Numerous references to even anodyne terms like “freedom”, “liberty”, “democracy”, etc., are unlikely to be standard fare. In America’s current legal/political setting, however, the term “diversity” constitutes a striking exception. To keep government contracts, and to avoid litigation and bad-mouthing, corporations need diversity officers, committees, processes, and a fair amount of general ballyhoo about all the things they do “diversely". It simply makes good business and legal sense.

The figures in our study are ratios. So, in the case of Halliburton, what you get is a low number of hits with respect to political terms in general — 34 in the case of “freedom", 3 in the case of “democracy” — and comparatively a great many more for “diversity” — 753 as it turns out. This produces Hover’s ratio of 23 to 1.

The case of Berkeley is quite different. Idea-words, naturally enough, are all over its website. “Freedom” produces about 161,000 hits and “diversity” 244,000. (These gross numbers of hits for idea-words are fairly typical of major university websites.) The ratio between the two words is smaller, to be sure, than at Halliburton, but in a very different discursive environment. The Berkeley website is a great theater of ideas, with “diversity” speaking considerably more lines than “freedom". Halliburton’s website is a product showcase, generally bereft of intellectual content, upon which idea-words intrude only to the extent that outside influences make their use necessary.

American higher education, with some exceptions and in degrees varying from institution to institution, has enthusiastically embraced an ideological project whose code word is “diversity” — frequently conjoined to the adjective “celebrate". This is not the ideal that most other Americans celebrate on July 4th, or feel most central to their lives and happiness. Perhaps academe has it right and the rest of America wrong. That at least would be an honest line of defense. But to dismiss, deny, and deride each new basketful of facts that clarifies this divide’s existence is to erect higher education’s defenses on demonstratively, and dangerously, false ground. Steve BalchNational Association of Scholars

Steve Balch, President at National Association of Scholars, at 5:15 am EDT on July 5, 2006

Freedom

Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freddom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freddom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom,Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freddom, Freedom,

Freedom Fighter, at 6:40 am EDT on July 5, 2006

A Reply to Stephen Balch

I’m pleased to read that Stephen Balch thinks a credible study needs to examine the specific meaning of terms used on university and other websites, and to consider the reasons that different organizations might—or might not—have for using them. NAS’s study, however, made no systematic or comprehensive attempt to do either of those things, and Balch’s after-the-fact comments here are hardly enough to redeem a study flawed in its very conception.

To take one example: Unlike Halliburton, according to Balch, Berkeley is engaged in the “contest of ideas,” and so the presence or absence of ideological/political terms on its website has a different significance. Well, okay—but that point needs to be carried much further to be really persuasive. In pursuit of it educational mission, a university performs many subordinate functions that provide few occasions to use terms like “freedom” and “democracy.” Berkeley, for example, is landlord to thousands of students, and—like Halliburton, and unlike NAM—is a large, bureaucratized employer. If Halliburton uses the term “diversity” in the employment context, Balch would have us think that it’s for PR purposes, and to keep government contracts. Now, I’d think that if “diversityspeak” constitutes good PR and suggests compliance with the law, then it can’t be that far out of the American mainstream. It also seems a little odd that, in Balch’s book, Halliburton get points for insincerity. And in any event, I don’t see why Halliburton thus gets off the hook for its “diversityspeak,” while the same evidence is supposed to prove that Berkeley is overrun with out-of-control multi-culturalists. Unless, of course, you start out with that assumption and make no attempt to question it.

NAS’s purpose, it seems, was to create the appearance of a precise and rigorous study without actually going to the bother of conducting one. In his comments here, Balch can’t quite let go of the impulse to make quantitative claims, and it continues to serve him poorly.

Let’s head back to Google to evaluate his claim that “American higher education ... has enthusiastically embraced an ideological project whose code word is ‘diversity’ — frequently conjoined to the adjective [sic] ‘celebrate.’ ” You’ll find about 29 hits for the phrase “celebrate diversity” on Berkeley’s website. Search for all documents that contain both “celebrate” and “diversity” (but not necessarily the phrase), and you’ll get about 675 hits—out of a total of almost 250,000 hits for “diversity” on Berkeley’s website. Readers can decide for themselves if 3/10 of 1 percent constitutes “frequently.”

If Balch doesn’t want his proffered “basketful of facts” derided and dismissed, next time he might include some better facts.

Hiram Hover, at 8:30 pm EDT on July 5, 2006

THE GORILLA IN THE LIVING ROOM

There is a gorilla in the living room. The NAS estimates that it weighs 900 pounds. Absurd!! It is only 400! No, 100! It cannot be more than 10 pounds!The gorilla in the living room makes itself comfortable.

Plinio Prioreschi, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine (Ret.), at 9:30 pm EDT on July 5, 2006

Comment on Hover’s Reply

Hiram Hover finds 753 hits for “diversity” on Halliburton’s website and 34 for “freedom”, a ratio of 23 to 1. He uses this to argue that the smaller 1.5 to 1 ratio found at Berkeley proves nothing, since it would be ridiculous to believe that Halliburton is more radical than Berkeley. But when the likely explanation for the Halliburton ratio is offered — that is, a corporation has legal and business reasons for having “diversity” references, but few for using “idea-words” like “freedom” or “democracy”, he shifts ground. His new hypothesis is that the excess of “diversity” over “freedom” citations at Berkeley might well be explainable because Berkeley (and, by implication, American higher education, in general) “is a landlord to thousands of students and like Halliburton….a large bureaucratized employer”. A comparison first used as a joke suddenly becomes serious. Well, if it’s a serious comparison, let’s turn back from the ratios to the absolute magnitudes. Although its “diversity” to “freedom” ratio is very high, it takes only 753 website hits to document Halliburton’s felt obligation to “diversity”. Berkeley’s website produces approximately 244,000. Did the commonalities of being a large bureaucratized employer (with landlord functions thrown in to boot) produce 324 times more “diversity” hits on Berkeley’s website than on Halliburton’s, or would it be more reasonable to infer that what we’re dealing with instead is a very sizeable difference of institutional culture?

Most research starts out with assumptions, that’s where hypotheses come from. Research then produces data that either supports the hypotheses or doesn’t. The NAS working hypothesis – scarcely unreasonable on its face — was that universities, as a group, would have a greater allegiance to, or interest in, “diversity” as a value than would most other types of institutions that deal in ideas, and that this would be reflected in the relative number of hits produced by web searches. It could have been otherwise, but that indeed is what was found. Another mode of inquiry into academe’s mindset thus supports the findings already produced by faculty attitudinal research, and the study of course and program content. The chief responses have been that “diversity” doesn’t generally mean “multicultural diversity”, which on university websites hardly seems the case, and that corporations show higher “diversity” imbalances, an inapt comparison. Hover, I guess, would urge different working hypotheses, based on the assumption that Berkeley’s being “overrun with out-of-control multiculturalists”, and academe’s special enthusiasm for “diversity”, are rather far-fetched speculations. It would be interesting to see where that research would lead.

Steve Balch, President at National Association of Scholars, at 5:30 pm EDT on July 6, 2006

“I’m pleased to read that Stephen Balch thinks a credible study needs to examine the specific meaning of terms used on university and other websites, and to consider the reasons that different organizations might—or might not—have for using them. NAS’s study, however, made no systematic or comprehensive attempt to do either of those things, and Balch’s after-the-fact comments here are hardly enough to redeem a study flawed in its very conception.”

Item 9 in the appendix seems to cover this very thoroughly, both by sampling and with examples. In fact, it’s covered there with a lot more thoroughness than you’ve demonstrated in your critique. Since your criticism is about method one would think you’d have bothered to read the methodological appendix.

Bill Condon, at 3:20 pm EDT on July 10, 2006