Read his lips

Professor Glick should have gotten his facts straight, but Professor Brandon’s arrogant, offensive, and foolish words speak even more loudly about the problem. Is this the kind of nonsense Brandon feeds students? Perhaps he seeks to cut off criticism of the academic status quo, for as I once said: “All political revolutions, not affected by foreign conquest, originate in moral revolutions. The subversion of established institutions is merely one consequence of the previous subversion of established opinions.”

John Stuart Mill, at 7:25 am EDT on July 10, 2008

Facts do matter...

“No wonder science is viewed with suspicion by the general public!”

How can you come to this conclusion? Glick is a political scientist. Even if we stipulate that this is a social science, it’s still quite a leap to say that his line of reasoning is why science in general is viewed with suspicion by the public. That being said, you’re right that facts do matter, and that Glick should be raked over the coals and run out of town for making something like this up. Of course, I believe that because his being found out as a fraud sets back the cause for conservatives in academia.

The fact is that politics does matter in academe. How much it matters varies from school to school, department to department, and even person to person. I’ve encountered it first hand on numerous campuses. My fellow faculty members often assumed I leaned to the left simply because I was on the faculty. When they found out otherwise, many did not care. More often than not, I got comments like, “Geez, and you seemed like such a reasonable person.”

So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

JB, at 8:00 am EDT on July 10, 2008

More offered

” .. admit there is a problem that would take billions of dollars and decades to fix, break up the public higher-ed funding monopoly, and let the non-Democrats/Socialists go their own way?”

Better yet — the non-Democrats/Socialists will take the NCAA stuff with them. No more issues with coaches, players, and 24x7 ESPN on cafeteria big-screens — such a deal!

L.L., Still on the run at From Public Education Monopoly, at 8:35 am EDT on July 10, 2008

Falsification of Data

When Michael Bellisles, a left-of-center scholar of the history of gun rights, was proven to have invented data for his historical work, he was stripped of tenure by Emory University, largely at the behest of a thunderous denunciation from the National Rifle Association and other conservative critics. I personally think the Emory decision was the correct one.

Isn’t it time that Temple removed the “emeritus” title and status from Bernard Glick?

This is not just a matter of inaccuracy. It is a matter of invention. And that’s not a matter of politics. The entire premise of scholarly life is that scholars do not invent data to support their intellectual positions, however ardently held.

Christopher Phelps, Department of History at The Ohio State University, at 9:00 am EDT on July 10, 2008

Taking Issue

Three things ...

First, Scott, I can understand some of your readers’ inclination to blur the distinction between left, liberal, and Democrat on the one hand and right, conservative, and Republican, respectively, on the other, but not you (be sure to look closely at the multimedia displays in this New York Times article) ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/arts/03camp.html?th&emc=th

We are all being intellectually sloppy when we fail to make a distinction between (1) the party ID (that’s Democrat vs. Independent vs. Republican) and (2) the socio-political-economic disposition (that’s liberal vs. moderate vs. conservative) of the members of the academy.

Second – and I am not inclined to quote anyone in this strange article – I am tired of hearing “Members of academia tend to be a bit smarter than average.” I will grant you that members of the academy are more educated than “average.” And I admit that they are more broadly informed than “average.” But “smarter? I think not. Of course the meaningless “than average” makes the statement pure nonsense – not to mention stupid — to begin with.

Third, about Professor Edward Bernard Glick. I have a fairly large number of very conservative friends and acquaintances, and I am inundated with forwarded e-mail messages revealing the stupidity of liberals and leftists (and sometimes even Democrats). It usually takes me less than five minutes to visit Hoax Busters and Truth or Fiction and demonstrate that these messages are part of the growing genre of urban legends that my friends distribute with reckless abandon. In approximately 90% of the cases they are fabricated pure nonsense. We can thank Professor Glick for his contribution to this trash.

P.S. Won’t someone please convince the Department of Energy to revive Hoax Busters.

Frizbane Manley, at 9:10 am EDT on July 10, 2008

All I want is the truth...

C’mon folks. Let’s stop playing games.

This what Professor Brandon said: “We try to hire the best, smartest people available. If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire. Mill’s analysis may go some way towards explaining the power of the Republican party in our society and the relative scarcity of Republicans in academia. Players in the NBA tend to be taller than average. There is a good reason for this. Members of academia tend to be a bit smarter than average. There is a good reason for this too.”

This what Professor Glick wrote that Brandon said: “No. We don’t hire Republicans because they are stupid and we are not. Why should we knowingly hire stupid professors?”

Glick was wrong to claim the Brandon remarks were a word for word quote. However, only a really stupid person would claim that what Glick wrote did not, in fact, capture the essence of what Brandon meant.

Brandon can claim all he wants that hirings at Duke are not based on political ideology, but recent events on that campus speak far louder than mere words.

feudi pandola, at 9:15 am EDT on July 10, 2008

I laid low for 5 years, didn’t let any of my colleagues know I was a right-wing conservative. After the department voted unanimously to support my tenure I invited some colleagues over for dinner, I think they were surprised to see several yard signs for various Republican candidates which I had recently put out. One of them actually said to me “Those yard signs are making me uncomfortable". Can you imagine!

secretconservative, conservative with tenure, at 10:05 am EDT on July 10, 2008

Why Glick’s Distortion Matters

I think Feudi Pandola is way off base in claiming that Glick’s quote is “the essence” of Brandon’s statement. Glick’s quote made an explicit statement that “we don’t hire Republicans.” Brandon has said exactly the opposite, that they don’t inquire into the political beliefs of applicants. Glick’s statement claims that all Republicans are stupid. Brandon’s statement is that stupid people are generally conservative (which is not the same as saying that all conservatives are stupid).

For example, people who believe that the universe was created 6,000 years ago and humans lived alongside dinosaurs are highly likely to be conservative, and they are unquestionable stupid (at least in that view). These people are highly unlikely to be hired by an astronomy or evolutionary biology department. Likewise, someone who believes that human reason is worthless and the Bible is the only book that should be read is likely to be a conservative, likely to be stupid, and unlikely to be hired by a philosophy department (and unlikely to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy). However, that doesn’t mean that all (or many) conservatives or religious people are stupid, and Brandon, for all his inept terminology, never said that.

Also, a quick correction to Christopher Phelps comment above. Michael Bellesiles quit Emory before any punishment was proposed, so Emory didn’t strip him of tenure. That being said, I would strongly oppose any official investigation of Glick (or the more egregious errors of Bellesiles or Ward Churchill), because I think the proper punishment for unintentional mistakes of this sort is public disclosure.

John K. Wilson, collegefreedom.org, at 10:05 am EDT on July 10, 2008

Where Credit Is Due

I forgot to mention that “Blog of Convenience” (http://www.xanga.com/DukeEgr93) deserves credit for asking the same questions I did a day earlier. The blogger also got this response at the time from Glick via American Conservative: “I am afraid I can’t be more specific. It happened months before I decided to write the piece. However, please assure readers that with my own ears I heard a Duke University professor says this on NPR.”

It’s remarkable (but not unbelievable) that someone could imagine they heard these words on NPR (which never happened) when they actually read very different words. It’s a good lesson not to trust your memory for direct quotes. Or perhaps it’s a sign that Glick was so determined to believe there’s outright discrimination against Republicans (a subject I address and refute in detail in my book Patriotic Correctness), that he imagined something that never happened.

John K. Wilson, collegefreedom.org, at 10:15 am EDT on July 10, 2008

Thanks

Thanks much to John K. Wilson for pointing out my error on Bellesiles, who resigned and was not stripped of tenure. My memory was faulty. However, it is the case that he only resigned after an investigative committee found falsification of data, which is what my mind was trying to recall (need more caffeine this morning, I guess). His resignation was a way of exiting gracefully, but the writing was on the wall... or in the report. (I actually met Bellesiles once and found him engaging, intelligent, amiable; it was a terrible tragedy.)

In any event, the point stands that fabrication of such a quotation as Scott Jaschik’s journalism has ferreted out is what any institution’s honor code for students, let alone faculty, would classify as academic dishonesty.

Christopher Phelps, Department of History at The Ohio State University, at 10:35 am EDT on July 10, 2008

Wow.

“Wanted: Conservative students interested in incurring significant student loan debt, willing to labor for up to a decade in a demanding PhD program ..”

Wow. Hard to know, where to start.

First, if things are so bad — privatize, like they did with some D.C. schools. Things got better, immediately.

Second, no one is being held in academia against their will. If it is so bad, get out — that is on you and no one else.

Third, this was left out: “willingness to have one’s personal beliefs on self-reliance, work ethic, and personal discipline, etc., ridiculed by one’s supervisors on an hourly basis.”

BTW: nice job, IHE.

Buzz, at 11:00 am EDT on July 10, 2008

My Apologies Scott

I promise, Scott, that I won’t press this issue too far, but we can see the mentality of Edward Bernard Glick at work right here at InsideHigherEd.

First, scroll up to my earlier post, “Taking Issue,” and read the first paragraph ... and read the cited New York Times article while your at it.

Then read L.L.’s post, “Whoa Hoss,” where he (1) selects part of a sentence I wrote, (2) takes it completely out of context, and (3) uses it to make a point that is apparently consistent with his prejudice.

Let’s see, using the same strategy (mentality), I see L.L wrote “being grossly over-biased to hiring from one political party (guess) is no big deal ...” Right on Deep Thinker, you’ve got my attention!

Frizbane Manley, at 11:40 am EDT on July 10, 2008

Accuracy is important

I read Glick’s article and while I agreed with much of it, I thought he had seriously misquoted Brandon. The actual Brandon quote was dumb enough to reinforce Glick’s point without distorting it to imply outright discrimination.

There are clearly intelligent reasons for people to hold competing views on such issues as abortion, affirmative action, the war in Iraq, tax policy, welfare rules, the death penalty, gun control, the Arab/israeli conflict, and all the disputed questions that are the essence of the culture wars.

The point of Brandon’s actual quote is to suggest that the reason for the predominance of one sided debate in academia on such questions is that academics are more intelligent than most people. Hence conservatives, being less intelligent, are less likely to be hired as teachers and so the lack of conservative perspectives on culture war issues in academia.

The plain point of Brandon’s quote is to say that people who disagree with him do so because they are stupid. Frankly, I think the real quote supports Glick’s thesis better than the one he invented.

What I found problematic in Glick’s article was the commonly held view among conservatives that the reason for the culture of political correctness on campus is that the old radicals became professors and took over.

I don’t think that happened. As a former member of sds, and as someone who was an extremely active opponent of segregation and the Vietnam War I know a great deal about the sixties generation and what became of it.

I don’t think that there are very many former radicals in positions of power. And I think you will find that in the spectrum of debate over culture war issues, the conservative side is very ably represented by a large number of people who were also part of the sixties generation of radicals.

The issues changed. The right to vote is not the same as the right to be admitted to the University of Michigan with substantially lower academic qualifications. In 1964, most governments in Latin America were military dictatorships and now they are almost all elected in honestly contested elections. Of course the questions for American foreign policy have changed.

The most fundamental freedom, the right of free expression, is now challenged on campuses by speech codes that are designed to prevent people from being offended by the views of people with whom they disagree. When criticism of affirmative action is deemed hate speech, there is a serious problem and groups like FIRE’s (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) defense of the first amendment rights is anything but stupid.

Many of the people who oppose the excesses of political correctness are veterans of the battles of the sixties. And many of the supporters of such excesses are not old enough to have been around to understand what the old disputes were really about.

The sixties produced a lot of positive changes in American life: the end of legal segregation in the south; the reduction of defacto segregation and the substantial reduction of discrimination in employment in the rest of the country; the extension of the franchise to 18 year olds; the vastly improved opportunities for women in all areas of society; the increased importance of human rights in foreign affairs. These are all so thoroughly accepted parts of our society that in many ways they are more accepted on the pages of the National Review than they are in more liberal publications.

I think if people take an honest look at the arguments about politics in academia, they will see that the threats to the first and fourteenth amendments are coming from the left and not from the right.

Jonathan Cohen, Professor of Mathematics at DePaul University, at 11:55 am EDT on July 10, 2008

I suspect many of those self-identified “moderates” are actually quite liberal, they just have a skewed perspective of where the center is. When you are a left-wing liberal surrounded by very left-wing liberals and ordinary liberals, you might indeed end up believing yourself to be a “moderate".

rightwingfaculty, what is a moderate, at 12:45 pm EDT on July 10, 2008

Proof?

If Mr. Glick is correctly quoted (and why bother by his standards?), his confusion of his own opinion with a matter of fact may well go toward proving Mill’s assertion true. How can a quote, which was never uttered and is therefore unattributable, be—in any sense—true?

Jeffrey Mask, at 1:55 pm EDT on July 10, 2008

Plenty of blame to share

Political ideology aside, I am horrified at both Glick and Brandon: the former for his uncollegiality and disdain for the facts, the latter for his snobbery. The real problem, IMHO, is with elitists like Brandon who think that a bunch of letters after our name make us smarter. He is only providing additional fodder for all those right-wing anti-intellectual, anti-academic polemicists who bedevil our lives.

So, fellow academics: let’s all take a pledge to take credit for what we accomplish and remain humble for what we don’t. I for one can do passable research, write well and teach well. I cannot program a computer, do math in my head, memorize my students’ names, or locate Vanuatu on a map.

As for Glick, I hope what goes around comes around at his next personnel review. Let’s see how he deals with rumors about himself ....

Hoosier Prof, at 1:55 pm EDT on July 10, 2008

Why call them stupid, you ask?

Full-disclosure:I would be left-wing, I guess, but I happen to love the right to free speech more than protecting everyone’s feelings, and I can’t get behind gun control or most affirmative action policies as they are presently implemented. I would be right wing, I suppose, instead, but somehow embracing social inequalities as inevitable, uniformly disowning any avowed non-Christians, and eschewing any form of welfare except church-based charities feels, well, evil.

So instead I get to watch the two sides avoid any reasoned debate, each pretending they have a monopoly on a truth never defended or tested in the fire.

But I’m apparently not a “moderate” either—I must be misreading where the center is...

...

Claim: All academics are liberals.

Response: Actually, many academics self-select “moderate” to describe their political views.

Claim: Academics must fail to see what “moderate” means, then!

...

And you wonder WHY people get fed up and say, gosh, conservatives must generally be a little stupid?

It’s not conservative positions, per se, that are stupid—most often they are informed by a specific set of ideals about how the world should be, much like liberal positions—but the most vocal of the idiots out there proudly claim conservative banners to rally around. If you’re tired of being written off as an idiot because you’re conservative, perhaps you could urge smarter discourse among your fellow conservatives? You know, by actually demonstrating in a visible, public forum some reasonable analysis of claims from your fellow cons that you know are absolute BS despite supporting your fundamental positions?

This goes double for you liberals—if you’re tired of being written off as just a “politically correct", tax-and-spend liberal (in conservative circles, these labels are all but four-letter words), try raising the level of discourse in your own camp and articulating that in visible public forums for cons to see. Having an honest debate that admits of multiple, defensible shades of gray about the limits and consequences of policies on American foreign relations or gun control or abortion or affirmative action shouldn’t be impossible among left-wingers.

A not-a-moderate academic, at 3:30 pm EDT on July 10, 2008

Shocking!

” .. I served on many search committees in my 35-year career in the academy and I do not recall anyone raising or discussing the political party ..”

Dang. Then how’d this happen?

http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol3/iss1/art2/

“This article first examines the ideological composition of American university faculty and then tests whether ideological homogeneity has become self-reinforcing. A randomly based national survey of 1643 faculty members from 183 four-year colleges and universities finds that liberals and Democrats outnumber conservatives and Republicans by large margins, and the differences are not limited to elite universities or to the social sciences and humanities ..”

I’m shocked, just shocked. About as much as Mr. Obama was about Rev. Wright.

Hmm .. perhaps there is a “double-secret” checklist for non-liberalism ..

— no membership in ACLU, NEA, AAUP, AFT, Democrat Party, Democrat Socialists, American Socialist, Gus Hall Fan Club.

— no immediate use of affirmative action double-speak ("we invite everyone .. especially ..")

— American car.

— No Birkenstocks at pool party. No facial hair.

— Did not sign “CU out of Ward Churchill” Internet petition.

— No “Bush Is An Idiot” bumper-sticker on Volvo or office door.

— No story in IHE about standing up to dean — without tenure.

— No “civil disobedience” arrests with Cary Nelson.

— Obvious, blantant signs of hetereonormativity (e.g., Promise-Keepers sign on office door).

Buzz, at 3:45 pm EDT on July 10, 2008

Response to non-a-moderate academic

>Claim: All academics are liberals.

>Response: Actually, many academics self-select >“moderate” to describe their political views.

>Claim: Academics must fail to see what >moderate” means, then!

No one is using this logic buddy, there is evidence in the NY Times story that academic “moderates” are more liberal than self-described “moderates” in the general population. The evidence is that they vote overwhelmingly for democrats! This is not the case of moderates in the general electorate.

argggh, at 4:35 pm EDT on July 10, 2008

Inconsistent takes on shoddy work

By all means, let’s take Glick to task for shoddy work, but let’s also remember Maya Angelou (sp?) and others who have fabricated what they wrote in order to make a point (or a buck?). De-constructionists rushed to their defense saying that that what they wrote was “plausible", therefore ok.

Let’s take all such fabricators of truth to task, plausibility notwithstanding.

Steven S. Clarkhttp://stevensclark.typepad.com/bioscience_biz/

Steven S. Clark, PhD, UW, at 4:35 pm EDT on July 10, 2008

moderates

OK let’s just ignore the issue of wehether the “moderates” are actually liberals. Look at the Times graph again and you will see there are roughly 9 liberals for every one conservative. In the general public the ratio is closer to 2 liberals for every 3 conservatives. Academia is a very liberal place. The humanities are almost devoid of conservatives.

rightwingfaculty, at 9:20 pm EDT on July 10, 2008

to RWH

If calling oneself a thing makes one that thing, I’m a millionaire! Woo hoo!

Nobody has suggested that academics don’t know what moderate means, just that self-identification is not the only, and certainly not the most objective, measure of one’s political beliefs. A person’s voting patterns are another measure, as are their actual positions on a number of policy issues.

Did you accept at face value GWB’s self-description as a “compassionate conservative,” or did you measure that self-description against other criteria?

not a faculty member, at 1:10 pm EDT on July 11, 2008

QED

“I served on many search committees in my 35-year career in the academy and I do not recall anyone raising or discussing the gender or orientation of any candidate. In fact, the idea of even raising gender as a consideration never occurred to me or, as far as I know, my colleagues."Ok, problem solved then.

bjk, at 2:05 pm EDT on July 12, 2008

QED 2

” .. But the notion that this is the only category of thought that defines our sense of self or even our professional identities is specious ..”

The point has already been made that this has been argued for nearly a decade and that several empirical studies have proven the point of the gross, one-sided hiring bias. Even lib-burr-als have begun to acknowledge the problem of tenured, unionized inaction —

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145843

Free the non-Democrats. Let them — and their money — go. Show some mercy, for God’s sake.

Francis A., at 7:35 pm EDT on July 12, 2008

???

” .. But when it comes to conservatives, the lack of any explicit bias is apparently rock-solid proof of a fair hiring process.”

???

That is exact opposite of what many non-Democrats have written.

Is this an English-language site?

Francis A., at 12:25 pm EDT on July 13, 2008

Well, actually ..

” .. In some circles that is called arguing with a closed mind ..”

Gee .. would that include the large number of “academics” who thought CU-Boulder was attacking the “academic freedom” of a former faculty member who has yet to definitively prove authentic American Indian heritage?

Point made previously — let the non-Democrats (and their money) leave and set up their own higher-ed programming. Show mercy, for Heaven’s sake.

L.L., at 9:15 am EDT on July 14, 2008