Aug. 26, 2005

Proving the Critics’ Case

Inside Higher Ed recently reported on four University of Pittsburgh professors critiquing the latest survey suggesting ideological one-sidedness in the academy. According to the Pitt quartet, self-selection accounts for findings that the faculty of elite disproportionately tilts to the Left. “Many conservatives,” the Pitt professors mused, “may deliberately choose not to seek employment at top-tier research universities because they object, on philosophical grounds, to one of the fundamental tenets undergirding such institutions: the scientific method.”

Imagine the appropriate outrage that would have occurred had the above critique referred to feminists, minorities, or Socialists. Yet the Pitt quartet’s line of reasoning — that faculty ideological imbalance reflects the academy functioning as it should — has appeared with regularity, and has been, unintentionally, most revealing. Indeed, the very defense offered by the academic Establishment, rather than the statistical surveys themselves, has gone a long way toward proving the case of critics who say that the academy lacks sufficient intellectual diversity.

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In theory, ideology should have no bearing on how a professor teaches, say, physics. Even so, should responsible administrators worry that the overwhelming partisan disparity is worthy of further inquiry? And, in theory, parents who make their money in traditionally conservative professions such as investment banking or corporate law probably do not encourage their children to enter academe. Yet, as money-making fields have always been attractive to conservatives, why has the proportion of self-professed liberals or Leftists in the academy nearly doubled in the last generation?

Had members of the academic Establishment confined themselves to such arguments (or had they ignored the partisan-breakdown studies altogether), the intellectual diversity issue would have received little attention. Instead, the last two years have seen proud, often inflammatory, defenses of the professoriate’s ideological imbalance. These arguments, which have fallen into three categories, raise grave concerns about the academy’s overall direction.

1. The cultural left is, simply, more intelligent than anyone else. As SUNY-Albany’s Ron McClamrock reasoned, “Lefties are overrepresented in academia because on average, we’re just f-ing smarter.” The first recent survey came in early 2004, when the Duke Conservative Union disclosed that Duke’s humanities departments contained 142 registered Democrats and 8 registered Republicans. Philosophy Department chairman Robert Brandon considered the results unsurprising: “If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire.”

In a slightly different vein, UCLA professor John McCumber informed The New York Times that “a successful career in academia, after all, requires willingness to be critical of yourself and to learn from experience,” qualities “antithetical to Republicanism as it has recently come to be.” In another Times article, Berkeley professor George Lakoff asserted that Leftists predominate in the academy because, “unlike conservatives, they believe in working for the public good and social justice, as well as knowledge and art for their own sake.” Again, imagine the appropriate outcry if prominent academics employed such sweeping generalizations to dismiss statistical disparities suggesting underrepresentation of women, gays, or minorities.

These arguments become even more disturbing given the remarkably broad definition of “conservative” employed in many academic quarters. Take the case of Yeshiva University’s Ellen Schrecker, recently elected to a term on the AAUP’s general council. This past spring, Schrecker denounced Columbia students who wanted to broaden instruction about the Middle East for “trying to impose orthodoxy at this university.” The issue, she lamented, amounted to “right wing propaganda.”

The leaders of the Columbia student group, who ranged from registered Republicans to backers of Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential bid, were united only in their belief that matters relating to Israel should be treated objectively in the classroom. Probably 98 percent of the U.S. Congress and all of the nation’s governors would fit under such a definition of “right wing.”

Indeed, it seems as if the academic Establishment considers anyone who does not accept the primacy of a race/class/gender interpretation to be “conservative.” To most outside of the academy, such a definition would suggest that professors are using stereotypes to abuse the inherently subjective nature of the hiring process.

2. A left-leaning tilt in the faculty is a pedagogical necessity, because professors must expose gender, racial, and class bias while promoting peace, “diversity” and “cultural competence.” According to Montclair State’s Grover Furr, “colleges and universities do not need a single additional ‘conservative’ .... What they do need, and would much benefit from, is more Marxists, radicals, leftists — all terms conventionally applied to those who fight against exploitation, racism, sexism, and capitalism. We can never have too many of these, just as we can never have too few ‘conservatives.’”

Furr’s remarks echoed those of Connecticut College’s Rhonda Garelick, who decried student “disgruntlement” when she used her French class to discuss her opposition to the war in Iraq and teach “‘wakeful’ political literacy.” Rashid Khalidi, meanwhile, rationalized anti-Israel instruction as necessary to undo the false impressions held by all incoming Columbia students except for “Arab-Americans, who know that the ideas spouted by the major newspapers, television stations, and politicians are completely at odds with everything they know to be true.”

To John Burness, Duke’s senior vice president for public affairs, such statements reflect a proper professorial role. The “creativity” in humanities and social science disciplines, he noted, addresses issues of race, class, and gender, leading to a “perfectly logical criticism of the current society” in the classroom.

At some universities, this mindset has even shaped curricular or personnel policies. Though its release generated widespread criticism and hints from administrators that it would not be adopted, a proposal to make “cultural competence” a key factor in all personnel decisions remains the working draft of the University of Oregon’s new diversity plan. Columbia recently set aside $15 million for hiring women and minorities — and white males who would “in some way promote the diversity goals of the university.” And the University of Arizona’s hiring blueprint includes requiring new faculty in some disciplines to “conduct research and contribute to the growing body of knowledge on the importance of valuing diversity.”

On the curricular front, my own institution’s provost, Roberta Matthews (who has written that “teaching is a political act") intends for the college’s new general education curriculum to produce “global citizens” — who, she commented, are those “sensitized to issues of race, class, and gender.”

Given such initiatives, it is worth remembering the traditional ideal of a university education: for faculty committed to free intellectual exchange in pursuit of the truth to expose undergraduates to the disciplines of the liberal arts canon, in the expectation that college graduates will possess the wide range of knowledge and skills necessary to function as democratic citizens.

3. A left-leaning professoriate is a structural necessity, because the liberal arts faculty must balance business school faculty and/or the general conservative political culture. University of Michigan professor Juan Cole, denouncing the “ridiculous and pernicious line” that major universities need greater intellectual diversity, complained about insufficient attention to the ideological breakdown of “Business Schools, Medical Schools, [and] Engineering schools.” UCLA’s Russell Jacoby wondered why ” conservatives seem unconcerned about the political orientation of the business professors.” Duke Law professor Erwin Chemerinsky more ambitiously claimed that “it’s hard to see this as a time of liberal dominance” given conservative control of the three branches of government.

Professional schools reflect the mindset of their professions: Socialists are about as common on business school faculty as are home-schooling advocates among education school professors. But, unlike business schools, liberal arts colleges and universities do not exist to train students for a single profession. Nor are they supposed to balance the existing political culture. If the Democrats reclaim the presidency and Congress in the 2008 elections, should the academy suddenly adopt an anti-liberal posture?

The intellectual diversity issue shows no signs of fading away. Ideological one-sidedness among the professoriate seems to be, if anything, expanding. And so, no doubt, will we see additional surveys suggesting a heavy ideological imbalance among the nation’s faculty — followed by new inflammatory statements from the academic Establishment that only reinforce the critics’ claims about bias in the personnel process.

In an ideal world, campus administrators would have rectified this problem long ago. A few have made small steps. Brown University’s president, Ruth Simmons, for instance, has expressed concern that the “chilling effect caused by the dominance of certain voices on the spectrum of moral and political thought” might negatively affect a quality education; her university’s Political Theory Project represents a model that other institutions could follow.

To my knowledge, however, no academic administration has made the creation of an intellectually and pedagogically diverse faculty its primary goal. This statement, it should be noted, applies equally as well to institutions frequently praised by conservatives, such as Hillsdale College. Such an initiative, of course, would encounter ferocious faculty resistance. But it would also, just as surely, excite parents, donors, and trustees. If successful, an institution that made intellectual diversity its hallmark would encourage imitation — if only because other colleges would face the free-market pressures of losing talented students and faculty. So, the question becomes, do we have an administration anywhere in the country willing to take up the cause?

KC Johnson is a professor of history at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

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Comments

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videoüberwachung, at 11:20 am EDT on June 30, 2007

Good article and site. Congratulations !

Peter, at 1:20 pm EDT on June 30, 2007

Good article- thanks a lot for putting all this together. Waiting for more !

CRAIG, at 1:45 pm EDT on June 30, 2007

Liberal values and ideas are the key to modern society, so it is vital to introduce them in institutions such as schools and universities!

księgowość, at 2:25 pm EDT on July 2, 2007

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kyle, at 7:45 am EDT on July 7, 2007

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Counter Strike Game, CS at CS, at 9:25 am EDT on July 14, 2007

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Serg, at 8:05 am EDT on July 15, 2007

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sohbet, sohbet at sohbet, at 3:50 pm EDT on July 19, 2007

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HaLo, sohbet at sohbet, at 6:20 am EDT on July 22, 2007

I agree that the political breakdown of faculty in medical schools and engineering is probably irrelevant, but economic departments and business schools are a different story.

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ludo, at 9:20 pm EDT on August 8, 2007

Good work!

My explanation for it is that liberalism, which is founded in atheism, is very attractive to those who are crowned the kings of reason. If you follow the Ayn Ryn idea that reason dictates true morality (or the rules we should follow), the elite in academia are the ones ultimately in charge of the rules.

Forum, at 7:50 am EDT on August 17, 2007

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‘Proving the Critics’ Case’

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tłumaczenie stron www, at 5:50 am EDT on September 6, 2007

The problem is that no matter where you go there is always going to be bias – and even if you want to teach people HOW to learn, that teaching itself will be biased. It’s really a family responsibility to teach kids how to learn, and how to think for themselves. But... you see, even the idea of ‘thinking for yourself’ is a biased idea. Albeit probably the better idea, it’s still a biased idea.

Ideologies and philosophies do rule the day, and there is nothing that can really be done about that.

jewellery, at 3:45 pm EDT on October 1, 2007

....“ Conservatism ” champions racism, exploitation, and imperialist war. It’s the enemy of 90% of the human race. We need LESS of it, not more. Sure, ...

it should be “represented” in classes — but only for the sake of exposure and refutation.

Is it Prof. Furr? In what sense could a person who wrote the above be considered educated?

This is mere cant and of the kind one often hears in academe.....

proxy site, at 8:45 am EDT on October 15, 2007

Here’s what I have to say. This whole left vs right thing is not use to pretty much anyone really. Both the liberals and the conservatives need to get off their ‘holier than thou’ little boxes and just work together for the sake of everyone else. I count myself as neither, and will bring my kids up as neither. Both sides are wrong, and both sides are right in other respects. Why not bring your kids up to be balanced, instead of extremist on either side? This whole debate is quite honestly just upsetting me to no end. It’s so absolutely pointless.Both the major liberals and the conservatives have no idea on the historical setting in which the scientific method was born. What I mean to say is, that you CAN still be religious and enjoy, use and work within and for the scientific method. People are delibirately putting themselves in boxes they don’t even need to be in!

christmas gifts, at 10:20 am EST on November 15, 2007

Very interesting! I just wish that schools and faculty members as well as admin people will realize the points that you raise here. Students must also be aware of these facts. If all is well, we won’t have to worry about leftist and rightist.

online art gifts, at 8:20 am EST on January 14, 2008

Student debt loads help bring ideological clarity

“So, the question becomes, do we have an administration anywhere in the country willing to take up the cause?”

The author has again made a cogent, compelling argument. His citation of Hillsdale brings to mind the University of Chicago “Friedmaniacs” and Stanford’s Hoover scholars.

Commonality in all those? Private schools (about 20% of higher education), they are. Having TA’d at taxpayer-owned Big Sports University and worked with realpolitik and academic bureaucracy, I know that without a parents’ revolt (i.e., the money controllers), the chance of real change in taxpayer-owned academia are as about as likely as Howard Zinn saying something positive about FDR or JFK, or Michael Jackson publicly admitting that he has personal problem.

As noted in the recent kerkuffle about 50-year-old professor posing as a student

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-...e/2005/08/25/AR2005082500190_pf.html

college students are very aware how much student-debt they are taking on and the need for a good position to pay back that debt. Last time that I checked, endless and socially-awkward criticism/deconstruction of the dominant paradigm led to careers at Starbucks next to “Silent Chris.” Not a real positive outcome.

If the Churchill/Shortell/Berbe crowd had the courage of their convictions, they’d let any mandatory first-year/second-year classes in political re-education become optional.

It is one thing to offer such classes. It is another to force students — many of whom could care less, as they are as critical and cynical as the faculty involved — to have to borrow money to take them.

But that answer is already clear, isn’t it? The bureaucracy must be fed, right?

Write on, KC — you’re fighting the good fight. And thanks for the advertiser-supported bandwidth, IHE.

B.S.S., Independent Scholar at University of Independence, at 7:14 am EDT on August 26, 2005

Thank you, Ruth.

As an alum of Brown and parent of a Brown graduate, I salute Ruth Simmons for her recognition of the need for political and ideological diversity, tolerance and civility at a university that was in danger of becoming sclerotic under the weight of political correctness.

Perhaps, like Nixon going to China, it took an African-American woman to take such a stand without suffering the slings and arrows of the ideologues.

Mommy, at 7:24 am EDT on August 26, 2005

Hitting a Straw Academic?

KC Johnson is right to reject some of the more obnoxious and unproven reasons given for the lack of conservatives in academia. However, some of his arguments are equally flawed. First of all, the claim of a massive leftward shift in academia in the past generation is based upon a study which uses different terms for comparison and is therefore invalid. Second, Johnson doesn’t grapple with the quite plausible reasons why conservatives don’t enter academia, especially in the humanities and social sciences. It may be that conservatives are too smart (or too interested in making a good living) to enter a low-paying field with terrible job prospects that requires many years of training. Or it may be that conservatives are less interested than liberals in doing cutting edge research (a prerequisite for a top academic job) on Shakespeare or similar topics, and therefore move toward NTT jobs or high school teaching or non-teaching jobs. As for Johnson’s solution, projects like Brown’s to create special conservative (note the subjects of the “liberty lunches” if you doubt my use of that label) interdisciplinary departments are interesting, but I would prefer to see interdisciplinary programs that would encourage a genuine debate between left and right (and center) on campus.

John K. Wilson, Illinois State University, at 8:36 am EDT on August 26, 2005

We can never have too few “conservative faculty”

KC Johnson claims he wants intellectual diversity in faculty hiring. What he really wants is that “conservatives” be hired simply because they are “conservatives.” He dishonestly equates “liberal” with “Left", an absurdity that lumps John Kerry with Marx or Lenin.

But it’s no leap at all to lump “conservatives” — say, David Horowitz — with racists and fascists, such as those Horowitz has published several times in his own blog.

“Conservatism” champions racism, exploitation, and imperialist war. It’s the enemy of 90% of the human race. We need LESS of it, not more. Sure, it should be “represented” in classes — but only for the sake of exposure and refutation.

Finally, the URL for my argument as given by Johnson is unwieldy: try this one: http://tinyurl.com/c4zlj

Grover Furr, at 8:47 am EDT on August 26, 2005

All-encompassing?

” “Conservatism” champions racism, exploitation, and imperialist war.”

What a critique — could include involve anyone between William Gates III (economic conservative) to the late Pope John II (social conservative). Quite spectacular in scope, if anything.

B.S.S., at 9:02 am EDT on August 26, 2005

Data is self-evident, IMHO

“.. Johnson doesn’t grapple with the quite plausible reasons why conservatives don’t enter academia, especially in the humanities and social sciences ..”

Anyone who has attended MLA or APSA conventions knows she/he is facing-off against dozens, if not hundreds of qualified applicants for one (1) position. Hiring deans acknowedge with those kinds of odds, the difference between Candidate A and Candidate B can be so minor, as to be undetectable.

Further, a basic knowledge of statistics would tell you that with those many applicants, the odds of finding a qualified candidate who is at least from the political center is high.

The argument “conservatives are too stupid to teach college” reminds me of the arguments used to keep minorities out of public service jobs. Absolutely ridiculous, inane, and intellectually laughable. Right now, I can hear the SAT and GRE analysis teams, working on correlations between scores and political affiliations ..

A.D., at 9:26 am EDT on August 26, 2005

The Myth of Objectivity

The real problem with this and every other reactionary diatribe on the evils of academia is that it promotes the myth that more conservative faculty would somehow bring “objectivity” to the table, or that an objective, non-political stance towards any scholarly subject is even possible. Neither is very likely, given the kinds of attitudes and ideas that we see expressed in conservative politics, talk radio, Fox media, and on these websites. “Objective scholarship” is simply a political catch-phrase used to try and make some moral claim to victimization and injustice on the part of liberal academia. What they really mean is: we’d like to see a Strom Thurmond Distinguished Chair of African-American Studies.

Every reason for the ideological imbalance in academia summarized above is legitimate, if poorly stated by the author’s selective quotations: academia, like the media, SHOULD serve a liberal function in society, and it WILL attract people who maintain liberal values. And conservatives, for all their talk, will by-and-large continue to value other lifestyles and career choices than those offered by academia. Scraping the bottom of the barrel for the handful of legitimately qualified conservative academics out there will be a full-time salvage operation for most universities. Most of them have already been hired by small Christian colleges around the country—which is where the parents of disgruntled undergraduates should send their children. It’s the next best thing to home-schooling...

huntly, at 9:26 am EDT on August 26, 2005

Left Right Left

Both the ideological right and the ideological left are ill-served by their extreme wings. While it might be true that most faculty tend to be politically left of center, they are hardly the nutcakes depicted in these tirades by the right, and most conservatives are nothing like the pro-slavery, pro-war, pro-patriarchy, gun-toters that they are sometimes portrayed as. We ought to grow up and stop this black and white name calling: there are all shades of liberal and conservative: intelligent and foolish. Furthermore, very few of them “oppress” students by ax-grinding, though all we hear is about the nutcakes. I knew a senior professor who lectured his physics class about how “Rosenfeld” dragged us into WW II to save the Jews. I also know a professor who has insisted that Stalin got a bad rap. Well, these idiots are hardly representative of either side, but they are the kind who make it to the papers, if somebody bothers to make an issue of it. Despite the impression one may get from press reports and horror stories and the spectacle of the usual faculty meeting, most faculty, by far, are reasonable people with good intentions, sharing ideas, but not dictating them.

JMD, Professor at U. of Oklahoma, at 10:21 am EDT on August 26, 2005

Embarrassing...

As a doctoral student at SUNY Albany, I am embarrassed by Professor Ron McClamrock’s comments. The good Professor embodies all that is awry with the state of both political discourse in this country and academic inquiry in our institutions of higher education. One of my esteemed professors at UAlbany is a gentleman who is a leading scholar in the fields of peace studies and nuclear disarmament. Despite occasional differences, I have never felt discouraged from pursuing a line of questioning for fear of being labelled—dare I say it—a conservative and, by extension, much f—ing stupider than my mentor. It is not Professor McClamrock’s politics or atheism that should be at issue no matter how vehemently we may disagree. The question should not be whether or not there are enough conservatives, liberals, whites, blacks, Jews, gypsies, gays, lesbians, transgenders, or cross-dressers in our colleges and universities. The question is whether or not the professors we have foster open dialogue, new perspectives, fresh research, and intriguing methodologies. Professors who are so imbibed in their own ideology and so obviously impressed with their own commentary, to my mind, will have a very difficult time in doing so. The level of mistrust, or perhaps disgust, with which so many Americans currently view anyone considered “them” as opposed to “us” is disgraceful. I may not place the same value on diversity as others on this list but I would fully expect tolerance and respect be practiced to the highest degree among those given the charge of educating our young people. Yes, Mr. McClamrock, even conservatives and Christians.

Patrick, at 10:26 am EDT on August 26, 2005

Read the articles

The scales the authors used to come up with the conclusion that the number of liberals doubled over such a short period are not equivalent.

One is a five point scale, the other is a ten point scale. Of course, in the 1980s when a five point scale was used, there were more at the “moderate” position of 3. In their study, Rothman et al. used a ten point scale and found, alas, fewer faculty at the “moderate” position of 5 and more on the center left.

If ideological tempers cooled down, one would see that there is much to critique about the methodology of the original study.

bill, at 11:34 am EDT on August 26, 2005

The data being cited is clearly inconclusive as they allow multiple interpretations and the studies were not conceived to eliminate competing explanations.

The author’s rhetorical technique of analogizing between “conservatives” and “minorities, women, and gays” is invalid on a number of counts. For one, minorities, women and gays ARE conservatives, so these are not mutually exclusive categories. Second, these are, ontologically, very different kinds of categories. On similar lines, no matter how many questionably constructed arguments against “affirmative action” the author the author challenges, this does not make the case for the opposite claim.

Here’s a couple of speculative explanations as to why, IF we actually do, see relatively fewer conservatives in academe. The center has moved so far to the right (is this disputable?) in the last 20-25 years, that what used to be the middle of the socio-political spectrum is now the left. Second, it seems possible to me that the values, beliefs and mission of colleges and universities as they have been formulated and implemented in the last 100 years or so are rather at odds with a the precepts and values of many stripes of conservatism. I am not saying that one set of values is superior to another here, just that there is a mismatch. Is it coincidence, for instance, that we talk about “liberal arts” and a “liberal education"? Presumably, values and beliefs are what make someone conservative to a large extent. So, what we may have is a clash of values and beliefs not discrimination. My humanist values are at odds with those that prevail in corporations, so I don’t pursue jobs in them. If I did, and found the environment “hostile” would that be discrimination? Many conservatives want education to conserve and preserve, but the missions of institutions of higher ed are in many ways about exploration, experimentaion and discovery.

Lastly, here’s a point I’d like to make about so-called conservative affirmative action. As soon as we consider the same kind of liberal affirmative action in other public institutions (e.g. administrative branches of government, law enforcement, corrections, etc.) and not just universities, then we’ll be able to address this issue. But of course it will have nothing to do with “affirmative action” a philosophy and set of policies being misapplied here, I think, for cynical reasons. And, when corporations and their boards also ensure political equality among their administrators, employees and board members, then claims of “bias” in academe can be considered. Corporations, according to the law, must have fair, “unbiased” hiring practices as much as colleges. They exist by virtue of state charter and must follow the law of the land. So, if you want to extend, inappropriately in my view, affirmative action type policies in higher education to political affiliation, then to be consistent, you should be calling for the same measures in the private sector.

Skeptical in Berkeley, I’m not convinced, at 11:34 am EDT on August 26, 2005

What the ...

“Corporations, according to the law, must have fair, “unbiased” hiring practices as much as colleges ..”

Then Sweet Jesus in Heaven, what is this about?

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/diversity

Thank you for making the case for today’s academia being insular, blindly one-sided, and ignorant of reality.

(My God, this is like shooting fish in a barrel .. thanks, IHE)

A.D., at 1:12 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

KC,

I hear ya, but I have to agree with JMD on this one. As a registered independent who leans to the right, I have found most academics to be reasonable people with good intentions. I do not believe that my political beliefs were an issue when I came up for tenure (which was successful), and I do not feel that formal steps need to be taken to ensure ideological diversity.

That said, I am in the minority in my department and in my discipline. My views are often challenged by my colleagues, and I will always have to play more “defense” than “offense” when presenting some of my ideas at conferences or in my writings. But, ya know what, KC? What ever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. My work will be better because I will have considered counterarguments. So, stop complaining and start nurturing a new generation of resilient young men and women who can challenge prevailing academic orthodoxies!!!

ES, at 1:13 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

One thing nicely revealed in this piece, and in so many responses by the faculty, is how little knowledge the professors have of Right of center arguments, texts, and people. Why is it that so many take a couple of conservative polemicists as an adequate representation of conservative thought?

mark, at 1:15 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Point of Information

Another great analysis about the problems besetting academia.

As a point of information, “JMD” refers to two professors he knows who might be “nutcakes,” because one announced to his class that Pres. “Rosenfeld” got us into WW II, and another thought “Stalin got a bad rap.” Well, one of them has appeared here in the person of Grover Furr, who, besides asserting all conservatives are fascists and racists in disguise, has made a career arguing that Stalin, among other wonderful things, was innocent of the many crimes attributed to him. In other words, he got a “bad rap.”

Jerry, Retired Prof., at 2:59 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Conservatives in Bus-schools?

Are business school, medical school, and engineering school professors really conservative? Don’t believe it till we see some evidence. In my own b-school department, a hallway poll had a pretty even Bush-Kerry split. I know 50-50 seems very conservative to some people, but my guess is that business, medical, and engineering profs are more likely to mirror the general population than to be especially conservative.

Eric Rasmusen, at 3:00 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

As the father of two recent college grads, I can say that it doesn’t really matter. The kids know how to keep their mouths shut, regurgitate receieved wisdom on the tests, and forget it. Professors, not getting much negative feedback, think they’re believed. Nope.The annoying part is having to pay for the privilege, but that’s a minor issue.

Richard Aubrey, at 3:17 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Arguement

The private sector is fundamentally different in its goals from the Academic world — the role of the private sector is to obtain additional money for owners and shareholders.

The role of academia is supposed to be preparing and training individuals for their future in society.

Whereas there are many opportunities outside the corporate world, there are few ways to become comparably educated ouside of the walls of academia. Conservative and liberals alike have to pass through this phase in order to enter advanced (and I use this term loosely) careers.

This role has been placed aside in favor of vainly trying to use academic offices to oppose the progress of corporate growth and economics.

As to the role of being critical of society, any criticism has a defense (some more so than others). The should be some leeway given to the defense of ideas that do not agree with those of the professors, conservative or liberal.

As to the concept of conservatives being exclusively responsible for brutality in the modern world, we need look no further than the USSR; Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was as brutal as Western Imperialism in Asia and Africa, if also somewhat shorter lived.

Nations like the US (Reagan, Bush) and UK (Thatcher) have democratically elected very conservative leaders recently; Leftist leaders, including Castro and everyone in the USSR/Russia before Putin ruled by miliatary fiat (Putin is little better). No, liberal ideology is no more democratic than conservativism in the modern era.

Apologists for the atrocities commited by adherants to either ideological perspective should realize that the idea of justice does not belong to a particular ideology, and should debated from multiple perspectives without resorting to needless infighting.

Incidentally, most conservatives will publically and privately oppose Nazism in most any expression, and disavow its ideals. I would like to see the same from many on the left with regard to Marxism.

Kevin, Undergraduate, at 3:25 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Shooting fish in a barrel

Touched a nerve, A.D., have I?

“Like shooting fish in a barrel.” I think you meant, like shooting yourself in the foot, or, perhaps, shooting your mouth off. Your bombast seems designed to distract not engage or refute.

If you truly believe in the policies of affirmative action being applied in the way suggested by Horowitz and others to hiring in higher education, than other public institutions would need to be considered as well. Apparently, that fish isn’t so easily shot, because you failed to address this point in your rant. If you failed to grasp the point, let me spell it out for you. The point is that applying the concept of affirmative action in this way is specious and probably cynical. The proof of this is that conservatives do NOT agitate for “balanced” hiring in other institutions where conservatives hold sway. And, when this is pointed out, you fly into a rant and change the subject. This rhetorical ploy is as old as obfuscation itself.

Gone Fishin’

Still Skeptical, at 3:25 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

The real point?

Richard Aubrey’s post is what ought to truly concern academics. If this is true (and there certainly is a lot of anecdotal evidence for it, even if it hasn’t been studied fully), then the academe is failing miserably. Ideology may be a reason; it may be the reason. Certainly, academics are not free from egotism, lust for power, or other human foibles, regardless of ideology.

But, using the words without their political baggage, this is teaching the students to be as conservative as possible. There is no liberal education happening, if “regurgitating received wisdom” is the formula for success as an undergraduate.

Barry, at 3:38 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Grover Furr

Grover give the standard party line from the MoveOn.org wing of the liberal side. I’m from Montclair, N.J. a town the very epitome of a lock step liberal crowd that cannot brook the thought that there possibly may be a different viewpoint than theirs. The Furr-liberals do not want intellectual diversity because it would take a portion of the rostrum they now inhabit alone. To allow an alternative to the intellectually weak brand of liberalism they espouse is unthinkable. When a conservative comes on campus who is shouting them down instead of challenging them on an intellectual level? The Furr-liberals. Who steals conservative student newspapers when they don’t like the content? The Furr-liberals. They are all about supression of true diversity not promotion of it.

Richard Cook, at 3:52 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Barry, I don’t know if this will make you feel better or worse:

When I was an undergrad, parents would sometimes visit and take the lucky kid out to dinner. To my surprise, with the generation just graduated, the new custom is you take out the roommate(s) and/or several friends. Since all parents were expected to do this—I don’t think we were the only chumps—the kids ate pretty well. And we got to talk to lots and lots of their friends.

As it happens, my kids made more friends at freshmen orientation than I made in *** years. Since I went into the Army and they didn’t, it was easier to keep up friendships. And we still feed them in lots in the high single digits.

Same story. It isn’t only my kids. It’s stories about ol’ Prof Whosits who was so silly and all you had to do was pretend to believe that men are assholes and you got an A. Or that the US was awful. Since most of them went to Enormous State University, it didn’t happen often to any of them, but it happened to all of them. It is not, as I say, a problem, except for having to pay for it.The profs aren’t as influential as they think they are.

Richard Aubrey, at 4:12 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Huntly refers to “(the myth that) an objective, non-political stance towards any scholarly subject is even possible.” I saw objective, non-political stances from my professors of calculus, differential equations, advanced algebra and geometry, probability and statistics and stochastic processes, mathematical logic and foundations of mathematics, astronomy, and physics of light, sound, and mechanics. Does Huntly consider that these are not scholarly subjects? If he considers them scholarly subjects, can he tell us what political stance he detects in those who study or teach these subjects? Has he in fact ever studied any of them? Are the rigorous habits of thought those classes teach in themselves a political statement as Huntly views these matters?

Ted Shepherd, at 4:37 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

But of course!

““Conservatism” champions racism, exploitation, and imperialist war.'’

When I read that the first thing I thought was “universities must really be bad today if they’re churning out students who think this way.” Then I saw who wrote it.

David Johnson, at 4:37 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

‘ “Conservatism” champions racism, exploitation, and imperialist war. It’s the enemy of 90% of the human race, ‘

Soviet Russia, China, and even Cuba.... they practice (or did practice, in the case of the Soviets) all the things that “Conservatism” is blamed of here, yet those on the Left seem to turn a blind eye to that.

Dean, at 4:38 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Argument #1 isn’t simply academia: it’s ubiquitous among left-liberals. But this isn’t much of a problem: such individuals are where they can safely be ignored by those of us who are capable of communicating clearly, considering counterarguments, and actually changing our research results based on new evidence.

On the other hand, what have the great politically-correct shibboleths produced? Simplistic socio-economic arguments that the average electrician or general contractor can tear to shreds, and whose intellectual merits largely consist of excuses to explain why counterarguments are ipso natura lacking in sufficient merit to warrant consideration.

One side is buried under a weight of intellectual tariffs and ideological protectionism, but is slowly growing in influence... and the other side is literally unaware that others are producing and manufacturing superior intellectual products.

Why worry? Left-academe is already creaks under the weight of its own politically-correct uselessness. What is so wrong with the schadenfreude of watching these fellows smack themselves in the face with Mark Twain’s adage on ignorance?

Not conservative, not pc, at 4:38 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

I agree with Mark’s comment above, about left-leaning faculty having little knowledge about conservative thinkers and ideas.

In some respects, this doesn’t necessarily hurt conservatives, who learn to maneuver around a broad array of left-wing ideas and thinkers. But it doesn’t do the left any favors, as their thinking about many issues becomes more insular, more rooted in theory and they become less willing and able to engage with facts or realities that those outside of the academy routinely engage with. You can see that in some of the comments about this article: many would rather question the well-documented claim that the left dominates in academia and that it has become even more predominant in recent years. They keep questioning the question, oblivious to the real changes taking place around them.

As a result, universities turn out people who can spout leftist dogma but who can rarely explain or defend it against conservative arguments.

Kurt, at 5:04 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Grover Furr wrote, “it’s no leap at all to lump “conservatives” — say, David Horowitz — with racists and fascists.”

This kind of laughable misconception is exactly why more conservatives are needed in academia. Grover Furr probably has no idea of the extent of ignorance of the true range of conservative thought he demonstrates with this remark. Had he ever been exposed to discussion with more than a few conservatives or to reading a wide range of good conservative writing, he would know better than to make himself look so silly in a public forum. Sadly, this ignorance exists in Grover Furr and so many of the rest of today’s liberals and leftists precisely because they are not being exposed in college to a genuine range of political thought. It’s easy to believe that David Horowitz or Pat Robertson or Ann Coulter is truly representative of all of today’s conservatives, if that’s what it’s comfortable for you to believe, and if none of your professors or colleagues ever challenge your intellectual comfort level by presenting you with the work of thinkers who are harder to dismiss. Unfortunately, this can’t happen in many of today’s ivory towers, because they lean so firmly and exclusively to the left.

As a left-leaning Democratic student at a Seven Sisters school in the 1970s, I had an extremely intelligent Republican political science professor. I disagreed with nearly everything she said — but I learned enormously from those disagreements. As we debated, and as I listened to her discussions with other students, I learned how to think critically about my ideas and those of others, how to find facts to back up my own views or challenge hers, and — more than anything else — how important it is not to be dismissive of somebody else’s point of view before I have listened to it and thought about it. In other words, I learned to think. Now, I have children in college. From what they tell me, their professors are so homogenous and so unused to genuine debate that such experiences rarely occur. It saddens me — and it angers me, too, because I’m the one paying the tuition. And it frightens me, because I’m afraid that many of their classmates will graduate as “thinkers” like Grover Furr — people too blinded by ignorance to recognize how profoundly their prejudices cripple their ability to think.

beatrix, at 5:05 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Working with “academics” daily

I work in a career field and company that puts me in touch with “academics” on a daily basis and for the entire day (except when the breif respite comes from talking to a scientist or medical professional).

And regardless of their politics, I find them to be a whiny bunch. So easy to complain and critique something (our product) they don’t even pay for. And the funny thing is, even though it is easy to placate these cry-babies, they rarely display any positive personal chracteristics such as politeness, gratefulness, or the ability to compromise.

Just my two cents, but it does not surprise me to hear a group of people I deal with daily and do not particularly like, would vote along or hold certain political views.

jcrue, at 6:12 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Can we stipulate some facts?

“The scales the authors used to come up with the conclusion that the number of liberals doubled over such a short period ..”

A google of this matter, spanning four years, turns up zero (0.0) empirical data from one side (guess which one).

At this point — until Grover Furr shows up with his empirical data — can we just stipulate (minimally) that there are more Democrats than Republicans in soft-science academia? Would reduce bandwidth demand.

Have a nice day.

B.S.S., at 6:13 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Skepto-Wacko

“And, when this is pointed out, you fly into a rant ..”

Thanks for all the laughs. First, you long-windedly complain that corporate America should have diversity.

Then, when shown proof it does, you go wack-o.

Keep it up, pal. At this rate, Berkeley will go charter by 2012-2017, to shore up its finances, from the depth of its past stupidity.

IHE — send some of this stuff to The Daily Show. They’d never believe it.

A.D., at 6:13 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Mr. Aubrey has it right; students know it’s academic crap

“The kids know how to keep their mouths shut, regurgitate receieved wisdom on the tests, and forget it.”

Like prisoners in a gulag, the street-smart know that “to get along, go along.” Consider the case of the grad student who first questioned the famous gun-ownership study that was later debunked.

http://www.reason.com/0303/fe.jm.disarming.shtml

That student’s great reward? I understand, currently, he’s out of academia and working as a computer programmer. Some reward for academic bravery.

The Furr-Churchill-Shortell-Berbe crowd can sit on their taxpayer-owned chairs and snicker at the poor working schlubs who pay for this mandatory dreck. But their time is coming, and very soon.

Jo Jo, at 6:14 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

maybe the left isn’t the left

Speaking for my field, English lit., could it be that the right-shifting center has stranded many formerly centrist, open-minded moderates within the rubric of “the left”? Academics, at least in the humanities, are conservative, in that they “conserve” knowledge, and try to contextualize that knowledge historically. Today’s right (and I’m not lumping all people on the right – I’m referring to the “Right” as self-portrayed on Fox et. al.) clearly and resoundingly rejects such a project in favor of the talking points du jour, which tend to have little to do with either rationality or history (or, often, reality). Is it any wonder such folks are not welcome on campuses? So, when the author of this article engages in tendentious and shoddy reasoning in order to defend the virtues of fairness and objectivity (Hey!! We’re victims too!!) with a complete disregard for analysis, as other writers above have pointed out, I’m left shaking my head. These days, there’s a lot more room on the left for diversity of opinion, because the “left” covers a much wider ideological spectrum — as in the “left,” the “left-of-center,” “the center,” and the “right-of-center.” I know plenty of intelligent conservatives who would have no trouble on a campus should they choose to go there (contrary to the stereotype, there just aren’t that many frothing Stalin apologists among us); like most of us on the left – or the center — their politics take a back seat to honest inquiry. Sorry if Rush and Hannity and Horowitz don’t like what that inquiry turns up.

whatthe?, at 6:39 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Dear JoJo

That’s Berube. Too bad the crowd that taught you didn’t teach you to spell or make fine, but important, distinctions. And the “graduate student” to whom you refer is out of academe, not because he was discriminated against or persecuted, but because he’s making lots of money elsewhere and didn’t bother with the hard work of earning a doctorate.

Ralph Luker, at 7:14 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Monologues.

“Whatthe?” wrote: “Today’s right (and I’m not lumping all people on the right – I’m referring to the ‘Right’ as self-portrayed on Fox et. al.) clearly and resoundingly rejects such a project in favor of the talking points du jour, which tend to have little to do with either rationality or history (or, often, reality). Is it any wonder such folks are not welcome on campuses?”

Given the widespread administrative endorsement of students and faculty who pay to hear middle-aged women tell little stories about their vaginas, I find this claim to the intellectual high ground delightfully quaint.

J.S., at 7:38 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

I talked to my professor about the liberal bias at the top of academia and how it seems to be skewed even more there. My explanation for it is that liberalism, which is founded in atheism, is very attractive to those who are crowned the kings of reason. If you follow the Ayn Ryn idea that reason dictates true morality (or the rules we should follow), the elite in academia are the ones ultimately in charge of the rules. Isn’t it interesting how much our society has tried to conform to their ideas like affirmitive action which common sense tells us are flawed?Is it any wonder at their arrogance on the matter of who is more intelligent?

J, at 8:00 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

I’m a university student with libertarian leanings, and over the years I’ve had to put up with a lot of leftish political editorializing from certain professors in classes where it really wasn’t appropriate. I just tune it out. Getting an A is more important to me than making waves, especially when the odds are stacked against a lowly undergrad challenging a tenured prof.

PS. I’ve had a lot of great politically left professors too. I don’t think I’ve ever had a conservative professor—at least, none have identified themselves as such. And I live in a red state.

Sarah Brabazon-Biggar, at 8:00 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Campus Conservatives

I wrote an account of my experiences on the left-wing campus at Texas.

www.TheConservativeRevolution.com

I am now keeping tabs on our movement by blogging the efforts of other revolutionaries.

Brendan Steinhauser, Campus Conservatives at The Conservative Revolution, at 8:09 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Time will tell

I have to say, reading this series of comments, that I am struck by the palpable anger and grandiosity of many who write from the Left side of the argument. Wow. Doesn’t it seem even the eensy-ist bit self congratulatory to assume that everyone who disagrees with you is dumb?

As for the “dumb/self-selection” argument, I bet it was conventional wisdom in the TV news biz that there were no telegenic, personable conservatives who could be anchorpersons before Fox came along and blew that notion all to Hell. I also bet it was conventional wisdom that there was no market for conservative commentary because, after all, conservatives were too busy at the NASCAR track and too ignorant to care about world events.

Here’s a clue (from someone who has been there)— being a professor at a University IS a prestigious job, and there are many conservative intellectuals who would welcome the chance to become one. Their absence from the scene is not accidental.

godfodder, at 9:12 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Simple enough for Furr-liberals

“That’s Berube. Too bad the crowd that taught you didn’t teach you to spell or make fine, but important, distinctions.”

Thanks for the sarcasm. This is probably beyond your limited ability to understand — once items are posted in a chat-room, corrections can’t be made to the original copy. Simple enough for you? I can bring it to 1st-grade level for you, pally.

“And the “graduate student” to whom you refer is out of academe, not because he was ..”

Really? How do you know? What’s his name? Where’d he go to school? Where does he live now?

I’m waiting, sir.

Jojo, at 9:12 pm EDT on August 26, 2005

Center shifting?

>could it be that the right-shifting center has stranded many formerly centrist, open-minded moderates within the rubric of “the left”?

It seems clear to me that the center has been shifting fairly steadily toward more freedom (’left’?) on social issues for at least a century. On economic issues there has also been a shift toward more freedom (’right’?) for the last 30 years.

Unfortunately, the ‘current left’ seems to want to restrict social freedom with reverse discrimination, and conserve government control over markets.

Steve, at 6:29 am EDT on August 27, 2005

Hard Work

Jojo, Don’t you just love the elitism of the theory class? In Ralph Luker’s world, getting a Ph.D is hard work (it is). But, making lots of money in the free market is for slackers, intellectually demeaning and morally beneath the deep thinkers in academia.

Grant Jones, at 6:29 am EDT on August 27, 2005

JoJo

Try Clayton Cramer, M. A. from Sonoma State, now living in Idaho.

Ralph Luker, at 6:30 am EDT on August 27, 2005

Wow!

Many of the comments are even better examples of the profound intellectual laziness and mediocrity that dominate Academia than the carefully chosen “moneyquotes” in the original article. I love how many of the disparity defenders merely ape or slightly revise the lame and simultaneously outrageous defenses as if they were saying something new or important. That’s the problem in a nutshell: A total lack of original thought.

Here’s your chance to catch the clue train, professors:

1. It’s a rare student who will challenge the self-important windbag of a sphinx on the road to Thebes, but it’s a spectacle every bit as riveting as a clown fish dismantling a rock lobster when they occassionaly do.

2. Conservatives don’t generally become professors because the decision isn’t theirs to make. That honor is reserved for open-minded types like Professor Furr.

Mark, survivor at Enormous State University, at 6:31 am EDT on August 27, 2005

In re: Grant Jones

Grant Jones doesn’t know me or what I think about making lots of money in a free market or what is intellectually demeaning or morally unworthy of anyone. He just runs his mouth about lots of things he knows nothing about.

Ralph Luker, at 9:12 am EDT on August 27, 2005

Academe

I think Professor Johnson’s piece hits the nail on the head. I was a history professor in a regular college. Today I work for a much nicer group of people, namely the United States Marine Corps. The problem is that once the radicals got tenure in the 1960s, they generally hired people who were mirror images of themselves. One friend of mine at a large midwestern university complained that his department hired ten straight “gender” historians. This is reflective of a problem in academe today, especially history. Whole sub-disciplines in history, such as diplomatic history and especially military history, have all but disappeared from the curricula of colleges, with some notable exceptions. They have been replaced with the sort of trendy stuff that seems to be more appealing to the left side of the spectrum. Another problem is the loss of professionalism on the part of college faculty. When I was an undergraduate, my politics were quite different from that of my teachers, who were rather liberal. Nonetheless, they always encouraged my interest in military history, and did what they could to help advance my career. This seems to me is what is lacking today. That is a shame.

RLD, Professor, at 9:12 am EDT on August 27, 2005

JoJo...

Clayton Cramer’s name is well-known to those who watched the Bellesiles Colonial gun-ownership story unfold (or, “implode"). You might, or might not, call sharp-tongued Ralph Luker a conservative. But he’s forthright, honest, and oft-unpredictable in his online commentary. A read of the web-log Cliopatria at hnn.com might make that point.

On another subject, I’m routinely struck by the distance between John Stuart Mills’ conception of liberal thought, and the ideas commonly espoused by many of today’s political Liberals. This comment thread provides another example.

AMac, at 11:29 am EDT on August 27, 2005

Politics aside (which is, of course, a pretty huge “aside"), the academic life may be attractive because, while the pay is not extremely high (do these full professors at state colleges or even at Ivy Leagues honestly think they should be compared with, say, the CEO of a Fortune 500 — if they had gone into business is that really where the percentages or their skills would indicate they would be?) it is quite respectable. The benefits are large. Once you have tenure, you can not be fired. (Unless your school is willing to risk being blackballed by the AAUP, etc.) Your health & retirement benefits are those of upper business management. Your respect in the community is generally as high as upper management. Besides, at what other jobs can you expect to only have to appear for 3-6 hours per week, can you at your own discretion decide not to appear for some of those hours, expect to have a long Christmas, a decent spring break and a quite long summer (3-4 months)? Of course, you should be turning out an important book every 5-10 years and a few articles every year. You needn’t, of course, do that after you get tenure, though if you do, you are likely to get a year off here and there. Quite unimportant scholars in their field are likely to get several semesters completely off between the time they are hired and time they retire. People who are not major names in their fields are still likely to get a year or two in Europe during their worklife. If you like to read and write, it is a pretty good job. If you don’t, well, it is an easy one.

Secondly, the accountability factor is pretty much nil. No matter how accurate or inaccurate a professor’s remarks are, few students are likely to challenge them and if, a year later say, the professor discovers that perhaps they should say something else, well, the audience is new and is not likely to point out the discrepancy. This is not unrelated to the other advantage to teaching — the low level of accountability. The greatest political slants are to areas that do not “test” the graduates. The departments most likely to skew heavily left are those without any clear cut standards (the soft sciences, the liberal arts), while those in which students have to demonstrate their knowledge in the real world (engineering, for instance, or medicine) or those with state boards (again, engineering, medicine, law) tend to be less interested in hiring on ideology and more on command of the area.

In other words, if you like to talk and say pretty much whatever you want to say, if you like security, if you don’t like to be held accountable and, indeed,like to be able to forget what you said the year before whenever it is convenient, well, academia is the place for you. (This is from someone with a Ph.D., who found the work of getting it quite pleasant and writing 600 pages quite fun. And I’m someone who stands in front of a class each week. I just know what’s easy and what isn’t because I also ran a business.)

Ginny, at 11:30 am EDT on August 27, 2005

This all reminds me of the discussion in _That noble dream : the “objectivity question” and the American historical profession_ by Peter Novick.

Novick shows how each generation of scholars presented their biases, beliefs, and opinions as objective scholarship. However, changes outside the academy ultimately forced changes to the definition of objective.

Today we have the same situation, a generation of scholars dominates and their biases, opinions, and, overwhelmingly, their emotions define what is objective, scholarly, and intellectual. Needless to say, this generation seeks to replicate itself and it has succeeded to a degree. Twenty years from now, things will be different.

KC shows why I did not pursue a career in higher ed, as I did not wish to have my tenure case decided by people who felt they were smarter, had an ideological bone to pick with the world, or felt they were unfairly picked on. Such people seek to find agreement and label any disagreement unintelligent

OutofHigherEd, at 11:30 am EDT on August 27, 2005

Liberalism isn’t bs

I’m one of those left-liberal academics—but give me a break. I’m not into the crap about “diversity” or “post-modernism": everyone with academic street smarts knows that the “diversity” business is just a way for a few people in sociology and education to get grants and vita entries. Most of us left-liberals, including some who exploit the diversity business, know it’s bs and despise the whole thing.

We’re also quite aware of the bs coming from students who imagine that by “regurgitating” and pretending to agree with our liberal notions they’ll impress us. If they cite sources, produce arguments and write coherently I’m obliged to give decent grades, and do—but I cut them no slack and never give them the benefit of the doubt because I don’t like being patronized and don’t find reading regurgitated papers very entertaining.

And you bet I’m a left-liberal: I’m a registered Democrat in the absence of any viable further left parties, support big government, high taxes and intrusive regulations, and wish, hopelessly, for the advent of a cradle-to-grave welfare state. That’s what liberalism is about—recognizing government as the solution, not the problem and supporting policies that promote security, fairness and “positive freedom.” It isn’t about diversity or relativism or multiculturalism or any of the bs that gets pinned on us.

LogicGuru, Professor, at 11:30 am EDT on August 27, 2005

Flying Furr

Is it Prof. Furr? In what sense could a person who wrote the above be considered educated?

This is mere cant and of the kind one often hears in academe.

Wyck, at 1:43 pm EDT on August 27, 2005

Yes, there is a leftist bias in academia, and there are some professors and graduate students who will mark your grade lower if you’re conservative and it’s less likely you’ll be hired for an academic position if you’re openly conservative. I don’t think it’s as bad overall as people like David Horowitz says and affirmative action is certainly not the answer (though he says that is not what he is for).

For anyone who truly believes that there is not bias in some fields, simply look at the American Sociology Association and the job announcements in the job bulletin. The ASA is openly pushing “public sociology", some (formerly) good journals are adopting it as criteria when reviewing submitted articles, and the President of ASA is wanting to get schools to use it to hire people. It is nothing more than activism and a certain leftist ideology. Aside from “public sociology", there are numerous job announcements that look for “critical” theorists, those interested in “social justice", and other code for leftists.

LB, at 1:44 pm EDT on August 27, 2005

Dr. Luker: thank you

“Try Clayton Cramer, M.A. from Sonoma State, now living in Idaho”

Obviously, challenging the dominant paradigm/existing orthodoxy can lead to .. the middle of nowhere. Who says academic bravery doesn’t pay off? I see students rushing to the dean’s office now ..

As Mr. Aubrey noted — students today are as cynical, critical, and street-smart as a Gotti-gang soldier — watch the rant, party all weekend, load rant into RAM for exam, spew rant onto exam, leave with 4.0/A grade and no new knowledge. No wonder Chindia is winning the job-creation war.

I’m waiting for Grover Furr to explain why it is wrong for the GWB crowd to dominate federal elected government — but it is OK for his crowd to dominate soft-science academia. What a load of horse-apples!

Jojo, at 2:08 pm EDT on August 27, 2005

FYI: More on this @ VOLOKH

note reference to study-in-progress on political affiliations among law school faculty ..

http://volokh.com/archives/archiv...05_08_21-2005_08_27.shtml#1125075855

http://volokh.com/admin/trackbackdrum.pl?post=1125075855

Bob A., at 2:08 pm EDT on August 27, 2005

My Dear Mr. Luker

You wrote: “And the “graduate student” to whom you refer is out of academe, not because he was discriminated against or persecuted, but because he’s making lots of money elsewhere and didn’t bother with the hard work of earning a doctorate.”

If you didn’t mean to imply that making lots of money in the real world is not hard work, unlike earning a doctorate, or that having a Ph.D makes you a superior human being compared to us money grubbers, please clarify.

Your animosity towards Cramer is well known. Thanks for the update on how academia treats its whistle blowers.

Grant Jones, at 5:11 pm EDT on August 27, 2005

LogicGuru: That’s what most of us call “socialism.” Irritating as it is that you cannot distinguish between “liberal” and “socialist,” nevertheless, if you are actually doing what you claim to, then, indeed, you are not part of the problem.

*Having* leftists in the university isn’t an issue. Leftists (into which I define p.c., as a particular form of communitarianism melded with identity politics) shutting everybody out of the game... is an issue, and the game-rigging is blatantly obvious to everybody involved who’s not a leftist/left-liberal/ p.c. communitarian.

However, it’s a problem that increasingly solves itself... to the general amusement of the rest of us who have the social skills to work either/both in and out of academia.

Not conservative, not pc, at 5:11 pm EDT on August 27, 2005

Responses

Many thanks to those who took the time to comment on my piece. A few responses:

1.) While I find the debate interesting, the article doesn’t take a position on the validity of the various studies suggesting a left-leaning tilt in contemporary academia. My concern solely is with the often inflammatory nature of the responses by those defenders of the status quo who have accepted the validity of the studies.

2.) I don’t see anything irreconcilable to the right-leaning libertarian’s approach of mentoring interested students/believing that what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger and pointing out the harmful effects of what appears to be the growing concentration in the academy at one ideological pole. In my own field of History, for instance, this transformation has had a clearcut deleterious curricular effect, leading to the diminution or elimination of subfields (wrongly) perceived as “conservative"—such as political, legal, diplomatic, or military history. Simply saying that dissenting faculty should mentor interested students doesn’t help much when courses have been eliminated or redefined beyond recognition.

3.) On John Wilson’s point, the Brown program to which I linked lists as one of its goals bringing people to campus for genuine left-right debates. In any event, the claim that a lack of intellectual diversity was having a harmful effect on campus culture didn’t come from me—but from the Brown president herself.

4.) I’m careful not to claim that a dichotomy exists between women/minorities on the one hand and “conservatives” on the other. The programs that I criticized (Oregon, Columbia, Arizona) all impose explicit ideological criteria in the name of pursuing affirmative action, and call for “diversity” in gender and race but only in such a way that will reinforce the ideological status quo.

5.) I don’t claim that a single, “objective” standard exists to judge job or tenure applicants, at least in the humanities and social sciences. It is the very subjectivity of the academic personnel process, coupled with the often troubling rationalizations of the academy’s ideological imbalance, that raises concern. Does anyone really believe that a couple of the more extreme commenters above would objectively judge applicants that they perceived as differing from them on ideological or pedagogical issues?

KC Johnson, Professor of History at Brooklyn College, at 6:35 pm EDT on August 27, 2005

In re KC and to Grant Jones

I’m glad to see KC’s measured response to some of the more outrageous responses in this discussion.To JoJo and Grant: I have no personal animous toward Clayton Cramer, but it is fraudulent to argue that CC is some kind of oppressed refugee from academe. He opted out by not pursuing graduate study. He isn’t being and hasn’t been punished by anyone. He’s made a lot of money and did so by his own choice and his own work. I don’t see anything dishonorable in that. But it is absurd for him and his minions to point to him repeatedly as an example of a conservative whose “brilliance” was punished by left-leaning academics. That whine is boring, tiresome, and wrong. And when his personal bitterness leads him to make absurd generalizations about professors of history in the United States, I reserve the right to call him out on it.

Ralph Luker, at 9:02 pm EDT on August 27, 2005

For the other side ..

Point your browers toward ..

http://www.claytoncramer.com/

As a full-fledged constitutionalist, I am most concerned when there is concentration of power — political, economic, or social. From Tammany Hall, to court-packing attempts, to Standard Oil, concentration of power has been a concern.

How anyone, with one iota of common sense, could not see the overwhelming concentration of political love for one of two major political parties (take a guess) in soft-science academia, is inane, silly, and ridiculous.

If the Furr-BeRUBE-Churchill-Shortell crowd can’t see that concentration of social power — they will require others to show it to them. That’s their issue — no one else’s.

Jojo, at 5:16 am EDT on August 28, 2005

JoJo. You misunderstand my characterization of the kids. They are not cynical, as far as I can see. They do not, however, think they need to put up with adults’ nonsense. Gaming a loudmouth prof is not cynical. It is streetsmart. I wouldn’t say they leave with no new knowledge, either. Skill in gaming those who would use their position of power to jerk around those whose fate they control—at least in part—could be very useful. And, since there isn’t likely to be much of use in those classes, anyway, not much is lost, and if it is lost, it’s not lost by the kids’ regurgitating what the prof tells them (and why would that bother the prof). He didn’t have much in the class in the first place. They do like and gain from legitimate teaching.The prof who says he doesn’t like regurgitation on the papers, but will take good sourcing and logical thinking has forgotten that he provides sources and has taken pains to make his case(s) logical.He’s going to get back what he gives out.

I had a problem in school in that I could not get interested in providing a list of three-by-five references (does that date me? three-by-fives, anybody?) I had to take one side of a case and argue it. Otherwise, it was boring. I was lucky to not pick cases that had any political leanings, with one exception. And I will never forgive myself for wiggling all over like a St. Bernard pup being congratulated for going outside before messing when I hurled back a bunch of crap—and believed it for a time. The prof, who should have slapped me with a wet sandbag for my performance on the way to making me a scholar, congratulated me for making a politically-correct point in the middle of a class whose every lesson pointed in the opposite way. Bastard. But he and I were of the intellectual elite. Not like those rednecks out there. That’s an evil technique to use on young people. I don’t call it cynical when this generation doesn’t fall for it.

My kids and their friends are more church-going than I and mine were in those days, more charitable, more active in works, and kinder.

It’s just that they have figured out they don’t have to take no crap.

So sue’em.

Richard Aubrey, at 5:16 am EDT on August 28, 2005

I think academia may be missing the point. As an educated professional, and a former professor, I see no reason to waste my money sending my sons to an institution that is more focused on teaching them what to think than how to think critically.

I have worked with many very succesful people who were either self-educated or trained in the military so I don’t see a college education as a prerequesite for success. the value of a college education is that it should teach the student to think critically, research and problem solve. If academia is successful in debasing higher education to the level of an indoctrination course it becomes valueless and I suspect that there are many other parents who will choose to spend their education budgets elsewhere.

Michael Sullivan, at 5:17 am EDT on August 28, 2005

“JoJo”

Good to see Clayton Cramer come out of his “JoJo” closet. At least, it assures me that Cramer doesn’t have a minion to carry that much water for him. It’s also instructive to scroll back up the comment lines to read the pitiful self-serving drek he published here about himself. Grow up, Cramer. You can’t talk about yourself as qualified for a place in the classroom and, at the same time, rail about Ward Churchill. His credentials are as strong and as weak as yours.

Ralph Luker, at 8:13 am EDT on August 28, 2005

Losing confidence in soft-science academia

Are students cynical, or is the process cynical? Is it just about creditialism, a cynical game of jump-through-the-hoop? If the classic movie “The Paper Chase” was shown today, would students ‘get it?’

A few life-notes from someone who lived in a time when HP’s Dave Packard had a listed number (and would take a call from a 12-year-old) and Silicon Valley still grew prunes —

Steve Jobs at Stanford — “Be Young, Be Foolish”

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

In today’s intellectually-ossified, taxpayer-owned soft-science academia, to be young and foolish is to ask Jane Fonda Fan Club members, “why do you think America and Republicans are the biggest morons in the world?” Or, to build-on Ms. Janet Jackson: “What have you done lately — that has been so brilliant?” And doing that, while as Jobs did, rapidly depleting your parents’ life savings.

My advice to advisees: if, on Day 1, a professor seems like a Tom Hayden-wannabe, drop the class, immediately. Take an extra year, if necessary. Do whatever it takes. Your parents will thank you. You will thank me.

And, hopefully, the professor involved will be permanently assigned to freshman seminars, until she/he takes early retirement or has to go to The Betty Ford Clinic.

B.S.S., at 9:00 am EDT on August 28, 2005

Why I am not in academia

Dr. Luker says:

And the “graduate student” to whom you refer is out of academe, not because he was discriminated against or persecuted, but because he’s making lots of money elsewhere and didn’t bother with the hard work of earning a doctorate.Just to clarify JoJo’s misapprehension on this: I was already working as a software engineer when I went back to get my BA and MA in History. I decided not to pursue a Ph.D. for a number of reasons, of which the most powerful was that I’m not yet independently wealthy, and so I can’t really afford to teach full-time. (One of these days, perhaps.)

A secondary reason was that as I discovered during the Bellesiles scandal, there is a powerful (although perhaps not numerically large) minority of historians who are more interested in winning political contests by falsifying history than they are interested in the pursuit of truth. Since these are the gatekeepers at a number of the history journals, and will not be retiring until about the time that I die, it seems rather pointless to pursue an academic career.

I’ve never had a problem getting a book published—until now. The difficulty is that because I have written a book that while not a direct refutation of Bellesiles’s claims, does demolish them quite effectively, there is no way to get this book published. (You can read the first five chapters here.)

Trade publishers insist that it belongs at a university press. University presses insist that there is no place for a book like this with them, or that the topic isn’t of any academic interest, or that there is nothing new here. (Chapter 3, an examination of race and gun control in Colonial America, blows that claim out of the water.) There was a plce for Bellesiles’s book, however, even though it was fraudulent—probably because it was indeed novel (in the sense of being fiction).

Clayton E. Cramer, none at none, at 12:48 pm EDT on August 28, 2005

I’m not JoJo

Dr. Luker writes: Good to see Clayton Cramer come out of his “JoJo” closet. At least, it assures me that Cramer doesn’t have a minion to carry that much water for him. It’s also instructive to scroll back up the comment lines to read the pitiful self-serving drek he published here about himself. Grow up, Cramer. You can’t talk about yourself as qualified for a place in the classroom and, at the same time, rail about Ward Churchill. His credentials are as strong and as weak as yours.Dr. Luker, if you are implying that “JoJo” is me posting under a pseudonym, you are incorrect. I don’t use pseudonyms.

My credentials are stronger than Ward Churchill’s in several rather important ways:

1. I’m not a plagiarist.

2. I don’t falsely claim to be an American Indian to get job hiring preference, and to be tenured faculty at a major universit without a Ph.D.

3. I don’t falsify history for political purposes.

Of course, that’s why Professor Churchill is tenured faculty, and I will never be.

Clayton E. Cramer, none at none, at 12:49 pm EDT on August 28, 2005

I agree with the other posters that the unprofessionalism shown by the Johnson’s examples, including the gross example of politically correct bigotry by Furr as shown in is email – which would otherwise earn him a semester in sensitivity training) is rare in the university environment. Most of us are opinionated to be sure, but are also mature enough to have one foot in reality and some diplomacy and more than a few manners. Yet we continue to hear of an episode of abuse here and another episode there – enough episodes to make a few seasons of a gripping trashy television series that would out-Dynasty Dynasty (complete with a drinking game). So why do we keep hearing of these cases, and why are they left to fester until, as an example, the courts have to intervene and the school is humiliated among the civil liberties and common sense set?

I’d say that it’s a fair back-of-the-envelope guess that at least one such abuser of privilege exists on each campus. Unfortunately, it takes one tenured teenager on a committee of otherwise bored and otherwise busy adults to let such unprofessional conduct and bigotries to seep into policy and embarrass the school as a whole. If anyone is to blame for such behavior representing a university it is the rest of the faculty who see ourselves as too busy to exert professional standards while having the faith that things will iron themselves out without the balance of the community’s rational involvement. Mea Culpa.

Bill, at 3:42 pm EDT on August 28, 2005

My HTML filtered out

It appears that I tried to be too clever in adding HTML to my two most recent postings.

http://www.claytoncramer.com/ArmedAmericaTeaser.pdf is the first five chapters of the book that isn’t going anywhere.

Clayton E. Cramer, none at none, at 4:43 pm EDT on August 28, 2005

Got the “wall paper", Got the job

I have found that employers care more about my resume-building activities during my undergrad years than about the actual degree itself (My higher-level staff position only required a Bachelor...therefore, I supplied one). Recognizing this after only one quarter/semester, I simply resigned myself to strengthen my quads, glutes and hamstrings for the rest of the hoops that were in front of me. Many professors get little response in the classroom because there is no stimulating arguments or compelling reasons to create one. Most students roll their eyes (if they’re even open in the first place) and calculate what amount of points are required to acheive the desired grade. That’s it! It’s all based on how many points one can afford to lose...the rest is just details. That means that there is little care for anything other than getting to the next semester repeatedly until 4-5 years have passed. At which point the sheep will continue to worship the golden bull at the podium while the real thinkers debated on their own time for more fruitful results...But I am now positively off-course. All a modern student truly cares about is “getting out” of the bureaucratic, process-laden, money-sucking institution.

Stop kidding yourselves...you and your institution are (for the overwhelming majority of students...anecdotally, of course) just a means to an end. Basically...like so many bad “business opportunities"...I simply “paid to get paid". So, I come full circle to why I am on staff...I don’t have the capacity to insulate myself and whine like many a faculty member.

RL, Staff at Private College, at 8:49 pm EDT on August 28, 2005

Brown University

K.C. Johnson was kind enough the mention Brown’s new Political Theory Project (PTP), of which I am the founding director.

A clarification perhaps worth adding: Brown’s PTP is not a “diversity initiative"—or if it is, it is quite unlike any other. Most of the so-called “diversity initiatives” being formed on campuses across the nation take an adversarial approach to their home institutions. Too often, “diversity” is a code word for a particular political agenda, rather than a marker of a sincere appreciation of the fact that free thinking is possible only insofar as diverse viewpoints are brought into contact on a regular basis. Among our visiting fellows for 2005-6, for example, we have a Hayekian libertarian, a hard left deliberative democrat, and a Strassian conservative. I myself am a practicing catholic and a committed classical liberal. We all learn from each other, and carry insights and lessons from each other into our classes, everyday. This, we believe, is Brown at its best. The PTP thus understands itself as an organic and indeed welcome part of Brown. Rather, than seeking to inject intellectual diversity, the Project instead attempts to serve as a model of intellectual diversity, a model designed in a manner befitting a great and confident university.

Our website is: www.Brown.edu/ptp.

Thank you.

John Tomasi, Associate Professor of Political Science at Brown University, at 2:13 pm EDT on August 29, 2005

Please be fair, Professor Johnson.

First, let me say that I agree with Professor KC Johnson that more pluralism and open thought is needed in academia (although I don’t believe that party affiliations are an accruate measure of openness).

However, I wish that Professor Johnson was more fair in dealing with his opponents. Many of the professors who Professor Johnson attacks did not make the argument that he attributes to them:

(1)Rhonda Garelick’s article did not state her New York Times article that she “discussed her opposition to the war” with her French students; she only stated that she (unsuccessfully) “broached” the war to stimulate discussion of contempoary issues. Personally, I would not want to discuss Iraq in my French class, but there is a distinction between trying to generate discussion about a subject and tryng to indoctrinate students.

(2) Rashid Khalidi never told New York that Middle East Studies should aim to debunk students of their pro-Israel viewpoints. Rather, his point was that much of the controversy at Colubmia stemmed from many Jewish students not having been exposed to perspectives critical of Zionism prior to attending Columbia. He contrasted these students to Arab-American students, who were familiar with the Zionist perspective because of its prevalance in American media and political culture, and therefore better equipped to handle discordant views when they got to college. While you can disagree with Professor Khalidi’s argument (as I do, to a certain extent), he not making a pedagogical case for an anti-Zionist curriculum or for Arab students’ superior epistemology.

And I should point out that Dr. Khalidi has been highly praised at Columbia for his teaching manner, even by students involved with the David Project.

(3)Neither Juan Cole nor Russell Jacoby (I couldn’t find Erwin Chemerinsky’s original quote) never claimed or implied that “a left-leaning professoriate is a structural necessity, because the liberal arts faculty must balance business school faculty and/or the general conservative political culture.” What Jacoby and Cole said was that conservatives focused on the left-wing orientation of certain departments while ignoring the more conservative orientations of other, far more influential disciplines.

I agree that the political breakdown of faculty in medical schools and engineering is probably irrelevant, but economic departments and business schools are a different story. These disciplines are incredibly influential in shaping poitical and economic thinking — vastly more important, certainly, than anthropology or sociology. While economists and business professors are not necesarily right-wing, they do reflect an orientation that is laudatory of markets’ capacity to solve many problems (though not all problems) and hostile to many forms of government action. At the same time, the space for economists with a more heterodox methodology or perspective (who, contrary to Professor Johnson, are not all socialists) has been progressively narrowing. The recent events at Notre Dame are a sad example of this trend: http://www.ndsmcobserver.com/medi...onicle.com/free/v49/i20/20a01201.htm

Finally, it seems that Professor Johnson is driven apopolectic by one particular defense offered by some left-wing professors: that they are forcing students to confront hegemonic ideas which would otherwise go unchallenged. Yet I would like to point out that the Political Theory Project (which I support) explicitly offers itself as a counter-balance to “Collectivist and quasi-socialist political perspectives abound[ing] within many universities.” It offers “Liberty Lunches” centered entirely around conservative or libertarian thinkers. Doesn’t the Political Theory Project demonstrate that academics can adopt an explicit political orientation while still stimulating free thinkng?

Peter, at 9:42 pm EDT on September 1, 2005

Sorry, it appears the links I provided about the Notre Dame Economics Department were bad. Here’s the story in the Notre Dame Student newspaper, The Observer:http://www.ndsmcobserver.com/medi...iversity.Has.Its.Limits-662388.shtml

And the story in The Chronicle of Higher Education:http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i20/20a01201.htm

Peter, at 5:01 am EDT on September 2, 2005

Conservative mathematicians?

How exactly do conservatives get excluded from Departments of Mathematics, Physics, Biochemistry, etc.? I’m sure political bias is a lousy explanation.

pedro, at 9:51 am EDT on September 2, 2005

Soft-pedalling Columbia’s Islamo-Fascist Apologists

Peter’s description of what was going on at Columbia is either ignorant or disengenious. The New York Sun did extensive reporting on this situation, and it is well documented that jewish students were haranged by the professor and treated as second class citizens.

Mark, at 4:16 pm EDT on September 2, 2005

Soft-pedalling Columbia’s Islamo-Fascist Apologists

Mark, I didn’t pass judgement on Columbia’s Middle East Professors, just on Professor Khalidi. As I pointed out above, even the Jewish students involved with the David Project said they respected Rashid Khalidi as a professor. The New York Sun has been obsessed with Rashid Khalidi since he was awarded a chair at Columbia, but, as far as I can tell, it has been unable to find any students disgrunted with Khalidi’s teaching.

Peter, at 5:08 am EDT on September 3, 2005

This is all drivel. Why? How can you measure how many people are “left” and “right” over time (or conservative vs liberal)? These are essentially relative concepts, in that they are relative to a concept that is ever changing. In fact, the terms “right” and “left” come from a time when the “right” defended the god given rights of kings, and the “left” included people like Adam Smith and john stuart mill. If we tried to s

Proving the Critics’ Case

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Thank you, Ruth.

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We can never have too few “conservative faculty”

All-encompassing?

Data is self-evident, IMHO

The Myth of Objectivity

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Embarrassing...

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Point of Information

Conservatives in Bus-schools?

Arguement

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Grover Furr

But of course!

Working with “academics” daily

Can we stipulate some facts?

Skepto-Wacko

Mr. Aubrey has it right; students know it’s academic crap

maybe the left isn’t the left

Dear JoJo

Monologues.

Campus Conservatives

Time will tell

Simple enough for Furr-liberals

Center shifting?

Hard Work

JoJo

Wow!

In re: Grant Jones

Academe

JoJo...

Liberalism isn’t bs

Flying Furr

Dr. Luker: thank you

FYI: More on this @ VOLOKH

My Dear Mr. Luker

Responses

In re KC and to Grant Jones

For the other side ..

“JoJo”

Losing confidence in soft-science academia

Why I am not in academia

I’m not JoJo

My HTML filtered out

Got the “wall paper", Got the job

Brown University

Please be fair, Professor Johnson.

Conservative mathematicians?

Soft-pedalling Columbia’s Islamo-Fascist Apologists

Soft-pedalling Columbia’s Islamo-Fascist Apologists