<p>As things stand, such behaviors shift in a left direction, but they could just as well move right if conservatives had the extent of control that liberals do now. The phenomenon that I have described is not so much a political matter as a social dynamic; any political position that dominates an institution without dissent deterioriates into smugness, complacency, and blindness. The solution is an intellectual climate in which the worst tendencies of group psychology are neutralized. </p>
<p>That doesn't mean establishing affirmative action for conservative scholars or encouraging greater market forces in education --*which violate conservative values as much as they do liberal values. Rather, it calls for academics to recognize that a one-party campus is bad for the intellectual health of everyone. Groupthink is an anti-intellectual condition, ironically seductive in that the more one feels at ease with compatriots, the more one's mind narrows. The great liberal John Stuart Mill identified its insulating effect as a failure of imagination: "They have never thrown themselves into the mental condition of those who think differently from them." With adversaries so few and opposing ideas so disposable, a reverse advantage sets in. The majority expands its power throughout the institution, but its thinking grows routine and parochial. The minority is excluded, but its thinking is tested and toughened. Being the lone dissenter in a colloquy, one learns to acquire sure facts, crisp arguments, and a thick skin.</p>
<p>While I agree that there are more professors who are liberal than conservatives, I find the article unconvincing in its use of evidence. To take one example: the quote about "We can't hire anybody who does not do race." It may well be that the slot to be filled has to do with some period in American history where race is important, such as the Civil War or the Reconstruction. This quote, in and of itself, does not suggest liberal bias; it reflects the fact that race has been a huge factor in American history. I would be extremely surprised, however, if a department required of a prospective historian of Japan that s/he do race, given that the Japanese consider themselves to be highly homogeneous. I would want to know the context in which this particular statement was made before I accepted it as evidence of a liberal bias. There are other examples of such tendentious arguments strewn throughout the article. </p>
<p>Personally, I think the greatest problem lies not in the make-up of the faculty, whether in terms of their personal politics or disciplinary interests, but of the student body. Hayek and ***uyama do get assigned, and read; but it's what happens in classroom discussions that will shape whether their ideas are accepted or rejected. In discussions, it is not the prof who is the most important person, it's the students.
Self-described liberal students are more likely to be found in certain disciplines; and self-described conservative students are more likely to be found in other disciplines.
During the Vietnam War protests, I recall someone did a study of the concentrations of the protesters at some colleges. Interestingly, there were more protesters in the humanities and math departments, and fewer in social sciences and sciences departments.</p>
<p>Interesting article...I must admit that overt politicism disturbs me a little bit in the classroom. As a raging liberal (by American standards anyway) I don't have a problem with the sentiment, but I do think it is a somewhat inappropriate context. I know if any of my professors started making pro-Bush statements I would be rather offended. It treads a very fine line though - explaining to students the importance of stem cell research with regards to neuroscience and then asking them to consider that when casting their votes in the election is OK, but telling students with back-to back midterms that they can't reschedule and that "life is full of disappointments...such as the fact that bush won" is pushing it over the limit.
I must admit though that I do have a hard time understanding why any person who thinks about socio-political issues can vote for Bush...probably because I am the product of such a liberal "tax and spend" nation ;)</p>
<p>Lauranne - I didn't vote for Bush, but let's just remember that Christians and Republicans allow stem cell research on every other kind of cell EXCEPT from abortions - umbilical ord cells, adult cells, etc. I only say this in the interest of being fair: there's a huge number of people out there who are laboring under the delusion that Catholics, fundamentalist Christians, and Republicans do not allow stem-cell research.</p>
<p>voronwe- thank you for pointing that out about stem cell research. It certainly got lost in the heated rhetoric of the campaign.</p>
<p>Self-selection of majors may occur among students. One point of the article, I thought, was that the same thing is happening to college faculties. Conservatives self-select other career paths, reinforcing the concentration of liberals in academia. I am sure it is true in other fields, in some cases because of the people already in the field and in others because of the political mind set required to even enter the field. I doubt there are any Libertarians that list their profession as Social Worker for example.</p>
<p>"...I do have a hard time understanding why any person..." The absence of advocates for conservative ideas means that ideas are not fully debated on college campuses. Without a vigorous opposition complacency is the result and differing viewpoints can easily be dismissed. The other side is just wrong. Or stupid, as evidenced by the widely circulated hoax after the last election that purports to show that the stronger the support for Bush, the lower the average IQ of a state's residents. The author points out that, if conservatives dominated college faculties to the same extent that liberals do now, conservatives would also fall prey to such flabby thinking. It is not a consequence of the political beliefs in question but rather the social dynamic of groups.</p>
<p>Edit-but if you don't accept the premise that there is a liberal bias in college faculties in the first place, I can see that you might dismiss the author's argument entirely.</p>
<p>My problem with the article is simplistic argument and tendentious use of evidence. Let me explain what I mean by simplist argument. Basically, the author subsumes a whole range of possible opinions under the labels "liberal" and "conservative." But what do these mean when it comes to scholarly issues and academic policies?</p>
<p>Two members of the same department can both agree on a very wide range of political issues and still disagree virulently over academic ones, from grading practices to methodology, to trends within their own disciplines. Some academics who are at polar opposites in their politics can pretty consistently agree with one another when it comes to their dislike of what they consider fads within their disciplines. Some people who are very liberal in their politics can be very hard line and traditional in their scholarly practices. One simply cannot infer the political preferences of individual profs from their scholarly opinions or vice-versa</p>
<p>Take for example, anthropologists. They've once been described as "liberals at home and conservative abroad" because their foreign experience make them want to preserve local cultures on the one hand and on the other, makes them far more tolerant of cultural diversity in their own countries. So, one might surmise that most would be liberal in their politics. The issues that divide anthropologists, however, is not how to vote in local or national elections. It's how to do fieldwork ( or even, in this post-modern climate, whether to do fieldwork at all); choice of topics (it used to be kinship and peasant societies, now it's more likely to be consumption and urban residents); it's the relationship between the anthropologist and the people and things s/he studies and how s/he writes about them. You can have colleagues who over the years vote for the same candidates in national or local elections, share the same ideas about the tax code, abortion, etc... argue fiercely with one another over these and other issues, including hiring new colleagues. </p>
<p>A range of opinions is always valuable, but I personally don't think that one could predict on the basis of who voted for whom in presidential, congressional or local elections, how individual members of departments are going to argue on academic issues. That's why I find the "liberal" and "conservative" labels in this article so unenlightening.</p>
<p>I was under impression that the survey was limited to those in humanities and social sciences, people in those fields do often tend to be more liberal than perhaps those in economics or architecture( just for example)
I wonder why they limited it to those fields if they were going to the trouble to write a study unless they only wanted data that proved their hypothosis</p>
<p>From a global perspective, I think most faculties are far too conservative. We live in what is in some ways the most conservative country on the planet, and the range of political and economic views expresssed as part of the liberal/conservative spectrum tends to be extremely narrow. ('Polar opposites" on a campus are extremely, extremely rare.)</p>
<p>And I think there is far, far too little about race - as it impacts American history, economics, finance, social structures -- on most American college campuses, even the most "liberal".</p>
<p>I agree with you. "Polar opposites" here is defined entirely within the spectrum of American politics and scholarship.</p>
<p>To return to my theme, though, and use different disciplines; in sociology, the big crisis in sociology departments has been over quantitative vs. more narrative approaches; in political science it has been over rational choice vs. other theories. Those divisions have reshaped departments, led to tenure denials, and affected graduate admissions; yet many of the people involved on either side of these divides would probably consider themselves "liberals."</p>
<p>Emerald:
I know a lot of highly respected economists (and I don't mean Paul Krugman whom I do not read because he is so predictably partisan) who are also very liberal. Just because they use lots of math does not make them "conservatives."</p>
<p>I know math doesn't make people conservative, the mathematicians I know are also pretty liberal as are the engineers ( well except for my brother)
But I would have liked to have seen a more representative study among more of the depts on campus.</p>
<p>Perhaps they could do another study about the influence of conservatives on school boards and on textbook publishers.</p>
<p>I always find this argument about university faculties being too liberal amusing. For one thing, what are you going to do about it? It just so happens that people who go into academia are - on average - more liberal than the general population - on average. That doesn't mean there are no conservatives on a campus that is primarily populated with liberals. And it doesn't mean there is no dialogue. </p>
<p>At Michigan - home of the Affirmative Action Supreme Court case - there are faculty who disagree with AA. One in particular is very loud and gets a lot of media attention. He didn't get fired. Nobody told him to shutup. This week, the University held a ground breaking ceremony for the Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy. Let's see...he's a republican. Next week, Antonin Scalia is coming to speak. He's conservative - right? </p>
<p>But the other thing I find so amusing is that you never hear people complaining that there are too many conservatives in the ministry, or in corporate boardrooms, or in the military. Why is it that it's acceptable for these influential sectors to be dominated by one (conservative) point of view? Don't tell me that it's because professors are teachers and influence young minds. Hogwash! Don't pastors? What about the leaders and trainers of young people in the armed services? </p>
<p>Legally, by the time young people go to college, they are adults. In most cases, I would say their political leanings are already determined. That's certainly the case with our children. </p>
<p>If anything, faculty are committed to freedom - free speech, freedom to persue their academic interests, freedom to be independent, freedom to hold whatever political or religious beliefs they choose. As they say, "freedom is on the march."</p>
<p>I guess I might expect it in the boardroom and the military - but when I was growing up, our ministers were civil rights activists. Where are those guys?</p>
<p>A kid posts a silly poster suggesting frosh women take the stairs to avoid gaining weight and is "convicted" of harrassment among other things and kicked out of the dorms, put on probation, etc.</p>