Posted on 07/14/2009 7:55:58 AM PDT by Mr. Blonde
When I began examining the political affiliation of faculty at the University of Oregon, the lone conservative professor I spoke with cautioned that I would "make a lot of people unhappy."
Though I mostly brushed off his warning – assuming that academia would be interested in such discourse – I was careful to frame my research for a column for the school newspaper diplomatically.
The University of Oregon (UO), where I study journalism, invested millions annually in a diversity program that explicitly included "political affiliation" as a component. Yet, out of the 111 registered Oregon voters in the departments of journalism, law, political science, economics, and sociology, there were only two registered Republicans.
A number of conservative students told me they felt Republican ideas were frequently caricatured and rarely presented fairly. Did the dearth of conservative professors on campus and apparent marginalization of ideas on the right belie the university's commitment to providing a marketplace of ideas?
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Being familiar with it, Oregon in general, kind of like Minnesota, is suburban LaLa land. The geography is beautiful, the people courteous, but now the hard reality of work, production, and self honesty is beginning to set in; it has one of the most descending employment and economic spirals in the nation.
However the real political aspect is that very very few, maybe including the author of the article, simply have no fundamental concept of what conservatism is.
How we have totally lost that concept, over the last forty years, I'm not sure. It has to do with being spoiled, indolent (like university professors), and mass brainwashing by the Media. But it surely is not going to be reversed until clear articulation of the Left versus the Right surfaces. And the mass Media of today is the enemy.
That’s the standard stereotype - racist, fundamentalist, chauvinist, etc.
Bears repeating. This is especially poignant in the arena of "hyprocrisy," wherein it is insisted that the conservative be consistent not with his or her own actual ideas, but with the stereotypes the liberal has in his or her head, and those can be pretty wild.
That works both ways. I do know a handful of pro-life liberals who are routinely annoyed at the assumption that they support abortion clinics. The real difficulty - and on this I have to fault liberals more than conservatives - is that when you're screaming you can't do a very good job of listening.
The U of O is well-known as a liberal faculty, and it doesn't really surprise me a lot that 2 of 111 members are registered Republicans. This isn't at all accidental, it's a case of self-selection through hiring and tenure committees, and every honest observer on both sides of the political spectrum knows it. The question is, as it is with a similar political distribution in news rooms and editorial boards, does it affect the product? If the 111 say it doesn't and the 2 say that it does, that doesn't constitute a consensus against, and the pretense that it is because the minority side has nothing of value to say ought to give the majority pause if they really are as intelligent as they appear to think that they are.
One cannot really legislate a remedy if one does not want to risk the cure being worse than the disease. One can merely publish the figures and let them speak for themselves. It is ironic that this technique, elsewhere so fondly regarded by liberal social engineers, is dismissed so cavalierly in such a blatant case. And worse, that those who ask the questions, such as the author, are punished for doing so in an institution that piously invokes the principle of free inquiry and academic freedom.
Congressman Billybob
In my undergrad I was actually impressed and happy that all of my journalism professors had spent time actually being journalists. It really helps to hammer concepts home when you read them in the book and then the professor explains how they work in the real world.
Maybe if they were rewarded like investment bankers the teaching profession would attract more republicans.
U of O is blatantly Liberal and has been for years. Back in 89 it was one reason I chose NOT to go there and went to OSU instead, which was a little bit better anyway.
There is a way to take this head on, but you have to change the equation.
The cost of going to University is going sky high and with credit drying up will soon be out of reach for middle class Americans. Why should taxpayers continue to foot the bill for bloated University campuses, when most classes could be done online?
You really only need buildings to teach the hard sciences. Journalism, law, political science, economics, and sociology could easily be taught online along with all the fluff classes currently offered at most colleges. Once online the taxpayers could monitor what was being taught and the great minds of the nation could weigh in and write counter arguments for the students to read.
The taxpayers save money and education is again balanced - win/win.
Excellent post.
Whenever a city or area of the country turns “blue,” it is destined to fail and drive away all achievers.
The University of Oregon (UO), where I study journalism...
“Diversity” is a lie. It’s about swalling the bitter pill of Political Correctness (the Liberal positions on every subject, including history, no debate or dissent tolerated).
Political Correctness has NOTHING to do with which political party is in the White House (the Left tried to make that argument in the 1980s). The term goes back decades before Reagan’s presidency.
Their intolerance for “dead white males” shows that the agenda is subvert Western Civilization.
Throw out “the bad” and usher in “the new”.
Our Constitutional form of government has been resented by the baby boomer Leftist activists who protested on campuses in the 1960s (but didn’t actually ATTEND those schools). They now own the White House and the Media.
yep. Ironically, the only real racists that I know are all Democrats. Not a Republican among them.
That depends strongly on the professor. I have had liberal professors who would happily give an A to a well written conservative argument, but there are certainly others for whom this is not true.
Most people who watch TV, go to movies, read the newspapers and have been educated will see conservative in this light. They have been seeing conservatives this way since at least the 60s. So why would they vote for them? Because they will protect America. That's about it. When America is not threaten, which the Democrats sold to the people prior to the last election, they will vote Democrat.
Maybe not, but think about who wants to go study sociology? Gender studies? Even for other subjects, where the current academic debate is not 100% liberal, I think it's natural that liberals will be more attracted to the career. I suspect smart conservatives are more naturally inclined to use their talents in the private sector, which, after all, their ideology actually respects, while for smart liberals it seems there is no higher calling than academia.
But especially in the case of certain subjects, I just can't see most conservatives being too attracted to them.
You think Walter is cowardly? Did you not see how he handled those nihilists?
I think taxpayers should stay out of it altogether. Many top students would still choose to go to schools with physical campuses, if only because the prestige and connections would help them in ways that the education alone would not. But I agree, it does not make sense for many of the people currently in college to pay what they do for the almost worthless stuff they learn.
Walter falls under the redneck type I mentioned. The bitter with guns type (not sure he was religious).
I simply believe in the concept of diversity – a primarily liberal idea – and think that we suffer when we don't include ideas we find unappealing.The "primarily liberal" idea of diversity doesn't have anything to do with ideas at all -- it involves a group which consists of do-gooder guilty white liberals, black liberals, gay liberals, radical feminist liberals, and Hispanic liberals. No conservatives need apply.
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