Academia, Stuck To the Left

Washington Post ^ | 11/28/04 | George F. Will

[Pokey78]

Republicans Outnumbered

In Academia, Studies Find

-- The New York Times, Nov. 18

Oh, well, if studies say so. The great secret is out: Liberals dominate campuses. Coming soon: "Moon Implicated in Tides, Studies Find."

One study of 1,000 professors finds that Democrats outnumber Republicans at least seven to one in the humanities and social sciences. That imbalance, more than double what it was three decades ago, is intensifying because younger professors are more uniformly liberal than the older cohort that is retiring.

Another study, of voter registration records, including those of professors in engineering and the hard sciences, found nine Democrats for every Republican at Berkeley and Stanford. Among younger professors, there were 183 Democrats, six Republicans.

But we essentially knew this even before the American Enterprise magazine reported in 2002 on examinations of voting records in various college communities. Some findings about professors registered with the two major parties or with liberal or conservative minor parties:

Cornell: 166 liberals, 6 conservatives.

Stanford: 151 liberals, 17 conservatives.

Colorado: 116 liberals, 5 conservatives.

UCLA: 141 liberals, 9 conservatives.

[Yardstick]

One study of 1,000 professors finds that Democrats outnumber Republicans at least seven to one in the humanities and social sciences.

I read recently in the excellent book, Tenured Radicals, that the number of students enrolling in the humanities is way down since the 1960's. This is not the percentage of humanities enrollies but actual numbers.

[blackdog]

I didn't mention it in the earlier post, but the mentality of the chemistry heads of the universities is to meet with politicians and governmental agencies and to lobby for fewer restrictions on academia. The reason being that it's burdensome for their process and they need to be treated as an exception to the laws that they celebrate on everyone else. The hypocracy is UFB! How can supposedly intelligent geniuses not see the parallels to their experience on compliance with EPA laws and the fact that industry has to absorb those burdens en masse? When I read about the University of Hawaii I almost freaked! Things like procurement, reaction scales, MSDS archival, labelling and safe separation from reactive co-storage chemicals had been under absolutely no consideration let alone proper disposal. The hidden component to this which nobody discussed is the cost of disposal of experimental and pilot scale batches. In industry it's gotta be figured into the procurement and project budget. In academia it's a burden which might cut into the free housing and vehicles for faculty chairs, thus is an undeserved burden to such people we as taxpayers and tuition paying parents are so priveledged to endow with such a lifestyle.

[beyond the sea]

David Horowitz and Ann Coulter have been on this issue for quite a while. So, does this mean that George Will is finally on board, or does it mean he has finally decided to lend the weight of his name to this issue?

Are you aware of any specific articles Ann has written on the leftist dominance of our schools? I'm sure she would rip those lefties a new one!

[blackdog]

Ann Coulter is very smart but those smarts are entirely wasted. She enjoys shooting fish too much. She enjoys herself a little too much as well. She puts all her time into screaming about a problem and putting it on display in the public square until her book deal gets inked. In the business world that makes you a worthless #U*@. It's easy too scream about any existing problem among any organization from the rooftops, an endless supply exists. What makes you special is when you can formulate a solution behind the scenes and implement it on your own instead of gloat about everyone elses shortcomings at the water cooler and bathroom sinks.

Ann Coulter is just a screamer of bad situations. Anyone can do that! Do it often enough in most places without offering and applying a working solution and you'll get fired for being so brilliant.

[RightWingNilla]

Not only that, but many departments have been wrecked because no one is interested in doing anything but politics or gender studies.

I was truly shocked when I found out that something called "Queer Theory" is taught with a straight face at some schools.

[Cicero]

Absolutely. They seriously refer to themselves as Queer Theorists.

Anyone curious about this can do a Google Search and find places like this:

http://www.erraticimpact.com/~lgbt/

Which describes itself thus: "This website features hundreds of annotated links to Queer Theory and LGBT resources, designed to assist Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people involved in academic study and philosophy research. Erratic Impact also features hundreds of LGBT books, music and films."

[Sonny M]

I suppose the only surprising thing here is that are ANY conservatives at all...

I can tell you for a fact, its not wise to identify yourself as a conservative if your a professor.

One, you won't get hired, 2, if you are hired and get tenure, and they find out your a conservative, there will be harassment.

Even at catholic universities, I had a teacher refer to the church (and also opus dai) as "cults".

That alone tells you something.

[WOSG]

Very True. They just operate under a different Dominant Paradigm.

[WOSG]

Very True. They just operate under a different Dominant Paradigm.

[WOSG]

Well said. The power is in the hiring committees and the leftists have determined to stack them.