Posted on 04/05/2005 12:47:12 PM PDT by guitarist
It's a fact, documented by two recent studies, that registered Republicans and self-proclaimed conservatives make up only a small minority of professors at elite universities. But what should we conclude from that?
Conservatives see it as compelling evidence of liberal bias in university hiring and promotion. And they say that new "academic freedom" laws will simply mitigate the effects of that bias, promoting a diversity of views. But a closer look both at the universities and at the motives of those who would police them suggests a quite different story.
Claims that liberal bias keeps conservatives off college faculties almost always focus on the humanities and social sciences, where judgments about what constitutes good scholarship can seem subjective to an outsider. But studies that find registered Republicans in the minority at elite universities show that Republicans are almost as rare in hard sciences like physics and in engineering departments as in softer fields. Why?
One answer is self-selection - the same sort of self-selection that leads Republicans to outnumber Democrats four to one in the military. The sort of person who prefers an academic career to the private sector is likely to be somewhat more liberal than average, even in engineering.
But there's also, crucially, a values issue. In the 1970's, even Democrats like Daniel Patrick Moynihan conceded that the Republican Party was the "party of ideas." Today, even Republicans like Representative Chris Shays concede that it has become the "party of theocracy."
Consider the statements of Dennis Baxley, a Florida legislator who has sponsored a bill that - like similar bills introduced in almost a dozen states - would give students who think that their conservative views aren't respected the right to sue their professors. Mr. Baxley says that he is taking on "leftists" struggling against "mainstream society," professors who act as "dictators" and turn the classroom into a "totalitarian niche." His prime example of academic totalitarianism? When professors say that evolution is a fact.
In its April Fools' Day issue, Scientific American published a spoof editorial in which it apologized for endorsing the theory of evolution just because it's "the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time," saying that "as editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence." And it conceded that it had succumbed "to the easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand their fields better than, say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do."
The editorial was titled "O.K., We Give Up." But it could just as well have been called "Why So Few Scientists Are Republicans These Days." Thirty years ago, attacks on science came mostly from the left; these days, they come overwhelmingly from the right, and have the backing of leading Republicans.
Scientific American may think that evolution is supported by mountains of evidence, but President Bush declares that "the jury is still out." Senator James Inhofe dismisses the vast body of research supporting the scientific consensus on climate change as a "gigantic hoax." And conservative pundits like George Will write approvingly about Michael Crichton's anti-environmentalist fantasies.
Think of the message this sends: today's Republican Party - increasingly dominated by people who believe truth should be determined by revelation, not research - doesn't respect science, or scholarship in general. It shouldn't be surprising that scholars have returned the favor by losing respect for the Republican Party.
Conservatives should be worried by the alienation of the universities; they should at least wonder if some of the fault lies not in the professors, but in themselves. Instead, they're seeking a Lysenkoist solution that would have politics determine courses' content.
And it wouldn't just be a matter of demanding that historians play down the role of slavery in early America, or that economists give the macroeconomic theories of Friedrich Hayek as much respect as those of John Maynard Keynes. Soon, biology professors who don't give creationism equal time with evolution and geology professors who dismiss the view that the Earth is only 6,000 years old might face lawsuits.
If it got that far, universities would probably find ways to cope - by, say, requiring that all entering students sign waivers. But political pressure will nonetheless have a chilling effect on scholarship. And that, of course, is its purpose.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
Leave it to the Times to provide another unbalanced look at an issue.
This guy comes from the same cesspool as cynthia tucker--not worth reading or talking about.
College faculties are overwhelmingly liberal because conservatives and libertarians keep forking over money to send their kids to these places.
Krugmania.
But look at the bright side. He's now apparently arguing that wildly disparate outcomes are not evidence of discrimination. LOL
Well, this explains a question I've had for a long time:
Why is that most Birkenstock-wearing, pot-smoking, flag-burning, hybrid-driving, gun-fearing, crime-loving, freedom-hating, tax-increasing, atheistic, Darwinistic, pussies register Democrat while real men register Republican?
"Self-selection"
The NY Times fails to register the fact that most scientists, physicists, and biologists are conservative in their political affiliation. Conservative does not mean fundamentalist Christian. He has set up a strawman argument and then argues that the Republicans are trying to establish a theocracy by misrepresenting the views of one Congressman.
This article is unworthy of the title of journalism.
Isn't it the liberals that assert that if a minority group is not proportionally represented in a profession, it's the result of racial discrimination that must be remedied with affirmative action?
But to some extent, there may be a degree of 'self selection' in the field of academics. Liberals are inclined to make life miserable for those who don't rubber stamp their ideology. I couldn't imagine choosing academia where even mentioning that one is Christian results in nonstop hate and villification. I only succeeded in completing college by knowing enough to contain my viewpoints, and I couldn't wait to get out.
There is an old canard, "those who can...do, those who can't...teach". In that manner, the NY Times may be correct. Since the liberals "can't do" they "teach".
Keynes was right once and they crowned him god of economics. Ronald Reagan could show you on a cocktail napkin more about economics than John Maynard Keynes ever knew. Further, they should teach Hayek and von Mises over Keynes because Hayek and von Mises and Friedman and Sowell are the inheritors of Smith and Ferguson, and we are a capitalist nation. Let them teach Keynes and Marx in France.
Those that can, do...those that can't...well, you know.
ReallyGone:
You hit the nail on the head. Conservatives tend to have real jobs in the "dreaded private sector" (as talk show host Howie Carr here in MA likes to refer to it).
Liberals on the other hand tend to seek out sinecures in the foundations and academic worlds.
Bill
The simple fact is that fewer conservatives try to get PhDs than liberals. We abandoned that battlefield years ago and are now paying the price. If we want it back, we have to fight for it by getting those advanced degrees. Fortunately the number of Conservatives in the grad schools is increasing. We must continue if we want a voice in academia.
The trouble has to do with public funding.
Can a Republican in good conscience accept tax dollars as an employee of a state university?
Wow!!! Talk about incongruity!!
Krugman, NYT and Academic!!!!
Why is this surprising? Look it is also possible that a lower starting pay for college teaching does not match that of starting with corporations or lawyering. After all Republicans have better business heads and money does matter, so why should a smart Republican teach?
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