Posted on 11/29/2022 10:36:16 AM PST by george76
We have been discussing the virtual elimination of Republican and conservative scholars from many faculties despite the fact that roughly half of the country regularly votes for Republicans or conservative causes. Now a new survey by The College Fix of 65 departments in various states found that 33 do not have a single registered Republican. For these departments, the systemic elimination of Republican faculty has finally reached zero, but there is still little recognition of the crushing bias reflected in these numbers. Others, as discussed below, have defended the elimination of conservative or Republican faculty as entirely justified and commendable. Overall, registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans by a margin of over 10-1.
The survey found 61 Republican professors across 65 departments at seven universities while it also found 667 professors identified as Democrat based on their political party registration or voting history.
The survey covered The Ohio State University, University of Nebraska-Omaha, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Georgia, Cornell University, University of Oklahoma and the University of Alaska-Anchorage.
While there may be a couple professors missed on either side of this ideological divide, most faculty will privately admit that it is rare to find self-identified Republicans or conservatives on many faculties. Most faculties are overwhelmingly Democratic and liberal. Diversity generally runs from the left to the far left.
Another survey found that only nine percent of law professors identified as conservative.
The virtual absence of Republican or conservative members on many faculties are just shrugged off by many academics. It is the subject of my recent publication in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. The article entitled “Harm and Hegemony: The Decline of Free Speech in the United States.”
Notably, a 2017 study found 15 percent of faculties were conservative. This is the result of years of faculty replicating their own ideological preferences and eradicating the diversity that once existed on faculties. When I began teaching in the 1980s, faculties were undeniably liberal but contained a significant number of conservative and libertarian professors. It made for a healthy and balanced intellectual environment. Today such voices are relatively rare and faculties have become political echo chambers, leaving conservatives and Republican students increasingly afraid to speak openly in class.
The trend is the result of hiring systems where conservative or libertarian scholars are often rejected as simply “insufficiently intellectually rigorous” or “not interesting” in their scholarship. This can clearly be true with individual candidates but the wholesale reduction of such scholars shows a more systemic problem. Faculty insist that there is no bias against conservatives, but the obviously falling number of conservative faculty speaks for itself.
The editors of the legal site Above the Law have repeatedly swatted down objections to the loss of free speech and viewpoint diversity in the media and academia. In a recent column, they mocked those of us who objected to the virtual absence of conservative or libertarian faculty members at law schools.
Senior editor Joe Patrice defended “predominantly liberal faculties” based on the fact that liberal views reflect real law as opposed to junk law. (Patrice regularly calls those with opposing views “racists,” including Chief Justice John Roberts because of his objection to race-based criteria in admissions as racial discrimination). He explained that hiring a conservative academic was akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism (or that the sun orbits the earth) to teach at a university.
It is that easy. You simply declare that conservative views shared by a majority of the Supreme Court and roughly half of the population are not acceptable to be taught.
I frankly do not understand why professors want to maintain this one-sided environment in hiring. I was drawn to academia by the diversity of viewpoints and intellectual challenges on campuses. School publications and conferences today often run from the left to the far left. We have discussed a long line of incidents on this blog of conservative faculties being targeted by cancel campaigns with tepid support from their colleagues or administrations. We have become the face of intellectual orthodoxy and it is reflected in these numbers.
I thought diversity was our strength?
If this is true then why don’t institutions run by liberals reach out to hire a workforce that looks like America with 50% conservatives? heck! or even 40%!!
Until we take back k-12, the country will continue the decline. Take back K-12 and the colleges will have to reform because non leftist indoctrinated students will seek non biased balanced higher education.
How do we fix it?
However these leftist “professors” have no problem accepting lifetime jobs underwritten by the wealth generated by productive, capitalist Republicans.
What about conservative independents like me?
It’s an established religion.
Conservatives tend to hire based on merit, but Leftists tend hire other Leftists, to the exclusion of anyone else. It seems mathematically inevitable that any organization will become exclusively Leftist, if merit isn’t important to its survival, and if enough time has passed.
33 of 65 departments are useless.
Sounds lawsuitable.
How about half liberal and half conservative. That would work better.
I do... Deep down these liberal zealots realize their beliefs are indefeasible intellectually, at least for those who are intellectually cogent. It just becomes easier to wrap themselves in a cocoon where defense is unnecessary.
“How do we fix it?”
Repeal the 16th and 17th amendments. And wait as we go through a generation or two.
Our entire problem is Federal government centralized power and wealth.
Repealing the income tax and direct election of Senators is going to somehow help lack of diversity in academic departments? and it will take 2 generations?
Not an acceptable answer.
I was just thinking lawsuits might work.
Quotas and Affirmative Action. :)
Replace the word conservative with blacks and how does this article read?
Why bias against conservatives?
Because Leftist academics hate the truth. After all, leftists are the progeny of Satan, a/k/a the Father of Lies.
Teach our children and grand children that is OK to become teachers. They might have to camouflage in order to get into place.
I suppose exposing it is the first step.
We need a dashboard that shows universities from most balanced to worst.
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