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Topic: Is Academia full of left wing zealots?
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boomdaddy
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Member # 2644
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posted 05-04-2018 08:31 AM
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I am in the camp that believes a huge majority of academia is fully entrenched on the left.
Would be interesting to find out what percentage are socialist.
[ 05-04-2018, 08:33 AM: Message edited by: boomdaddy ]
Posts: 8791 | From: paris, ky | Registered: Mar 2006
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Tiptree
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Member # 844
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posted 05-04-2018 09:45 AM
Yes, the overwhelming majority of faculty in U.S. institutions of higher education vote democratic, and espouse progressive, if not socialist ideas.
But, that varies depending on the subject matter and type of institution. For community colleges, where practical skills are a big part of the mission, conservatives are slightly more prevalent (although still a very small minority). In Business Schools, Engineering School, and Medical Schools, you will also find slightly larger pockets of conservatives. But in the humanities, history, and social sciences, there is a crushing majority of progressives.
Here is a good article from a trade journal ("inside Higher Ed"); it is remarkably balanced, but it does try to minimize what is a huge bias. For example, from that article, we get this:
quote:
A 2016 study published in Econ Journal Watch considered voter registration of faculty members in selected social science disciplines (and history) at 40 leading American universities. The study found a ratio of 11.5 Democrats for every Republican in these departments, but with wide variation. In economics, the ratio was 4.5 to one, while in history the ratio was 33.5 to one.
In my field (physics), most of my professors were very liberal in their thinking, but it was never part of the classroom discussion. There isn't much room for talking about politics when you are studying quantum mechanics. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
The college I worked for for 15 years in Indiana had a fairly over-sized conservative representation, and a fairly muted majority of liberals. The staff (administrators, office workers, etc.) had a much more balanced split. I felt comfortable working there.
But the university I consult with in New York city is overwhelmingly liberal. The students who run a coffee shop refused access to students wearing "Make America Great Again" hats, saying they were espousing "hate speech". What the heck? Up here, diversity is the overwhelming directive, and minority "rights" trample all else. I find it stifling and uncivil.
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Tiptree
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 13628 | From: Terre Haute, IN | Registered: Sep 2000
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Tiptree
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Member # 844
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posted 05-04-2018 09:54 AM
BTW, the way that universities hire faculty will only increase this bias. When a new faculty position is opened up, the department chair will appoint a Search Committee composed of faculty. They will do all the review of applications, phone interviews, and invite finalists for on-campus interviews. They will vote who gets the job, although sometimes the department chair can influence that decision.
Why is that significant? If the committee is overwhelmingly biased towards liberalism, they will either purposefully, or even unconsciously, select candidates "like themselves". They are, after all, selecting a future colleague, one they will need to get along with and work alongside. This isn't always nefarious; it is human nature. But it is an ever-accelerating thing -- a little bias becomes, over time, an overwhelming bias.
I have witnessed discussions very much like what is described below. This is not fiction - it is what happens all across this land.
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There are some anecdotes that suggest cases of discrimination. In her book Inside Graduate Admissions: Merit, Diversity and Faculty Gatekeeping (Harvard University Press), Julie R. Posselt, assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California, was able to watch elite graduate program deliberations on admissions. In one case she describes in the book, an applicant to a top linguistics Ph.D. program was a student at a small religious college unknown to some committee members but whose values were questioned by others.
“Right-wing religious fundamentalists,” one committee member said of the college, while another said, to much laughter, that the college was “supported by the Koch brothers.” The committee then spent more time discussing details of the applicant's GRE scores and background -- high GRE scores, homeschooled -- than it did with some other candidates. The chair of the committee said, “I would like to beat that college out of her,” and, to laughter from committee members, asked, “You don't think she's a nutcase?”
At the end of this discussion, the committee moved the applicant ahead to the next round but rejected her there.
(quote taken from the same article I linked above)
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Tiptree
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 13628 | From: Terre Haute, IN | Registered: Sep 2000
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