Despite what you hear, there is no political bias among college and university professors. Yes, I said it. First things first. Here's what the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz
had to say recently:
College faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined, a new study says.
By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans.
The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative.
Watch as the assault on the assault on our intelligence continues after the jump.
Writing about Kurtz's article, the ever-up-to-the-challenge Ezra Klein
replied:
So in places where intelligent, informed people work, many of them turn out to be liberal. At the places the most intelligent and informed people work, even more of them turn out to be liberal. And so we scratch our heads and wonder about bias? Why?
Political ideology, unlike gender or race, isn't encoded in your genes. You're not born with a certain leaning, ejected from the womb with a partisan affiliation. And while the opinions of your parents are often bequeathed unto the kids, they're not inviolable, as evidence by Kerry's far-greater vote share among the young (if it was just about the parents, each generation should mirror the one before it).
While Ezra is right, of course, this kind of argument hasn't always gone well for progressives. This type of "they think they're smarter than you" always appeals to the majority of radical right wing audiences, especially the slack-jawed knuckle-draggers (there I go again) who listen to right wing talk radio. Getting back to the topic at hand, Michael at Here's What's Left bolsters the progressive argument with
some very good points:
1) Who cares? If you did a survey of businessmen, you'd probably find that a majority of them are republicans. If you did a survey of climate scientists, most of them would Democrats. Union members are probably a majority Democratic. African-American women are overwhelming Democratic. White guys from the South are overwhelming republican. republican political strategists are probably mostly republicans, too.
Party affiliation/political views cut across many different social, ethnic, cultural, and career backgrounds. Merely saying that professors are liberal is no more interesting than saying the military is conservative.
1b.) Has anyone ever considered the possibility that certain groups vote republican or Democrat because their job is better served by one party or the other? Professors rely on a system where the government uses tax dollars to fund (at least public) universities and give out grants. Democrats are more likely to support that sort of system, just as republicans are more likely to support policies that let businessmen increase profits. Ya vote for the guy that helps you out, right? Maybe the party that wants to cut your funding and that questions the value of things like...ya know...science, just isn't for you.
2) That professors have certain political views doesn't mean that it effects how they teach. Let me say that again. That professors have certain political views doesn't mean that it effects how they teach. This is an important point that Kurtz, because he's a hack, practically ignores. He spends 20 words out of 906 on it (2 fucking percent); here are all 20:
The study did not attempt to examine whether the political views of faculty members affect the content of their courses.
That's the real point, folks, and is the part where right-wing groups that monitor this stuff really falter; their evidence of bias falls apart. See here and here for two juicy ones involving David Horowitz's joke of a group.
3) If there were a political bias, in the vast majority of cases it wouldn't make any difference. I never knew the political affiliation of my 19th century French literature professor. I could never tell whether the guy who taught my "Music at the Turn of the 20th Century" course was liberal or conservative. My astronomy professor? Couldn't tell you if he was a republican or a Democrat.
4) If there are more liberals than conservatives in the academy, it's not because of a "blacklist" or any bias against hiring conservatives. There is no evidence for this.
More than anything else, this issue is nothing more and nothing less than a strategic ploy by the right to discredit universities, higher learning in general, and science by extension. So while I agree with Ezra that there are certain things about this issue we shouldn't fight, there are other things we have to. Otherwise, your kids will be learning that the world was created in week, that pollution is nothing to worry about, and that Ronald Reagan single-handedly won the cold war with his substantial brain tied behind his back.
Echoing what Jesse from Pandagon
said in response to this and other articles, let me add my two cents. This is the kind of bullshit that Republicans pull. If they can't control it, preach to it, hop it up on Ritalin or stick it in middle management, they
always marginalize it. Happens every time. If they don't quite understand something - cultural diversity, homosexuality, science - they relegate it to the smelly, hacky-sack playing grassy field of the bizarre.
While we've all been off watching "American Idol," it's become chic again to be an ignorant moron. Who wants to be intelligent, anyways? Why think for ourselves when our church or political party can do it for us? Why base things in reality when we can live our lives in a fantasy world populated by Godless baby killers, activist judges and walking, talking Terri Schiavos? Besides, intelligence is an overrated virtue, unless you're a Republican intellectual. In that case, please, O Mighty Bowtied George Will, regale us with yet another tale about your ideal society, when kids still twirled hoops down the street with sticks and walked to school with a leather strap holding their books together.
You know what? Call me elitist all you want. I'd rather be smart than stupid anyways. Stupidity doesn't suit me as well as it suits you.