A STUDY released on Nov. 17 by researchers at Santa Clara University and Stockholm University reiterated what most in academia had long known: that the left dominates the professoriate. The study of 1,000 American professors showed that Democrats outnumber Republicans in every academic field, ranging from a 3-to-1 ratio in economics to a proportion of over 30-to-1 in anthropology. Past surveys that have measured "liberal" and "conservative" self-labels instead of party affiliation have shown similar results.
For years, these ratios have alarmed conservatives. To the right, these studies prove academia's hostility and bolster concerns that academic environments screen out conservative thought summarily. In response, conservative groups have forwarded plans such as the "Academic Bill of Rights," which has received attention in numerous state legislatures and Congress. But a real examination of political lopsidedness in academia would study why liberals are so numerous instead of just crunching numbers. Currently, the roots of the problem remain subject to reckoning. Among competing theories, no one can even establish that conservative measures against liberal academia would work. It is clear, however, that these measures would be bad for academia, shortchanging study for politics.
According to some conservatives, liberal dominance in academia creates a culture that is unlikely to tolerate dissent from the group orthodoxy. As Mark Bauerlein, an Emory University professor and Academic Bill of Rights proponent, explained in a piece for The Chronicle of Higher Education, the huge amount of liberals in academics creates a "common assumption" among academics -- a groupthink that assumes unknown fellow professors are liberal. According to some, this assumption becomes bias and fully infiltrates academic culture, down to examinations of graduate work and tenure hearings.
But the link between "common assumption" and "bias" is tenuous. Assuming that other professors are liberal does not entail unfairly persecuting them and their work upon learning they are conservative. Indeed, as these studies have shown, this assumption is a rational one for professors to make: liberals dominate every academic field, so in any case chances are very high that professors chosen at random self-identify as liberals.
If that common assumption can be made so rationally, then it cannot constitute the root of academia's political disparity. Some other more fundamental force must be moving to push so many liberals into academia in the first place.
Competing theories have emerged on what is this basic root of liberal dominance of academia. One is that academic careers that involve mediocre salaries, long periods of unpaid schooling and immersion in study attracts the type of people that are more likely to be liberal anyway. Another is that the process of academic study itself spurs students' and professors' views to move left -- that the scholastic environment and deep immersion in empirical study cause academics to reconsider their views and gravitate toward positions that in light of their experiences they consider more reasonable.
The root of why liberals dominate academia likely lies in some combination of all of these phenomena. Proposals like the Academic Bill of Rights, therefore, are unlikely to solve the roots of the disparity but certainly will have a concrete adverse effect: the hindrance of funding for important areas of academic study.
In 2005, many Academic Bill of Rights proponents are hoping a larger Republican majority will adopt their pet issue. As it was proposed in Congress in October 2003, the bill would make universities receiving funding for area studies confirm that tenure committees and other review mechanisms will not discriminate based on politics.
This bill is largely considered to be aimed at Middle Eastern studies, in which academics have often criticized Republican policy in the area. But while Republicans aim at dulling academic critiques of their party, all they would achieve would be fewer universities accepting federal funding in an ever more necessary field.
The University of Virginia does not currently take federal funds for Middle Eastern studies, but as History Prof. Elizabeth Thompson explained, "Some faculty have expressed concern that any future federal funding might interfere here with our intellectual freedom." An Academic Bill of Rights would not tame liberals, but discourage necessary study.
There is no way to know whether conservative proposals to grant themselves a bigger place in academia would work until studies on the phenomenon focus on roots instead of numbers. And at that point -- if academia is in many respects inherently liberal, as many suspect -- there may be no real remedy. In the short term, however, shortchanging academic departments in important fields is not a viable policy, no matter how frustrated conservatives may be.
Michael Slaven's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at mslaven@cavalierdaily.com
Read More
PARTING SHOT: No man is an island
By Ava MacBlane | YesterdayRetirement, as you can tell, has been treating me well. When people ask me now if I miss it, I laugh and tell them some things I definitely don't miss. But I don't always get to tell them about the things I really do miss.
PARTING SHOT: You never know unless you try
By Lexi Baker | 2 days agoMy time at the University was shaped by the people who showed me grace and kindness and by those who had confidence in me, even when I struggled to have it in myself.
PARTING SHOT: A love letter to Cav Daily and Connection
By Ava Proehl | 2 days agoMy time here taught me to look for the genuine, human connection in every moment.
