For anyone who cares about universities as places of learning for undergraduate students, Gross’s book is an encouraging one. He provides a clear and convincing explanation of the mechanisms through which a non-random distribution of political attitudes wind up in the population of university and college professors, and he provides strong evidence against the idea that universities and professors exercise discriminatory bias against newcomers who have different political identities. And finally, Gross’s analysis and my own experience suggests that professors generally conform to Weber’s ethic when it comes to proselytizing for one’s own convictions in the classroom: the function and duty of the professor is to help students think for themselves
Pointer from Mark Thoma. Not surprisingly, I disagree. One anecdote I tell is from the graduation of one of my daughters. The main graduation speaker mentioned that she had just seen in article saying that the population of the U.S. will be majority-minority by 2050. The students erupted into whooping and wild cheering.
To me, the demographic projections are facts rather than cause for joy or sorrow. But after four years of being told that white people are the oppressors and minorities are the oppressed, the students reacted automatically and emotionally. To me, it was the opposite behavior of someone who has been taught to think for themselves.
If liberal professors are not aware of political bias in their workplace, it is because, like fish, they are swimming in it. The indoctrination into the language of oppressor-oppressed is pervasive. If you don’t buy into the progessive mindset, then you feel about as comfortable on a liberal college campus as an atheist in a seminary.
Wow, where would one even begin? I’ll start here:
“The study should count as reasonably strong evidence that most social scientists and humanists in leading departments work hard to keep their political feelings and opinions from interfering with their evaluations of academic personnel.”
The study, another of absence of evidence variety, implies they “work hard.” Why do they have to work so hard? Because it is a huge problem that requires hard work to overcome? Is their hard work working? Not that the “McCain campaign” says anything definitive about ideology (doesn’t someone who thinks it does reveal something about their mindset) but I will buy that an academic department’s first priority is highly mercenary. So, these inquiries they sent, were they highly qualified or only marginally qualified? Both exceedingly qualified and unqualified will produce a statistical non-result.
As for why would conservatives care? Because these are largely tax-funded education institutions. I don’t want to be a professor, but taking away that option drastically reduces the benefits of the education. I might settle on reforming graduate education so that it is not structured as professorship apprenticeship, but I’m not holding my breath.
Oh, and “leading departments” is cherry picking. If I were going to look at how doctors actually operate…I woudn’t pick one of the magnet hospitals.
By the way, would the typical liberal professor accept the defense “hey, we don’t discriminate against LGBT/females/minorities, they just don’t feel comfortable here and self-select out.”
Yah. No, they wouldn’t.
My first thought is that you likely correct with a few exceptions.
1. University students today are not actively seeking out “free thinking” or free expression. This would explain much of what is happening on the modern campus both in the United States and England. The modern student seeks credentials in the hope of reaching a higher caste in business or fields in which money is dispensed based largely on credentials as opposed to actual skills. Free thinking may be viewed as an entirely neutral asset, and perhaps a negative one which places an individual at odds with his/her peers.
2, Liberal professors and the idea of indoctrination is a ridiculous notion. You would have no easier task attempting to convert free thinkers to Islam, or orthodox Christianity than converting them to liberalism. And, if it is that easy to politically indoctrinate students, then the whole idea of free thinking as an expression of the authentic individual is so fragile and flawed to the point of being incomprehensible.
Are you so sure the student body wasn’t majority minority already and was just celebrating its status? Or diversity for diversity’s sake? Oppression seems more like a projection of the fears of the majority becoming the minority than anything taught.
I’m struggling to understand these arguments.
1. It’s very unlikely that this graduating college class wasn’t majority white.
2. I don’t understand the way in which you are using the word “oppression” to be a fear that whites have.
The person designated the resident concern troll has to come up with something to say. They can’t all be 10s 😉
To play devil’s advocate: conservatives believe that the best way to be useful to society is to create a business, or work in a good business; progressives believe it is to “serve” more literally, through non-profit organization, government, or, say, teaching in a university.
I don’t think it is inconsistent to argue that universities have very little diversity of ideology (99% progressive), while also arguing that conservatives who could have become professors think it is a better use of their time to become businessmen, doctors or other professionals.