Faculties Are Liberal Because Conservatives Don’t Seek Academic Careers, Study Finds

Any evidende to back that up, other than you?

The cycle does indeed perpetuate itself, both with academics and also with admininstrators. How administrators, you ask? It’s a given that professors and deans prefer someone who (often sadly) looks just like themselves. But, the same holds true for the college’s senior leadership. Search committees for presidents/chancellors/senior VPs always have teaching faculty (no problem here until the teaching faculty number more than the others on the search committee) and they are scared you-know-what of a senior administrator getting in that’s conservative-traditionalist in finance, management, leadership and academic focus and trends. Worse yet if he had little prior teaching experience, regardless of whether or not he is a terrific administrator. Therefore, everyone (academics-administrators) looks the same and everyone also stagnates the same. BOVs or BOTs are clueless about how to break this neverending MO.

Folks: I’m not sure what “conservative” means here in the context of a bias against hiring and retaining conservatives. If it means a demographic–say, white male–then perhaps what we are reading are more comments on affirmative action. If it means conservative personal habits, say, wearing a tie and jacket to teach, then I’d like to see a lot more evidence about anti-conservative bias in academe before I was convinced. If conservative means political views, either social or public policy (for example Pro Life, anti-gay rights, American flag collar pins), then I suspect there may be some bias among those of opposing views, but I am not sure that this explains hiring or retention decisions. I recall the 1970s slogan “the personal is the political” and I know that some of my colleagues–particularly the younger ones–believe that it is entirely proper that they deploy ideological tests for hiring. But then, I have never (in 40 years full time in academe) understood hiring decisions. I think that personal appearance and prestige degrees have more to do with hiring than anything else. In my line of work (history), if you have a legitimate book with a legitimate publisher and it is decently received, and you fulfill your professional obligations, you will get tenure. Are there other biases? Sure–religious ones seem to lead the pack and indeed many schools that are religious in direction or affiliation have mission statements that will attract or deter certain applicants. Candidates’ teaching commitment (I love teaching…I am passionate about teaching…I think teaching is the most important thing I do…) is very important to places with heavy teaching loads and hiring committees that don’t have active publishing scholars on them. Affirmative action (all things being equal we want this or that kind of diversity…) and the choice of certain kinds of fields in which to hire come close to dictating preferences. Women’s studies at my university had never hired a man, or had a man on its final list. African American studies has never had a person who did not identify as African American. But I would guess that the real reason academe attracts more liberals than conservatives today is the shift in graduate student bodies toward more women and minorities who tend to more liberal. Look at law students and business school students and you will find more conservatives. As a rule, whenever causation becomes murky, look earlier in the process or event. All best, Peter

Faculties are not that liberal. If they were, they would protest the use of adjunct instructors when the schools could hire many of the adjuncts as permanent full or part time instructors offering equal wages for equal work, sick leave, and healthcare. Of course the administrators are often more conservative that CEOs of Wallmart.

I was glad that Michèle Lamont pointed out “that the theory better fits some disciplines, like literature and sociology, than others, like business or economics.” Surely, it is a vast overgeneralization to make the claim about academe in general. It would be interesting to know, for example, if the doctors associated with teaching hospitals connected with universities are any more politically liberal than their peers elsewhere. Ditto for law professors compared with lawyers in law firms or government service.—Sandy Thatcher, Penn State University Press

The “liberal” vs. “conservative” divide as regards college and university faculty is, it seems to me, more a product of David Horowitz’s fevered imagination than any concrete evidence, in particular given the fact that the definitions of both terms have shifted so much over the last forty years. Noting comment 5: it is entirely possible to hold conservative political views and offer no credence to creationism, which is a byproduct belief of a pecularly American flavor of fundamentalist Christianity, devoid of any basis in evidence. Another example: one can be justifiably appalled at the magnitude of government spending over the last 18 months, whatever its rationale (a reliably conservative position), and draw no parallels in this whatever to the Nazis or Communists, which members of the Tea Party movement have done frequently in the last six months. If the argument is that “conservatives”, i.e., people who buy into Creationism and/or think our current President is a Nazi or a Communist (or a Kenyan national), are not choosing academic life, it may simply be that they’re avoiding involving themselves in a culture of evidence where their dearly held preconceptions will be challenged in highly uncomfortable ways. More interesting to me is whether true old-school conservatives of the William F. Buckley mold avoid the academic sphere (which would to me be a concern!), but determining that means distinguishing among individuals who hold views that are informed, albeit conservative, and views that are just flat ignorant. We tend not to like to be so clear about such matters in the academic sphere.

To bnmoore (#4): You are exactly correct about administrators. I know of no other business in which hiring is done upside down — that is, in which prospective subordinates have the first dominant voice in the selection of their prospective supervisors. Search committees routinely screen out candidates who might rock the boat. In consequence higher education is highly resistant to any significant reform or restructuring. Presidents who want to revitalize their colleges often find it next to impossible to hire the kind of people who will help them with the process. Candidates with the appropriate disposition won’t make it to the list of finalists. The political orientation of faculty members may be predominantly liberal, but their social behavior borders on the reactionary.

wchristie refers to universities as a business. Academia is very different from a for-profit business. Universities in this country generally operate under the premise that faculty are the decision makers, at least as far as as anything related to teaching is concerned. I have not witnessed that faculty are not open to reform or restructuring, but they do want to be involved in the process. A top-down management approach is inappropriate in an academic setting, where decisions are often based on consensus-seeking. Sometimes this system results in change being slow, but isn’t that what conservative means? Holding on to traditions, and making changes only after careful consideration. From a social perspective, most faculty would seem to be conservative.

Supertatie (#1) writes:”Thus the cycle perpetuates itself.”There is a cycle, but not the one you claim. Liberal in education means liberating, thinking on ones own, examining other ideas, etc. Those who get such an education and value its results do tend to venture into research and teaching more often than those who do not. I think that is independent of their political beliefs. Perhaps you will now argue that politically liberal people are more likely to get a liberating education because their political bias predisposes them to it. Perhaps, but I doubt it since most of us would tend to be independent by virtue of being liberally educated.

I teach for a few for-profit private institutions and the majority of the faculty are conservative. Anyway, just an observation.

As someone studying how family finances works in this culture, I am struck by the obvious framing of liberal versus conservative narratives using the politics of higher education. It is as if there seems to be little understanding that the values and beliefs that undergird these two labels (conservative and liberal thought)have been manufactured to create ideological division. Edward Bernays work on propaganda is valuable resource here. Also, it is frustrating to watch educators, policy makers, public officials, writers and students neatly align themselves into the old argument structures of the past to propagate this politcial meiosis. It is as if the past 30 thirty years of financial mismanagment, fraud, crisis and deception are not enough for you acknowledge the blurred boundaries around the private-public sector’s merged intrusion into consumers’ mortgages, bank accounts, financial data, credit cards and pocketbooks; maybe you have not learned that these labels (liberals, conservatives) are meaningless and you continue to chaw on the offered cud. So what if another simplistic ivory-tower frustration piece gets melded into a divided left/right unweilding discussion? Well my answer to that is: “Yeah that has always worked well in the past”. Why don’t we try more of what Walter Lippman called “dividing the herd” so that educated people can discuss issues of little relevance to peoples’ daily lives or what is actually happening. It is not difficult to find out, but maybe we really would rather argue over labels than be present and responsible during one of the greatest heists of all our resources in a century.

I will be interested in reading the paper itself and see how the researchers’ methodology enabled them to come to their conclusions. One item that was not mentioned is the fact that students go through undergraduate and graduate school and receive first-hand exposure to the political climate in their classrooms and on campus. Astute students learn quickly that challenging the political status quo is not something that will endear them to their professors or fellow students. While the New York Times declares that “an expressed tolerance for controversial ideas” is a hallmark of liberal academics, the truth is that it depends on which “controversial ideas” one espouses. It will be interesting to see whether the researchers address the likelihood that conservative students, in fact, assess their university experiences and climate and decide whether their social, political, moral and religious views would be welcome or vilified and whether they would be content in a career in which advancement and a pleasant work environment may require concealing one’s point of view on conservative “controversial ideas”. Some will, many won’t.

While the root causes are not known, there have been many studies showing reproducible differences in basic personality styles and preferences between self-described liberals vs. conservatives. An example is a much lower “tolerance for ambiguity” among conservatives; another might be the “choice” suggested by another respondent, that conservatives might be less willing to work in the relatively low ratio of monetary reward/effort invested that academic careers entail. As with (some) other respondents, I am not sure that the supposed “liberal bias” of university faculties is as pervasive as sometimes claimed, but I would guess that at least some of what may relate to mismatches between the realities of an academic career with “preferences” in conservative personality traits compared to liberals. (No, I am not claiming any black and white differences between conservatives and liberals, which labels are entirely too simplistic to capture human complexity in spite of the best efforts of politicians of either bent to make it be so. I am only suggesting that there ARE personality traits along whose range the distribution of conservatives and liberals may differ enough to account for different levels of self-selection into academic careers, even without any supposed additional liberal or conservative bias in university selection processes.)

To suggest, even back-handedly, that a PhD in ecology who is a creationist should be confused with “conservative” or ever given consideration for a teaching position is appalling. This is equivalent to suggesting that mathematics departments hire people unable to accept algebra as true. It is like asking a physics department to hire someone who insists Aristotle was right and gravity accelerates heavier bodies faster than lighter ones. Anyone who remains a creationist in an ecology graduate program has disqualified themselves, tipping their hand as a fake, a liar who made it through by pretending rather than understanding. This rubbish is a major part of the problem of so-called “conservatives” being unwelcome in academia. Insane drivel that should be laughed out of the room is granted social acceptability under the guys of religiously motivated political views. We are expected to listen and profess “respect” rather than pick the fool up by his or her waistband and pitch them out the window onto the sidewalk. Such intellectual garbage should never be allowed to pass an oral exam or a thesis defense if exposed. (But we all know that such aggressive blackballing is reserved instead for whistleblowers.) Horowitz is a lawyer. Lawyers are experts at snipping ideas into intellectual snowflakes suitable for a child’s party. Their milieu is of political and legal relations. They live in a universe filled with the rules made by man. Those of us who inhabit the sciences live in the universe where man must learn the given rules. Drivel has no place in academia. Nobody should respect it. Nobody should be expected to hire it, treat it kindly, or tolerate it. Academia is the place were such trash is banished.

Actually, I wrote he was a creationist AND a conservative (of course not all (conservatives are creationists, but I’ll bet most creationists are conservatives). I was trying to highlight a reason other than his being a conservative for why he didn’t go into academia. None of us who knew him could believe that he could pass his orals, and I agree with you that it’s appalling for a creationist to be teaching biology. Maybe he didn’t want to spend his life teaching something he didn’t really believe.

I think we should pay attention to Peter, Commenter # 6. If we’re looking for a cause for the lack of “conservatives” in Academia, we need to go further back in the process. And a good place to look is at undergraduate students who identify themselves as “conservative”. These students will more than likely recognize from professors’ lectures, aside comments, posters on office doors, etc., that the majority of professors (especially in the humanities, social sciences) are “liberal” and that, if they were to pursue an Academic career, their own ideological, religious, or political viewpoints would not fit in very well. Thus many conservative students might never seriously consider grad school.Now, this next step of grad school is crucial as well. Having attended a few different grad schools myself, I know from experience that those (albeit rare) students who come across as “conservative” in either class discussions, meetings with professors, or even informal settings, will often get labeled as a conservative, which–like it or not–can have several negative effects that might impede their progress through grad school. It also discourages them from pursuing a career in which they might continue to receive such negative pigeon-holing. I’ve also known a few “conservative” grad students who have dropped out of grad school because they’ve become disgusted with their constant financial insecurity, mounting debt, delay in starting a family, and a general feeling that the whole graduate school experience is a waste of time and money. Now, I’m not saying that this can be totally attributed to their conservatism, but it definitely seems to be related to their lack of that single-minded idealism regarding Academia which many of the more “liberal” grad students possess.And one more thing. Most of the conservatives that I know who decided not to pursue an academic career also claimed that they were tired of the elitism and harshly dismissive attitude of many people in Academia, who would write students or ideas off in a second if they did not fit well with their established ideas or agendas, both intellectually and politically. They also used adjectives such as “lame” and “out of touch with reality” to describe academic culture.I’m not saying I agree with these comments, but I think they are worth thinking about.Now, in response to the posting by johntoradze, I can only say that his last line is so ludicrous that it nearly spoils his entire comment. To claim that Academia is the place where “drivel” is banished is so far from the truth that one is tempted to argue the opposite: there is more “drivel” discussed, debated, produced, and just generally present, in Academia, than probably anywhere else in American culture. And I’m quite certain that most conservatives would concur with me on this point.

From The Hansard, 9 Jan 2001: “The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton):I am afraid that that confirms that the modern Conservative party is the stupid party of British politics.” Mr. Hutton’s remark is perhaps generally applicable.

Tired of hearing this debate….if someone isn’t willing to do the work to establish good ideas, identify testable hypotheses, gather data, evaluate what they mean, and debate their ideas and findings in a scholarly way, then too bad for them. They can go and be the next Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or whoever, and make a ton more dough spreading lies and misinformation.

Chiming in here to agree with djgmamlis — The fact is that there are many fields where there is a dominant paradigm and where it’s difficult to do solid work if you don’t accept that paradigm and don’t want to build upon it. Here’s an example from the social sciences — for a long time we were all captivated by the “modernization thesis” — by the idea that as people became more educated and ‘developed’, they would also become more secular (think World Values Survey and all that.) The underlying hypothesis was always that religion was some form of primitive social force that would be erased as people became more intelligent. Imagine interviewing for a position in a department where everyone believed this — and you’re a Mormon, or an observant Jew, or a born-again Christian.On your own time, you might even be engaging in some form of evangelization, but all the time at work, you’re surrounded by people who make it pretty darned clear that only an idiot would believe that. Is that an environment that you would choose to work in? How is that any different from the sort of hostile workplaces that women used to encounter where men hung up calendars with nude photos and called everybody ‘honey’ and ‘sweetie’?

I had to laugh at the remark by the commenter who noted how frequently fellow faculty assumed that his views were as liberal as theirs were.One subject where this was most evident was a person’s opinions of George W. Bush, which for many set off emotional outbursts with no reasoned analysis of his administration’s policies. That one man could be as inept as GWB was portrayed to be begs credibility, given the breadth of policies he espoused. Reacting with unilateral judgments, saying the man was absolutely inept, is hardly the mark of a scholar. Everyone I’ve ever met was neither an angel nor a demon; GWB, whatever his faults, was certainly as complex as any other president has been. People who can make distinctions ought to be more balanced in their views than were the faculty with whom I’ve discoursed–or, should I say, had to listen to?My wife, an attorney, and a liberal Democrat on most issues, is not so liberal on abortion. She adopted and raised two children, and understandbly is glad their biological parents did not abort them, despite some extreme circumstances in both situations. Yet in one of her women’s attorney groups, a professional group open to all female attorneys, it is assumed that every female lawyer supports pro-abortion causes and she routinely receives the group’s official appeals to support anti-life initiatives. What’s wrong with this picture?

well it depend. Like say, 90% of military historians (who are mostly conservatives and as U.S. News & World Report described the military historians, right-wing) are concentrated in like 20-30 academic institutions places like the U.S. Military Academy, U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, VMI, Citadel, Norwich, Texas A&M, Universities of Alabama, Mississippi, etc. Most conservatives I know work for Heritage, AEI, Hudson, CATO!. Also the FFRDCs (CNA, IDA, LL, LMI, RAND, SEI, etc). Maybe intellectual diversity is need.

What anyone with an ounce of objectivity should find immediately telling regarding this issue are the disproportionate number of responses here from liberals which can be described variously as dismissive, arrogant, smug, self-satisfied, petty, and hypocritical.

As a highly successful conservative faculty member (from metrics of NIH and other grants, peer-reviewed publications, research awards, teaching awards, etc), I finally left academia because I found it to be the most close-minded, lockstep, bigoted group I had ever met. Rather than being content to reject religious affiliations and beliefs for themselves, they showed sneering disregard for other who found them important, and demonstrated an elitist arrogance that has no place in honest discourse and investigation. The disrespect shown for those with conservative views were at best condescending, and bordered on attack-dog political viciousness. Why would anyone want to subject himself to this type of environment? The only time a more conservative attitude appeared with many of my liberal colleagues was in trying to protect their own cushy environment- for that they were almost reactionary. Elitists can only disrespect the sincere beliefs and views of others for so long before it elicits a backlash, as the election in Massachusetts showed last night. I enjoy working in an academic environment, truly love teaching and discovery, but find the nasty politics disheartening and disgusting. I do not claim that the private sector is all glorious, but your own success is more in your own hands and individual achievement than in conforming to the herd mentality of the great academic collective.

It seems to me that being “liberal” is more consistent with being in academe and doing research because the purpose of study and research is to find or learn something “better”. By study you seek to improve yourself which implies change, it would be the opposite of conserving the way you are. Research is usually bent toward inprovement and change. If the way things are is so great, learning and research, beyond what is already known, may be unnecessary or even bad. In a sense, in academe you are specifically seeking improvement and change, which would both attract and cultivate liberalism, if liberalism implies favoring change. Bernard Schuster Arrive2.net