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[jonesey]

From today's New York Times comes an article detaling a study as to why professors tend to be liberal:

The overwhelmingly liberal tilt of university professors has been explained by everything from outright bias to higher I.Q. scores. Now new research suggests that critics may have been asking the wrong question. Instead of looking at why most professors are liberal, they should ask why so many liberals — and so few conservatives — want to be professors.

A pair of sociologists think they may have an answer: typecasting. Conjure up the classic image of a humanities or social sciences professor, the fields where the imbalance is greatest: tweed jacket, pipe, nerdy, longwinded, secular — and liberal. Even though that may be an outdated stereotype, it influences younger people’s ideas about what they want to be when they grow up.

[smithhasaname]

Thanks for the link.

As much as I agree that society likes to see it that way, I still think the premise is off. While most professors indeed self-identify as "liberals," many of these intellectual "liberals" are, in fact, radically conservative in their actions and do very little to carry out the ideology they espouse. Ultimately it's a "win-win" for the status quo:conservatives get to rail against an ivory-tower elite who, in turn, gets the warm comfort of their ideology and many privileges that contradict that very ideology. In other words, I can remember any number of professors from grad school who, after running on and on about the equality of man, cultures, whatever, would have no problem explaining why their particular culture/area of expertise (usually central European) was by nature superior to, say, [insert non-Western culture here]. Unsurprisingly, these people's economic views tended to be, well, something resembling your average tea party rather than a meeting of the local chapter of the Communist Professors of America. Hardly what I'd call "liberal" in any sense of the word.

Moreover, there's a reason that college campuses are a "staging ground" for leftist ideas: it keeps those kids (and their ideas) off the streets and away from places where they'd cause any disruption/action.

[torquemada]

Academics tend towards utopianism, the scourge of the 20th century. There are leftist and rightist utopians.  But they are generally on the left.  I blame severe mental illness.

[navydad]

Maybe we should ask:

why are so many politicians congenital liars?

why are so many investment bankers greedy con artists?

why are so many military officers conservative?

why are so many NBA players African American?

why are so few MLB players African American?

why are so many celebrities shallow?

why are ingenues pretty?

why do baseball players chew stuff and spit?

As best as I can tell, the two main "explanations" for the "liberal bias" among academics are:

Academics are smarter and therefore naturally liberal.

Academics are economic losers and therefore naturally liberal.

Can we just leave this silly topic alone?

[arts4ever]

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't there a correlation between greater educational attainment and liberalism? It seems to me that I've read that very recently. Not a CAUSAL relationship, but a correlation?

[mdwlark]

From today's New York Times comes an article detaling a study as to why professors tend to be liberal:

The overwhelmingly liberal tilt of university professors has been explained by everything from outright bias to higher I.Q. scores. Now new research suggests that critics may have been asking the wrong question. Instead of looking at why most professors are liberal, they should ask why so many liberals — and so few conservatives — want to be professors.

A pair of sociologists think they may have an answer: typecasting. Conjure up the classic image of a humanities or social sciences professor, the fields where the imbalance is greatest: tweed jacket, pipe, nerdy, longwinded, secular — and liberal. Even though that may be an outdated stereotype, it influences younger people’s ideas about what they want to be when they grow up.

So, you guys are liberal because you don't trim your eyebrows and like to grow beards.  Conservatives would like to be professors, but they can't stand going without shaving and hate tweed.  Now I get it.  But I'm nerdy, longwinded and dress badly, shouldn't you be hiring me for a TT position?   

[present_mirth]

How about "because most politicians on the right aren't offering professors anything that would tempt them to become conservatives, and in fact are actively choosing not to court their votes?"

Personally, I can totally be bought.  The day a Republican runs on a platform of increasing funding for education is the day I vote for one.  Bonus points if they throw a few bones to the arts, humanities, and sciences in general, and double bonus points if they refrain from using academia as a scapegoat in their public rhetoric.  I'm easy that way.  But somehow, I don't think it's ever going to happen.

[cgfunmathguy]

How about "because most politicians on the right aren't offering professors anything that would tempt them to become conservatives, and in fact are actively choosing not to court their votes?"

Personally, I can totally be bought.  The day a Republican runs on a platform of increasing funding for education is the day I vote for one.  Bonus points if they throw a few bones to the arts, humanities, and sciences in general, and double bonus points if they refrain from using academia as a scapegoat in their public rhetoric.  I'm easy that way.  But somehow, I don't think it's ever going to happen.

At the expense of what? The federal budget (I'm assuming you're talking about federal funding here) is already way overbloated. How are you going to manage to do this? Why is education (K-12 or higher) funding a federal problem?

[jonesey]

At the expense of what? The federal budget (I'm assuming you're talking about federal funding here) is already way overbloated. How are you going to manage to do this? Why is education (K-12 or higher) funding a federal problem?

Because education is a public duty, and not all states are equal.  Why should students be stuck with inferior education just because they were born in a poor state? 

[post_functional]

Maybe we should ask:

why are so many politicians congenital liars?

why are so many investment bankers greedy con artists?

why are so many military officers conservative?

why are so many NBA players African American?

why are so few MLB players African American?

why are so many celebrities shallow?

why are ingenues pretty?

why do baseball players chew stuff and spit?

As best as I can tell, the two main "explanations" for the "liberal bias" among academics are:

Academics are smarter and therefore naturally liberal.

Academics are economic losers and therefore naturally liberal.

Can we just leave this silly topic alone?

Hear, hear.  The question itself is just one more variation on "Are stereotypes real?".

[present_mirth]

How about "because most politicians on the right aren't offering professors anything that would tempt them to become conservatives, and in fact are actively choosing not to court their votes?"

Personally, I can totally be bought.  The day a Republican runs on a platform of increasing funding for education is the day I vote for one.  Bonus points if they throw a few bones to the arts, humanities, and sciences in general, and double bonus points if they refrain from using academia as a scapegoat in their public rhetoric.  I'm easy that way.  But somehow, I don't think it's ever going to happen.

At the expense of what? The federal budget (I'm assuming you're talking about federal funding here) is already way overbloated. How are you going to manage to do this? Why is education (K-12 or higher) funding a federal problem?

I don't particularly care whether it should be a federal problem or why, because my entire point is I don't have any deeply held principles (and I'd bet most of the electorate doesn't, deep down).  I'm motivated by self-interest -- maybe enlightened self-interest on a good day, but definitely self-interest.  Thus, I don't particularly care to vote for politicians whose campaign platforms include cutting funding for stuff that I care deeply about, or who perpetuate negative stereotypes about my profession.  It has been my experience that conservative politicians are more likely to do these things than liberals, although honestly, neither of the major parties has a great track record, at least on the first point. 

Anyway, what I'm saying is that if conservatives actually wanted there to be more conservative professors, there are some fairly simple things they could change to make their message more appealing to professors (and one of those things is rhetoric, which doesn't cost anything).  They don't, probably because professors are a very small chunk of the population and the number of people they appeal to with their current message is much larger, but they could.

[cgfunmathguy]

At the expense of what? The federal budget (I'm assuming you're talking about federal funding here) is already way overbloated. How are you going to manage to do this? Why is education (K-12 or higher) funding a federal problem?

Because education is a public duty, and not all states are equal.  Why should students be stuck with inferior education just because they were born in a poor state? 

Okay, I'll say this with the understanding that the hijack ends here. There is plenty of research showing that education quality does not correlate (at least not well) with spending on education. Students in "poor states" aren't "stuck with inferior educations". Not all states are equal, and that's actually a good thing (see California). Education is (or has historically been) a public duty of the states and municipalities. All the federal government does is muck things up by starting programs with funding for three or four years and then telling the states or districts that they are on their own afterward.