David B. Shemano wrote: > As a conservative, I demand an > apology for your very insensitive implication that > the disparity of conservatives in academia is > related to merit and not discrimination. Such > arguments will only discourage conservatives from > applying for academic positions, and direct them > into less intellectually demanding occupations, like > running superpowers and multi-national corporations. > AFFIRMATIVE ACTION NOW FOR CONSERVATIVES!
Yes, David, I apologize provided it doesn't imply liability for damages arising from any loss of self-esteem you may have suffered as a result of my insensitive and logocentric insistence on discriminatory social science methodology. David does bring up a point, which I hadn't thought of, that the "study" was intentionally ironic and meant to discredit similar excercises relating to discrimination against women and minorities. One difference, of course, is that we know that women and minorities were not simply "discriminated against" but explicitly barred from many institutions including, within my lifetime: access to credit, water fountains, lunch counters and the front seats of buses. Nor was it necessary to classify these discriminated groups according to self-reports on gender or ethnic scales. Visual cues were usually sufficient. Now, it seems to me that the kind of belabouring-the-obvious social science that David mocks was indeed a rather flaccid and ineffectual response to ongoing structural racism and sexism in institutions of higher education. And this is because, in my opinion, such research was loath to take class into account as a fundamental dimension of discrimination. That, by the way is points to another flaw in the flawed research about conservative profs. I have read studies suggesting that people from working class background who manage to succeed in academic careers tend to be more conservative than people who's parents were themselves professionals. People from working class backgrounds who succeed in academic careers also tend to not make it into the top tiers. This is not to say that they were discriminated against (lord no, were talking correlation, not causation). But isn't it amusing to think that while the researchers are busy obsessing about "ideological discrimination" their study could just as easily be interpreted as evidence of class discrimination? The Sandwichman ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
