Posted by Todd Zywicki:
More on Campus Intellectual Diversity:
Howard Kurtz reports today on a new study on the lack of intellectual
diversity on campus [1]College Faculties A Most Liberal Lot, Study
Finds. I haven't been able to find a copy of the actual underlying
study, so if someone knows where it is, please point me to it. So I'll
rely on Kurtz's summary here.
According to Kurtz's summary:
By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American
universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are
conservative, says the study being published this week. The
imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent
of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats
and 11 percent as Republicans.
The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools,
where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal
and 13 percent are conservative.
Broken down by departments:
The most liberal faculties are those devoted to the humanities (81
percent) and social sciences (75 percent), according to the study.
But liberals outnumbered conservatives even among engineering
faculty (51 percent to 19 percent) and business faculty (49 percent
to 39 percent).
The most left-leaning departments are English literature,
philosophy, political science and religious studies, where at least
80 percent of the faculty say they are liberal and no more than 5
percent call themselves conservative, the study says.
As I said, I haven't been able to find the underlying study, but as
reported by Howard Kurtz, the finding here are consistent with the
findings of Dan Klein's research, which I [2]commented on a few weeks
back. At that time, I was struck by a couple of things. First, that
although a lot of people nitpicked at the study, none of them were
able to rebut the central conclusion of the study. In fact, most of
the criticism seems to have been done by critics who apparently didn't
read all of Klein's underlying research which looks at both policy
views and party affiliation.
Second, no one has provided any evidence that contradicts the central
findings of these studies, whether Klein's or the apparent conclusions
of the new study. I'm sure that advocates of the status quo will find
something to pick at in the new study as well--but if the findings of
these studies are fundamentally flawed, at some point wouldn't someone
find something to the contrary? If the evidence was otherwise mixed,
then nitpicking at particular studies is one thing, but when the
evidence begins to accumulate, at some point it seems like nitpicking
is somewhat unresponsive to the underlying issue.
If there is evidence out there that shows a libertarian/conservative
takeover of academia, I haven't seen it.
The evidence is mounting that there is an ideological one-sidedness to
university campuses today. The relevant question is whether it is
having an effect on the education of American college students.
Interestingly, one observation in the Kurtz article is striking:
When asked about the findings, Jonathan Knight, director of
academic freedom and tenure for the American Association of
University Professors, said, *** "It's hard to see that these
liberal views cut very deeply into the education of students. In
fact, a number of studies show the core values that students bring
into the university are not very much altered by being in college."
This is consistent with what I hear from many of my own
students--university campuses have become so cartoonishly left-wing
that many students are essentially just tuning out their professors.
Students report that they just go through the motions of pretending
that they are converted, then they just regurgitate the mantra on
exams in order to get a good grade. Meanwhile, many students dismiss
their professors as risible ideologues (a good example [3]here).
Perhaps the fact that students are largely unchanged by their
university experience is the most damning comment of all about what is
going on at universities today.
Finally, is anyone else surprised that Religious studies is
self-reported as one of the most liberal departments? I would have
thought if conservatives were present anywhere, it would be in
religious studies.
References
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8427-2005Mar28.html
2. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_02_20-2005_02_26.shtml#1109340158
3.
http://dartobserver.blogspot.com/2005/03/susan-ackerman-deconstruct_111064971938194588.html
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