Posted by Ilya Somin:
Affirmative Action for Conservative Academics?
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_10_07-2007_10_13.shtml#1192226007
Harvard economist Greg Mankiw [1]notes the mounting evidence that
conservatives are underrepresented in academia, and suggests a
possible remedy (without necessarily endorsing it):
Question to think about: If right-wingers are underrepresented in
universities relative to the population and discriminated against
by the left-wing majority, as Larry [Summers] suggests, should
there be affirmative action for right-leaning academics? It seems
that, on principle, those on the left (who favor affirmative action
to promote diversity and correct past injustice) should endorse
such a university policy, and those on the right (who more often
oppose affirmative action) would be against.
The underrepresentation of conservatives (and, I would add,
libertarians) is almost certainly not all due to ideological
discrimination. But [2]evidence suggests that discrimination is
probably at least a part of the story. In [3]this excellent Econlog
post, economist Bryan Caplan explained why ideological discrimination
is more likely to flourish in academia than in most other employment
markets. Even aside from discrimination, the ideological homogeneity
of much of academia causes a variety of problems, such as reducing the
diversity of ideas reflected in research, skewing teaching agendas,
and [4]generating the sorts of "groupthink" pathologies to which
ideologically homogenous groups are prone.
However, whether or not the discrimination is the cause of the
problem, affirmative action for conservative academics (or libertarian
ones) is a poor solution. Among other things, it would require
universities to define who counts as a "conservative" for affirmative
action purpose, a task that they aren't likely to do well. Affirmative
action for conservatives would also give job candidates an incentive
to engage in deception about their views in the hopes of gaining
professional advancement. Moreover, conservative professors hired on
an affirmative basis despite inferior qualifications, would find it
difficult to get their ideas taken seriously by colleagues and
students. They might therefore be unable to make a meaningful
contribution to academic debate - the very reason why we want to
promote ideological diversity to begin with.
References
1.
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/10/is-academia-serious-about-diversity.html
2. http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/reports/Politics_Faculty.pdf
3. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2005/04/tabarrok_should.html
4. http://yalelawjournal.org/110/1/71_cass_r_sunstein.html
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