"Liberal" Academia

OK. I get it. I'm a lawyer, a former educator, a former public employee's union official . . . I fit the mold. I am the boogeyman that FoxNews and company harp about day in and day out.

In light of that, I was rather unsurprised to see that a majority of self-identified "conservatives" have a rather negative view of the impact of higher education on society. I suppose that wasn't too surprising to me, as I've heard more times than I can count some variation on the notion that my education is holding me back and preventing me from seeing some obvious truths in the world.

Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist and award-winning economist, recently addressed this point:

A few days ago Pew reported that Republicans, who were already much less positive than Democrats about higher education, have turned very negative on the role of colleges in America. True to form, this worries some liberal commentators, who are calling for outreach – universities should examine their implicit biases, make an effort to hire more conservative faculty, etc..

And you can see the point. After all, among college professors 59 percent identify as Democrats versus only 13 percent as Republicans; senior faculty were even more liberal, with very few identifying themselves as conservatives.

Wow! That sure looks compelling. Continuing:

Oh, wait – that wasn’t a survey of college professors; it was a 2004 survey of the military, and the 59-13 comparison was of Republicans versus Democrats. Support for Republicans in the military has eroded since then, but the officer corps is still far more conservative than the country at large. Strange to say, however, I haven’t seen a lot of op-eds demanding that the military change its recruiting practices and practice what amounts to affirmative action on behalf of liberals.

Funny that.

The point is that your political orientation isn’t something handed to you, like your race or ethnicity. It’s a choice, reflecting your values – and those same values are likely to influence your choice of profession, and possibly how well you perform in that profession. Is there discrimination against would-be academics who express conservative beliefs? I’m sure it happens, but it’s not the main reason conservatives are less likely than liberals to join the academy, just as discrimination against would-be officers with liberal views probably isn’t the main reason the military trends conservative.

Agreed. Just as there's a reason that Gender Studies classes are full of people who are interested in the ways gender expresses itself in our society, Finance classes are chock full of people who are interested in determining how to use money to make money. This should not be surprising.

In conclusion, I will let Mr. Krugman say it, as he is the professional:

What this means for the future is grim. America basically invented the modern, educated society, leading the way on universal K-12 education, building the world’s finest and most comprehensive higher education system; this in turn was an important factor in how we became leader of the free world. Now a powerful political movement basically wants to make America ignorant again.

As Thomas Jefferson so memorably said, "If a nation wants to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."