Sorry, Richard, the Paul Cantor you found at Harvard can't be the same guy. Paul Cantor at Virginia is English; this guy at Harvard is in Government.

The AEI is a joke and all the opinions expressed in this article are false.

(Which is NOT to say there aren't serious intellectual problems in departments like English across the country, and that some of them have to do with ideology. But those ideologies are by and large NOT political on the usual left-right axis we use in America. And the problems they cause are not societal but intellectual, and of compelling interest only to people who care about the scholarly values of a particular discipline.)

This outstanding piece from just a few days ago deserves to be reproduced in full. I went to find it and only then realized it was from Columbia -- and moreover written by a COLLEGE SENIOR.


The money quote is easy to identify: "You might also argue that the liberal environment at Columbia makes conservatives less inclined to work here, but that just sounds like a way of saying that conservatives are pansies who can’t handle disagreement, which seems unfair to me."

NAILED it!

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/?q=node/27969

Liberal Bias is A-OK
By J.D. Porter
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 9, 2007

Here at Columbia, as at most top universities, we enjoy belittling conservative beliefs. Even the professors are in on it, and conservatives often find their beliefs directly challenged by academic trickery, like thinking about things, and facts. But shouldn’t good pedagogy incorporate all sides of an issue? No, it should not. If conservativism is absent from the University, it’s because it hasn’t earned its way in.

The fundamental problem here is that good intellectual exercise of any kind doesn’t mean including all the viewpoints available; it means including the good viewpoints. When I get a headache, I don’t equally weigh the taking aspirin option with the putting leeches on my head option even though many people, including several major founding fathers, have been adamantly pro head-leech. Similarly, when a news program has scientists on to talk about global warming, it doesn’t make sense to invite one who believes in it and one who doesn’t. It makes sense to invite two good scientists, even though they will probably agree. I don’t care about “unbiased” reporting; I want accurate reporting. I also want good scholarship, whether or not it has a balanced political perspective. If your idea gets left out, it’s your fault for having a dumb idea.

The obvious question, of course, is who decides which opinions are good. It’s a tricky issue that requires a lot of thought, but one place to start might be with people who know what they’re talking about. We all know this on some level, but we’re bad at applying it to politics. If you want to know what’s wrong with your car, for example, you don’t poll your neighbors; you ask a mechanic. If most of your neighbors disagree with the mechanic, you ignore them, even if they quote the Bible. For the same reason, it doesn’t really matter what most of the country thinks about global warming or evolution, because the people who know actual facts about those things have pretty much formed a consensus. Yes, you can dig up a scientist who disagrees, just like the tobacco industry has found doctors who think Marlboros make fun Halloween treats, but consensus among experts is really what matters here.

Of course, the experts can be wrong. For example, the New York Times recently reported that scientists in general have basically been wrong about what makes a healthy diet for about a half century. But at least with science there’s a correction mechanism of some kind, namely other science. Unlike, say, conservativism, science doesn’t exist to endorse past beliefs. If scientists could prove that the Earth has secretly been flat all these years, they would, and the other scientists, instead of taking it as a personal affront, would probably give them a Nobel prize.

The same holds for academia. A sociology professor isn’t going to get ahead just by finding a way to blame America first. She’s going to have to do some sociology stuff, which will probably be judged on the quality of the scholarship rather than the viewpoint espoused. Just as there is no organization called Science that holds secret meetings to determine which part of Christianity is going down next, there is no cabal of academics trying to keep campuses liberal, as in, “You barely seem to grasp the difference between supply and demand, but you say you ‘really like Marx,’ so you’re our new economics professor.”

In reality, conservatives ought to appreciate academia, because it’s a vicious market system. Professors have absurdly specific training in tiny career fields. A guy who spends years writing a dissertation on the importance of beads to indigenous tribes in Brazil really wants the world’s other bead expert to fail. If he doesn’t get tenure, there’s a good chance he won’t find a decent job anywhere else ever. He doesn’t care whether bead-man number two is a Republican; he could be left of Castro and the first guy would still spend days writing scathing articles blasting his shoddy bead analysis.

Similarly, Columbia isn’t going to refuse to hire a conservative who has done prominent work, because rich people like prominence, and we at Columbia need rich people to send us their progeny. You could argue that conservative professors have a more difficult time becoming prominent, but if most professors are liberal, then a conservative doing convincing research or writing influential journal articles would probably just be more conspicuous. You might also argue that the liberal environment at Columbia makes conservatives less inclined to work here, but that just sounds like a way of saying that conservatives are pansies who can’t handle disagreement, which seems unfair to me.

Speaking pragmatically, it doesn’t really matter why campuses are liberal, because we don’t have a way to change that. Theoretically, schools could start hiring professors based on their political beliefs, but that’s uncomfortably like totalitarianism, or, even worse, some kind of affirmative action. Of course, if academia is truly a marketplace, and there are truly students interested in conservative education, then we ought to see the emergence of conservative universities. So far we have at least one. It’s called Liberty University, and it is to academia what Larry the Cable Guy is to the performing arts.

If conservatives truly feel under-represented in the academy, their only option is to do better work. They shouldn’t allow themselves to be coddled by some sort of regulatory system looking out for their welfare. It’s a mistake, however, to say that we even need more conservative voices at Columbia. We need good scholarship and good pedagogy, and not lip service to an ideology just because it’s popular. That may mean we hire conservatives, or, if history is any indication, it more likely won’t. If we judge professors purely on their work, however, conservativism will have the place in academia that it deserves.

J.D. Porter is a Columbia College senior majoring in English.
 

The link should be fixed now, SE. Thanks for catching that.
 

I've never heard anyone saying that there needed to be a "regulatory system" in place to give conservatives a boost. That would be odd, since disagreeing with that approach is at the heart of real conservatism. The reason this remains an issue is that for a long time liberals denied the existence of this bias - some still deny it. And that, like this article, is incredibly silly, insulting even. It is, to be sure, a particular sort of political bias, primarily the kind that cowers before political correctness.

I'm a conservative, and in my case it's primarily due to my feelings about big government and wasteful government spending. So, of course, I'm no Bush fan. I'm also pro choice. And I practice no religion nor see a role for it in public life. But I do despise political correctness. And that movement was likely born in academia and thrives there still.
 

So 8:21, how would I discover in a faculty job interview, e.g., that you are against government spending, pro-choice, or down on political correctness -- a much deconstructed and weakened phenomenon now, compared to the late 80's (thank goodness)? I wouldn't unless you somehow announced it. The fact is there are far fewer conservatives who go into academics, at least in the humanities, and I think our man J.D. Porter is on track here.
 

Thanks for responding, Professor Thomas, but my problem with the article was that I believed it misrepresented the argument of the conservatives. I'm totally willing to believe that the hiring and promoting processes largely manage to avoid politics and, therefore, a substantial liberal bias. Rather I - and I believe the vast majority of my conservative colleagues - find the bias in the opinions that are espoused in the classrooms on a day-to-day basis. That is a *real* danger, one that marginalizes student conservative opinions. The irony is that these same liberals often defend passionately the force feeding of traditionally marginalized cultures (i.e. it's ok to marginalize as long as its white, male, and middle/upper class).

Consciously or unconsciously stifling conservative opinions is wrong. Denying that it even occurs - the problem I was trying to articulate above - is just annoying and insulting.
 

8:21/8:58

"it's ok to marginalize as long as its white, male, and middle/upper class"

Sorry, but this canard won't work with me. I'm a classicist, who studies white, male, mostly elite, and very dead writers. Their writings however, warn against adventurism and wars of choice, contemplate the perils of imperialism, reflect on the necessary fall of empires, lean in favor of liberality and generosity, and constantly convey a recognition that we all share a humanity that should make us behave humanely to all we meet, and to care for those who need care -- often by displaying the consequences of man's failure to do so.

That's why I find my fairly extreme progressivism well reflected in texts that were once considered the property of the elite. The conservative classicists who have disastrously lent credibility to the neo-cons and the Bush administrations (Hansen, the Kagans, etc.) can find their messages too, but they are generally less persuasive than more liberal interpreters, and if they are less persuasive they are less deserving of recognition, by students or colleagues. That's the way it works, the humanistic marketplace.

As for your claim,
"Consciously or unconsciously stifling conservative opinions is wrong", that seems to miss the point. If conservative opinions are intellectually plausible, those who argue for them cogently and persuasively will insure that they not be stifled. Otherwise they deserve to be stifled, indeed are essentially self-stifling.

Which is to say, J. D. Porter hits the mark. Well done, J. D.!
 

Whatever the merits of this particular study, there is no doubt that there is a liberal bias within most humanities departments. By that I mean that if you are a democrat--or something far left of that--you can express your views to your colleagues, talk to them about the debates, even list your political writings or political activities on your c.v., and all of this will be judged positive or at worst neutral. If you are a republican--and we are almost never talking about being anything to the right of that--you can never openly express your views to your colleagues. It will very likely affect decisions about publications, promotions, etc., many of which are anonymous and not transparent. Your colleagues don't necessarily have to be conscious of the fact that they are discriminating on the basis of beliefs that have nothing to do with your work; they may just have a feeling that they feel less comfortable around you, or that you that suffer from certain moral blind spots, etc. If your political beliefs actually enter your scholarship in any way, that poses an even greater problem because most of your readers will genuinely believe your argument is defective because it ignores what Marx or Adorno or someone had to say. There is no easy fix, but a little more self-consciousness would go a long way. Most academics with liberal beliefs are utterly unselfconscious and can't understand why anyone else might hesitate to speak. I'm sure another poster will say that those who remain silent are whimps. But if your subject is Rembrandt, why should you risk your promotion by defending the merits of some republican proposal or another?
 

I'm finding that you, Professor Thomas, are missing the point. You are presuming only exchanges amongst a field of equals (intellectual equals, of course), peer to peer. If that was what I was talking about, I would agree or, rather, have no argument. But I am not talking about peer to peer, I am talking about instructor to pupil here. And in that situation, stifling premature judgments or hasty conclusions is certainly valid, but stifling a different political opinion or interpretation is seriously remiss. You seem to want to believe that no conservative argument can be made intelligently, in which case, you're hardly open-minded and 'nuff said.
 

What you say is alien to my experience, 12:03. I have had some very conservative graduate students, with whom I argue vigorously (when they wish to engage in political discussion) and for whom I write very positive recommendations as their academic work justifies. There is a lot of projection going on here, I think. And in 2007 you can't equate liberal-conservative with Democrat-Republican in the way you do.

If your subject is Rembrandt, and you don't want/need to share your politics, or religion, e.g., with colleagues and students, you don't need to, so what's the problem?

It's late. Over and out.
 

12:08 - it's certainly true that some professors make casual political comments in their lectures and because most professors vote Democrat, those casual comments will tend to be from such a viewpoint. OK, sure.

But do you seriously think that this stifles conservative political expression among students? My experience runs exactly the opposite. Conservative students I know have tended to be either appreciative that the professor has made it clear where he or she stands OR they have been somewhat annoyed, at worst. None have felt stifled.

In fact, I think think it's clear that those kinds of casual comments produce more conservative speech than they stifle. All this whining -- and it really is whining -- about English professors occasionally mentioning how disappointed they were at Bush's re-election seems to be something conservatives say these days because they have nothing else to talk about; Bush's presidency has been such a disaster they'd rather compain about people's dislike of him than actually defend his administration. To that extent, conservatives should be grateful to the careless English professors of the world to give them a cause in an otherwise difficult environment for them.
 

Standing Eagle is wrong: it is the same Paul Cantor. I ran into him in the Yard two weeks ago. He is indeed a professor of English visiting the Harvard Gov Dept.
 

I teach texts in which political connections constantly present themselves, which is one of thr big reasons therse texts are worth reading and thinking about. Since I am incapable of the dissimulation that would allow me to avoid connecting e.g. Thucydides' Sicilian expedition with our current adventures (as I did 45 minutes ago), I generally make my positions known early and loud in such classes -- i.e. during shopping week -- but also make it clear I like push-back. I consider that part of the educational process, the avoidance of it an abrogation of my obligation to my students.

I don't "stifle premature judgments" 12:08, I correct them (if they need correcting). If the political opinions on which they are based are then at odds with the corrected judgments, it is up to the holder of those opinions to decide what to do about that.
 

RT that was
 

I'm a little surprised by the charge that lots of professors make casual comments about politics "on a day to day basis" in the classroom. I wonder how true this is. It seems to me that it's perfectly possible to teach topics that have implications for present-day politics without revealing one's own political opinions.