Redstate

because the liberals will hire, promote and grant tenure to fellow members of the club.

How can anyone say such overwhelming unanimity of thought in a college/school is a good thing?!

I have yet to hear a Liberal explain how lack of "ideological diversity" is somehow a "good thing", when lack of racial/sexual/economic/[insert favorite "group of the day" here] is supposed to be "bad".

Sounds to me like a little (or a lot!) of "academic affirmative action" is in order...

conservatives.

But I agree, uniformity in thought, or unformity in leftist thought (because there probably is a huge difference between a liberal centrist dem and a flaming socialist or marxist) isn't a good thing.

Is that I attended one of the schools described above, had all of two conservative professors (who kept politics out), two crazy lefts, some more-middle-lefts, and the rest were center-lefts; and my three best professors were probably a middlish left, a center-left, and a crazy left.

The worst, by the way, was a crazy left. A middlish left came close.

The impressive thing is that the crazy left who taught so well taught a class almost as politically fraught as Con Law, and managed to keep his personal, and very well-published, views out of it.

I found that generally speaking, unless the prof insisted on pushing his politics (and this did indeed happen), the whole thing was quite manageable, so long as you didn't expect balanced viewpoints of the law.

that law professors might be most adept at keeping their personal views out of their teaching.  Sort of an occupational hazard for lawyers isn't it?

Overall though, I find this no more troubling than a study that finds X% of entrepreneurs are capitalists.

I signed on yesterday, and today y'all have blocked me from commenting.

Are you so cowardly that you can't deal with opposing points of view?  Apparently so -

I am never quite sure how one's school indoctrinates students into becoming liberals? Some one needs to share that trick as it is quite impressive. Great way to get rich quick. And many actors are liberals too so do acting schools inculcate liberalism too? This reminds of a conservative blog (?) I read some time ago where they claimed you were probably ok if you had a bachelors but if you got a masters or heaven forbid a PHD you were probably a liberal. ;)

As a parent of two undergrads in 'named' schools, I amy be able to speak to your question a bit:

A kid gets there, far from home, knowing they are at a prestige school. The culture they must adapt to is very left. One adapts by mimicking the culture. This is well documented.

The great news is that inspite of lefty hacks ruling academia, most of the kids recover over time.

The ones that spend more time immerssed in lefty land recover more slowly. There are those unfortunates who fail to recover. The students of true wackjobs, like Paul Krugman, recover slowest of all.

I'm currently working on a PhD in organizational psychology at an Ivy league school, and IMO there is no doubt that the faculty in my program are almost uniformly left. This lack of ideological diversity can stifle debate sometimes.

For example, it is almost held as gospel that racial diversity contributes to innovation in organizations, justifying a "business case" for  diversity. The problem is, there is virtually no research to support this link. A conservative academic might be more inclined to point this out than a liberal.

I would like to see this type of debate but I don't get the sense that there are a lot of conservatives applying for jobs at my department.

work department.

If there was a single conservative teacher in the social work department at the university I attended I will eat my diploma.

The discipline was eat up with touchy feely liberal/socialist ideas.  It was also very PC.

My degree is in criminal justice, and we had a pretty nice balance of proffessors-some flaming liberals and some very conservative, it actually made for a well balanced take on the subject.

young people tend to lean liberal anyway, then they get to a University where many of their proffessors lean left, and therefor nobody ever really challenges them on their viewpoint, because a leftie proffessor isn't going to expose the lack of logic in some of their arguments.  

Students who lean conservative and have a good understanding of why they believe what they believe actually may in the end up with a better education, because they have to defend their positions much more than the leftie will.

I admit one of the best proffessors I ever had taught his classes from outside the left/right spectrum-he hid well what he believed politically-and he challenged everyone to defend their positions.  If an instructor can do this, in the end his personal political leanings aren't going to matter, but there are too many proffessor's who can't do it this way.

Also, I imagine it is as much the other students who do the indoctrinating as the proffessors.  And I am sure the problems are more of a problem in certain disciplines than others-like I said there wasn't a single conservative proffessor in the social work department, and you could tell it.  

Everyone has a political opinion, expeically lawyers, so the question should not be "are they liberals?" or "are they conservative?" or "are they in this party or that?"  Even though it may not be conceivable to many hard-core RW'ers, it is possible to hold an opinion about a subject and still teach from an objective viewpoint.  The article cited even suggests that this is the case:

If the liberal law professors mean to indoctrinate students, though, they have failed spectacularly in some notable cases.

You righties crack me up.  You cite an article that says that the apparent liberal bias appears to have no influence on the political views of graduates, yet you still get your panties in a twist, apparently just because liberals are even  allowed to exist at all.

The point is that you cannot ask people to not have opinions just because they go into teaching, or to change who they are.  Even though Mr. Yousefzadeh appears to think himself very insightful for predicting the obvious counter arguments, if more liberals than conservatives decide to go into teaching, then that is no one's fault but conservatives.  If on the otherhand, we find that conservatives are actively discriminated against on the basis of their political viewpoints when applying for teaching positions, especially if it occurs at public institutions, then that is cause for concern. But I know of no study that indicates this is happening.  Otherwise, if you righties want there to be more of your kind in the ranks of academia, then you should encourage your people to forgo the big money to be made in the private sector and go into teaching.  Even if its not the money, there is something about teaching that appears to less to conservatives.  That is no one's fault.

seem like an awefully strange way to measure this.  If only 1/3 of all professors donate financially to political parties, is it really fair to assume that the other two thirds of them have the same proportions of conservatives and liberals?  Isn't it possible that liberal professors are just more likely to donate than conservative professors?  It just seems like the conclusion that has been drawn from this data is not necessarily the right one.  

Professional Responsibility -- a class most lawyers should have to sit through for more than the two hour semester it's normally associated with -- prof (well known lefty with obnoxious Boston accent):

Class Starts.

Professor: All right, today we're going to talk about the tripartite relationship. First, I wanted to point out that there's a rally for reproductive rights at the Capitol today, and as everyone knows, the right to abortion is clearly in the Constitution. Now, let's talk about what happens when someone besides your client pays the bill...

He was egregious. Worse, to stay with the same hobby horse:

Con Law Professor:

Professor: All right, you were supposed to read Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Balton last night. I hope it's clear now that there's a right to abortion in the Constitution. Good. Now, moving on to flag burning...

And, in a completely non-political class:

Professor: We're going to talk about the UCC today. However, does everyone know what today is? Today is the day Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham jail was published...

I don't think it's deliberate. This is just the way their little minds work.

That you can't even take a hint that you're not wanted?

He said in a posted comment.

Think about it.

when you work in an environment that is overtly left-your fellow proff's, many of the students, etc you are just going to reflect what appears to you everyone else thinks.

I think this is much how media bias works as well-I don't think reporters intentially seek to be biased, it just sort of comes out as the filter what news to cover, who to interview and what words to us.

Proff's probably do the same thing.

although there are other studies that seem to reflect the same finding using other criteria, so I think it is going to be difficult to argue that some generalization here can't be made.

Never mind.

or at least a sentence or two are omitted.

But, <snark> alas </snark&gt I have never sat through a law school class despite my imploring to be invited to one.

Re:  The annoying Boston accent.  I can sympathize especially when said "Boston Brahmin" was from South Carolina and got his degree from Clemson.  I mean YIKES!  Can you say any more loudly "I feel inadequate about my origins and I'm willing to lie about them to make you think I'm superior?"

The fact that he was a psychology professor is what makes me always question my knowledge of everything, I think, I know.  

No sentences were omitted. Actually, that's not technically true: The idiot PR prof actually mentioned something about gun control first.

And the Con Law prof's quote became a screensaver that I had to dredge up to make this comment.

How would the people doing the hiring in the Physics departments know the political leanings of their prospective candidates?

He didn't create a new account? because he only has one comment listed under this current account?

any idea what his previous account name was?

if offered a tenured position or an associate position at said university, the applicant felt they could make a difference, and what imapct that would have on the students, the university, the academic community and on society as a whole.  Then wait for the response.

An open-ended question such as that, when expanded upon and followed up with subsequent related quesitons would tell the dean everything he/she wanted to know about the applicants ideology.

Okay.

Anybody happen to know if there has been a study done of the ideology of physics undergrads, or people who graduate with a major in physics?

Bet you didn't think someone would give you that excuse.

But they were.  They didn't care much for government interference.

From a non-attorney that has read many of the cases, there seems to be mostly two lines of cases.

One... that Congress can act on behalf of the public welfare.  What this means has been in dispute since the beginning.  Hamilton and Jefferson argued about it.  Jefferson reversed himself over it.  And Helvering settled it.  Without it, I don't think we would be much of a nation.

Two... personal freedoms.  There are two schools of camps.  Those that want a literal interpretation of the 9th amendment and those that don't.  Those want little limitation on the first amendment and those that want more.  Those that want a firm interpretation of the establishment clause and those that don't.  Those that want an aggressive application of the 14th to guarantee rights in all the states and those that don't.

Given the argument, I am not surprised that those that study the constitution and law line up on the side of liberty.  I would be surprised by a contrary result - same as if the ACLU attorneys were found to be conservative - even though the ACLU defends the conservative and right wing elements of the society - as well as the left wing.

imho,

Stanford

And Clayton has better things to do with his time than track this annoyance down.

Unless they actually understand it.

The actual case law dealing with the Ninth is remarkably sparse, and for good reason.

The rest of your comment is simply badly misinformed. Well, I should say, "worse."

do. Those who can't, teach.

I think it's something like

If you're 18 and not a liberal, you have no heart.  If you're 30 and not a conservative, you have no brains.

My grandfather told me that when I went to college and was stunned to find out I was a Republican even then.  I guess I've always been advanced.  :)

Teaching is one of the most important professions in the country. Many teachers love what they do and wouldn't want to do anything else.

standards I wouldn't exactly be a true leftie, I was always to conservative religiously for that.

But I went through my liberal phase, and by the time I finished grad school, got married and started having babies, my views shifted significantly.  

This subject back, Pejman.  I'm sure nobody wants to take credit for my views on this subject, because I have a lot of them, including some that I haven't expressed here on RedState because I have been waiting for a kind of "statute of limitations" to expire on my recounts of my personal experiences as the secretary to the Dean of a law school.  

Rather than put them in this thread, I'll write a diary entry about it this week referencing this thread.  But at the outset I can tell you that as someone who has worked in the higher administration of a law school in a large American metropolis, Pejman's overview is accurate -- but it's only an overview.  

More to come...

I guess my reaction to this issue has always been a big shrug of the shoulders.  There are a lot of reasons for this, most of which have been addressed by other responses, so let me just cut to what's new.

Liberalism in academia is hardly surprising or even correctible.  Academia relishes in sophisticated (or just sophistic, depending on your point of view) arguments.  Liberal arguments are usually more sophisticated than conservative arguments, so academia is more attractive to us.

I mean no disrespect to conservatives by saying that.  First, sophistication does not necessarily imply correctness; from Occam's Razor, one can say that an argument ought to be no more complex than necessary.  Second, I know that the principle I'm asserting doesn't always hold true; I'm writing in generalities here.

Now to address Pejman's predicted liberal responses:

To the first:

doesn't apply.

To the second:

I don't believe Republicans are concerned with money and not with thinking.  I do believe, however, that the type of thought with which much of academia concerns itself is a type that appeals more to liberals.  Indeed, the practicality of questions like, "Who are you to say what is art?" and, "Does the Constitution really have to be interpreted that way?" cannot go unnoticed.  A strict constructionist view of the Constitution would pretty strongly limit academia in the subject of Con Law, rightly or wrongly.  An expansive view yields more variety of arguments, so people espousing that variety are more likely to be drawn to academia.

To the third:

well, anyone who says that has debased the argument, and it is something I can't stand about many college liberals.  I actually found myself making the conservative argument for most of four years with them, specifically for that reason.  Someone needs to tell them that y'all have something to say, and it isn't to be dismissed out of hand.

Academic liberalism is certainly a partial product of intellectual nepotism, but I think it's wrong to dismiss it so quickly.  It just seems to me that, by and large, the "liberal academic elite" are often attracted to academia and liberalism for the same reason.

if a poll was done of salesmen across the country they would vastly tilt to the Right.

Not sure why that matters.  Then again I'm not sure why the political leanings of professors matter.

When I was younger, I was much more conservative than I am today and that is probably the direct result of environment -- Pentecostal, Goldwater supporting Indiana family roots.

In advanced middle age, I'm rather more liberal socially but tolerant on issues like nativity scenes, 10 commandment displays, etc.  I've remained fiscally conservative, more so with respect to spending constraints than taxation per se, and probably libertarian on government policing of private lives.

Generally, I'd say that I've gotten more forgiving, less ideological and more tolerant as I've gotten older.

... but then I remember a Democrat 527 (I believe it was the New York Times) publishing a somewhat overwrought article about the strongly Republican lean of the military (apparently somewhere north of 65%).

Oh well ...

But ok.  I don't think it much matters what the military's political leanings are, provided that the leadership remain politically neutral.  What I mean by that is that they stay out of the political spehere.  They can vote for anyone they like and believe whatever they want.

The reality is that certain occupations attract certain types of people.  This is why performing arts types are usually VERY Liberal and why ministers are very Conservative for the most part.  

This is the way of life.

Counterpoint to some of what you write (because it is written by a presumably liberal professor who has decided to leave the Ivory Tower) is provided here, in an article by an Associate Professor of Literature who has decided to give up her tenure in a "Goodbye Cruel World" article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

I am reminded of a conversation I had with a colleague a few years ago. We were leaving after a long day and met by happenstance in the parking lot. The topic got around to the innumerable meetings, reports, self-studies, external- and internal-evaluations, five-year strategic plans, and assorted other "objective" measures of success we foist upon ourselves. He said, "I think the price we pay to teach is getting too high." His statement was prophetic...

...

Could I survive a few more years of what was now obviously full-blown agony of spirit in the name of material comfort? Could I fake it? Could I make myself a mask convincing enough to fool everyone? Could I say yes when I was dying to shout no? Was there enough good red wine in the world?

You've never sat in on a Promotion and Tenure Committee meeting, or been involved in a Dean search.  In my experience, the nearly 9:1 liberal/conservative imbalance in academia is direct result of self-selection.  It hasn't been shown in "studies" because in spite of all of the peer-review and self-study that liberal academics conduct, they have a deep-seated aversion to admitting that they deliberately exclude people with conservative ideas and backgrounds from the process.  They're openly hostile to them, in some cases.  I've seen firsthand an eminently qualified (probably the MOST qualified person among all of the applicants) deanship candidicy get torpedoed by anonymous emails that were circulated about him among the faculty members.  They reeked of the same type of character assassination that happened to John Bolton, but were almost impossible to substantiate because the source was anonymous and the professor who sent the email did so anonymously.  But it had the intended effect:  that person didn't get the job.  And the attack was all about his supposedly "brusque" personality.  I've had professors tell me stright up that they were going to oppose a deanship candidate because the person was "too corporate."  That was it, a quick glance at the resume and they might as well have gone home.

There is an ideological litmus test that applies to prospective candidates for dean positions and faculty hiring.  It's a club, and law schools constitute a smaller club than most of the other clubs.  They don't admit it because it's a nodding-in-agreement network.

That's a really good, and very sad, story.  Thanks for the link.  Whoever she is, I wish her best of luck in future endeavors.

I guess I don't really understand how it's a direct counterpoint to what I had to say.  I'm glad to have read it, because it sheds a great deal of light on the way that academic administration can stifle creativity.  I didn't mean to imply that academia was the ideal setting for free-flowing ideas and research without encumberance.  Thoreau found the ideal setting for that.  I just meant that, to the extent that they do foster those things, they are more attractive to liberals in the way I wrote above.

are you saying their should be a political litmus test required for teaching positions in higher education?

some kind of quota?

I don't it's sad, I think it's pathetic.  It describes perfectly the mentality of a lot of "spoiled brat" academics that I have known:  They don't take direction, they refuse to listen to the administration (while blaming them for everything that's wrong with the institution) and they thumb their noses at anything that reminds them of capitalism.  Meanwhile, they exist in institutions that are funded by taxpayers, have better salaries than 90% of the people in the country, a tremendous range of perquisites collegial support, and feel like they should suck their thumbs and quit when the institution demands something of them that violates their "spirit."  

They're hugely arrogant thumbsuckers.  This woman has tenure and has a husband who makes, according to her article, at least as much money as she does.  And her response to a little discomfort is to wallow in self-pity, drink red wine, and quit.  And write an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education to subsidize her self-pity.  

Trust me, she'll use her faculty contacts to get into law school, and become a public interest lawyer for a non-profit.  Sad stories like this one, especially from women in academia, always generate a huge tide of sympathy and job offers.

how does your political ideology affect the way you do your job? Do you teach with a conservative slant?

Quotas in the higher ed world should never be allowed.  They would totally disrupt the system and lead the pernicious effect of allowing merit to override any other consideration.

Wait, are we talking hiring or admissions???

So you don't think it'd be a problem if every single professor was a liberal?

Or if you do see something wrong with that, what's the solution? do away with public education?

so what? what's the solution? you've identified what you think appears to be a problem but i haven't seen anyone say why it's a problem. (does it affect the teaching that goes on? this article says no.) Nor do you propose a solution? (what should be done to combat this 'rampant liberalism in colleges'?)

The whole thing is a smear campaign on public education. It's being carried out by republican legislators in every state across the nation all the time. this is simply an extension of that.

there are liberal professors, and lots of them, oh my!

Could you imagine if the military leadership leaned left? We would have surrendered on September 12th 2001.

For my diary entry for exactly why I think it's a problem and what I think should be done about it.  I'm working on it now.

It has nothing to do with being a smear campaign against academia or the University system per se -- if anything, I want to encourage more conservatives to apply for jobs in academia and shake up the system in order to improve it.  It will be a very good thing for higher education in this country.  

I want to encourage more conservatives to apply for jobs in academia and shake up the system in order to improve it

That's the solution. I feel the same way about government. We are at an all-time low in terms of competence and we need to get more liberals elected.

We have a conservative paper in Wisconsin called the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Everyday, well it sure seems like everyday, they run a negative story about one of the greatest public education systems in the country, the University of Wisconsin System. They create controversy and write about it. They always, always have sympathetic quotes from republican legislators, and those legislators follow up the stories with press releases.

So here's the thing, the smear campaign is real. Just like the one against the republican government being carried out by liberals. They serve the same purpose. Only smear campaigns really only have an affect on voters. So how does the smear campaign work on education? It works to get people believing that republicans are right and just in slashing education budgets, allowing them to keep their jobs when they do make these huge cuts.

To argue that there are too many liberal professors is a dead end. It serves no purpose. It  is as useful as arguing that we don't have enough liberal CEOs. Don't you think?

To argue that there are too many liberal professors is a dead end. It serves no purpose...Don't you think?

I would say that conservatives have every reason to express their views about the University of Wisconsin university system in a conservative newspaper.  U-Wisconsin/Madison is one of the top ten party schools in the nation this year and was the home of Donna Shalala before she became director of HHS under Clinton and then moved to the U. of Miami.  I think they have every right to criticize it.  In fact, I'd like some links to those articles.

And most CEOs in the United States play both sides of the fence in their personal support of politicians.  They don't take overtly partisan positions.  Bill Gates is a bigger philanthropist and donator to Democratic candidates than he is to Republican candidates, the last time I looked.  Most CEOs that I've heard about assiduously avoid affiliating themselves too strongly with either party.  

Academics, on the other hand, don't have that problem.  And they're strongly affiliated with the Democratic party, in some cases quite overtly.

That is why you have a majority of liberal professors. Those that can, become CEOs. That is why the majority of CEOs are conservatives.

But I'm not sure that pathetic and sad are exclusive.  I agree that it is pathetic, but I'm not able to bury my sympathies.  Your point is well made, but I still wish her well in whatever she pursues in the future.  I think it likely that she'll just be disappointed again in the future, but I wish her well.

I think this is in some way in line with my point, not opposed to it.  In fact, this story can illustrate my point about liberalism and academic subject matter.

Think of the story for a moment as literature.  You see a whiner who needs to get over herself, I see a good story about someone who followed a path only to find it ultimately unfulfilling.  It doesn't mean I think she's right, but I find it interesting nonetheless.

Cf. Jude the Obscure, Anna Karenina, Steppenwolf, etc.  Ultimately, Hardy believed the social structure was too difficult for Jude ever to have overcome; Tolstoy thought Anna lived her life wrongly; and ultimately Hesse told Harry that his own elitism caused his misery.  The ends are different, but the processes in each of their books still present the characters as tragic protagonists.

When an English department is hiring, are they going to want someone who finds protagonists of tragic stories to be mostly pathetic or mostly admirable as they look for fulfillment?  Similarly, when two people read a novel, if one sees the protagonist as pathetic and the other sees the protagonist as admirable, which of these two readers is more likely to devote his life to the study of the subject?  It doesn't mean that the liberal interpretation is the correct one (often far from it), but it does lead to more interest in pursuing academic careers.

I also don't want this response to come off as defending her actions.  Every point you make about the condition of her life and taxpayer money is a good one.  Ultimately, I think she'll find a similar situation in the future and be disappointed there, too, and she'll realize that cutting and running was pointless.  However, I won't condemn someone for wanting to leave an ultimately unfulfilling career.

I guess my question to you is this: is this search for a "fulfilling" professional life childish to you as such?  Or is it that academics in particular want way too much, have too little ability to take criticism and direction, earn too much money paid by you and me, etc.?  Because I agree with you that this woman in particular has it better than she'll let herself realize.  But I would disagree that in general this is an illegitimate goal.

so I haven't done much teaching yet. I was just commenting on what I saw in the faculty in my program.

But I do a lot of human resources consulting for firms here in NYC. I tell them that although there may be good reasons for seeking racial diversity in their companies, innovation is not necessarily one of them.

I see a lot of organizational psychologists making this claim to big companies here. And the companies write in their annual reports that innovation is the reason they spend millions of dollars a year on diversity (definitely not for their public image). So it is what they want to hear -- it is a business case. But to my knowledge there are only two studies showing a link between racial diversity and innovation, and these were conducted in psych laboratories. Not a very compelling body of research IMO. And yet it is a mantra in my field.

"...it is the intention of nature to make the bodies of slaves and free men different from each other, that the one should be robust for their necessary purposes, but the other erect; useless indeed for such servile labours, but fit for civil life... It is clear then that some men are free by nature, and others are slaves. ..." - Aristotle

"Rulers then act as the ministers of God and as his lieutenants on earth. it is through them that God exercises his empire." - Bossuet

"This is why performing arts types are usually VERY Liberal and why ministers are very Conservative for the most part. This is the way of life." - Flyerhawk

So it has always been, and so it shall always be.

Glad to hear it ... I just hope the rest of your compadres on the Left won't go all crazy and paranoid if somebody does a study and discovers that 80+% of campaign contributions by military people go to the GOP.

How about fundraisers? Is it okay with you if, let's say, a two-star General attends a fundraiser - even if he doesn't give a speech or explicitly endorse a candidate?

The reality is that certain occupations attract certain types of people. This is why performing arts types are usually VERY Liberal and why ministers are very Conservative for the most part.

True. Now that you mention it, people suited for soldiering do tend to be very conservative. PS: I differ on the idea that the fact that 90% of professors lean Left to not be a matter of concern. It implies that there's something wrong with the hiring process: Lefties may be more inclined toward academia by nature but not to the extent that would justify these numbers.

in general. Only for myself.  

When talking about military leaders getting involved politically we start dealing with some dicey matters that have more to do with leadership than with politics.

When talking about professors taken on the whole I think that the studies themselves are a little skewed because different schools will attract different students.  If you were to do a poll of professors and Bob Jones University, Citadel, and West Point I suspect you would find that the bias is pretty significantly Rightward.  OTOH, schools that focus primarily on Liberal Arts are going to swing to the Left.  

90% of officers turned out to be republican, I certainly would not suspect it implies their is a bias.

are you saying their should be a political litmus test required for teaching positions in higher education?

Sounds like there already is one, and if you want to teach law at the places mentioned, apparently you'd better be a liberal.

Yes, that was sarcasm.  I thought it was obvious, I'll try to be more clear in the future.

As to the need for a solution, I don't believe that there can (or should) be a Federal, or even a State solution.

Just like affirmative action policies that lead to illegal quotas, ideological balancing policies would lead to all sorts of pernicious effects.  Imagine people faking their answers to pretend that they are conservative.  How many Professors Chafee or Specter could we really tolerate?  (sarcasm obvious enough?)

But seriously, I think part of the solution is pointing out the fact that there is indeed an issue so that universities and tenure committees can, if they choose, bring that factor into consideration as they hire, promote, and attract faculty, including visiting faculty.  That way parents and students can take all of this information into consideration as they think about which school to attend.  And employers can take it into consideration as they hire people.  Information is always good, I think.  I, for one, would have liked to have known that there were not going to be any conservative professors at my university when I decided to attend there.  I figured it out pretty quickly, but as a political science major it would have been nice to know that.  Maybe I would have gone elsewhere, maybe not, but it would have been good information to have.

I think there is also a need to exhort conservatives to stick it out in higher education and take the slings and arrows of their peers.  Perhaps places like Heritage and AEI should expand their fellowships programs, or Regenry or others should expand their publications so that conservative professors can publish.  But they may already be doing that and I just don't know.  Higher Education is not my field of interest or expertise since I finished my own education.

I would, however, take exception to your contention that this is just a method to attack public education.  Many of the more eggregious examples of liberal orthodoxy are at private institutions (Harvard, Yale, Wellesley, etc).  (Though there are the obnoxious examples at public schools as well, take the guy from Colorado, please.)  But pointing out some basic facts is educational, informative, and allows people to evaluate the claims from academia so that they are put in perspective when folks say "over 1000 college professors signed a letter calling for the President to order the deportation of Pat Robertson to Venezuela."  (Obviously an absurd example.  Okay, maybe not that absurd...) (Can't help myself with the sarcasm today, sorry.)

Plus, higher education already is a voucher-based system (so it's okay at college, but not at k-12.  Hmm...).  Students can take their Pell Grant, and their student loan, and go to Boston College (Jesuit institution) or Boston University (not a religious institution).  I'd be willing to bet that both places have liberal professors.  (BC probably has more, knowing the Jesuits...ok, I'm done with the sarcasm)

seriously suggesting...

And employers can take it into consideration as they hire people.

that employers should take political leanings into consideration when hiring someone?

that I did to the extent you could tell from a resume and interview what they were.

I'm suggesting that employers take all sorts of factors into consideration when they hire.

If an employer is interviewing a candidate from Harvard and a candidate from George Mason University (a conservative university in Virginia) they will take that into consideration, I'm sure.

If the company is totally apolitical, they probably won't care.  But if the company has a philosophical bent, say that they are in the business of buying and selling religious artifacts door to door in the Appalachian mountains, who do you bet gets hired?

I'm not suggesting that companies set up signs saying 'No Republican Need Apply' or that employers ask that question during an interview (I doubt it would even be legal).  But when looking at an application, the employer saw that one applicant went to a school that had 98% self-identified liberal professors and the other applicant went to a school that had 88% self-identified liberals, all other things being equal, why wouldn't the employer take that into consideration if it was important to the employer?

I came to this conclusion when I noticed that all of my professors are openly and consistently critical of Bush... not when I read an article saying that 1/3 of professors donate to the democratic party.  This just seems like an awefully strange way of coming to this conclusion.  And anyone who's ever taken a statistics class should know that correlation does not prove causation.  

Look at most of the polls out there that considers political leanings with level of education.  It shows that people with a bachelor degrees are pretty much split on the political spectrum.  When you consider people with graduate degrees, a left leaning population emerges (the more advanced degree, the more left).  So I think the answer to this lies in the decision to attend graduate school, which you need to do to be hired as a professor.

Numerous theories could be made.  I tend to think that it has to do with money.  The students with bachelor degrees that lean right are more concerned with making money out of college, so they skip grad school.  The left-leaning students don't care as much about making tons of money, so they consider grad school.

Anyway, back to my first point.  I think the system works.  College is meant as an educational experience that teaches you to think for yourself, and the fact that the political spectrum is pretty much split after 4 years of students "figuring things out for themselves" is interesting.

However I'm not sure that I think we should further that sort of litmus test, unless the job specifically requires a specific political leaning.

All I'm saying is that this type of infromation is powerful and important.  Employers can choose to pay attention to studies like these or they can choose not to.  They can choose to factor in political considerations or they can choose not to.  Most probably won't, but some will.

But (and maybe I'm inferring here, if so I apologize) to suggest that we shouldn't publicize this information, or gather more to verify whether it is accurate, and stick with the status quo of liberalism run amock in academia without question seems to smack of 'We got ours, eff you for wanting yours.'

But again, that may be my inferrence, not your implication.

why? what is the reason to argue that there are too many liberal professors? what's the goal? what ends are people who argue there are too many liberal professors trying to accomplish?

only one thing. to smear higher education. there is no other reason.

you are saying more conservative professors should be hired because the balance of political affiliation in academia in out-of-whack.

simple question, do you or do you not think more conservative professors should be hired?

I certainly don't hold the "screw you" mentality.  

But I'm not sure what you think should be done about  it.  I inferred, perhaps wrongly, that you wanted this information published in a hope that employers would then force universities to hire more conservative professors.  Leaving aside the practicality issues of this I don't see this as a terribly good idea.  Even assuming that an employer would have a relevant need to know a prospective employees political affiliation, I'm not sure how knowing the leanings of a school's professors would help.  

Are we simply to assume that since someone went to Harvard that means that student has a Left bias?  

I'm a free-marketer, not a government is the panacea to all ills.

More information leads to better decisions.

I don't want the government forcing universities to do anything in hiring (or admissions), but if information shows that there is a pattern of inadvertant discrimination against conservative professors the market will correct that.  

Universities are in the business solely to make money.  If the market of prospective students, parents, or future employers demands a change to hiring practices in academia, most universities will eventually change their practices.  Or not.  But then the market will respond accordingly and fewer or greater numbers of students will attend universities based on their personal predilictions.

There are all sorts of prxies in making a hiring decision, especially when you look at the university that someone attended.

Especially for people just out of school, employers look at the school for their reputation to see if the academic rigor is sufficient, if the school has a history of producing quality students, etc.

I'm not saying that businesses should gang up and demand change, nor am I saying that the government should establish an affirmative action policy or quota system.  I'm suggesting that information like this is worthwhile and worth reviewing.

As I said above, the market will react to information.  Sometimes efficiently, sometimes inexpertly, but it will always react.  

I don't see why it's problematic to call for greater balance in higher education without advocating a particular fiat as to how to get it.  If information is there, parents and students and employers will react to it, universities will see observe the reaction and adjust as they see fit.  If the mission of the university is to promote liberal causes, then they should be fine having liberal staff.  If the mission is to provide a balanced education, I find it hard to see how only having liberal professors can achieve that.

An example: does it make sense for a political science program to only have liberal professors?  Probably not.  But in the absence of information about the leanings of professors, the prospective student doesn't have critical information about that school.  

Just as in the media, professors have a world view.  There's nothign wrong with it.  But when professors don't recognize that or admit it, or applicant students aren't aware until they've forked over $40 grand for the private school, it leads to a skewed environment.

As for employers, they make decisions based on all sorts of different factors, why is one more bit of information bad to factor in as the employer sees necessary?  The legal profession is the best example.  Law firms hire lots of people primarily based on the schools they attended and professors they had.

But, in sum, I'm not arguing for a government intervention.  I'd rather shoot a hole in my head than rely on the Feds to get that right.

I don't see why it's problematic to call for greater balance in higher education without advocating a particular fiat as to how to get it.  If information is there, parents and students and employers will react to it, universities will see observe the reaction and adjust as they see fit.  If the mission of the university is to promote liberal causes, then they should be fine having liberal staff.  If the mission is to provide a balanced education, I find it hard to see how only having liberal professors can achieve that.

How many schools do you think have a mission to promote a Liberal cause?  Of those schools how many aren't already publicly identified as Liberal schools?

Do you think that law firms hire lawyers from Harvard because of the politics of the professors or because of the cache of having a Harvard law degree?

An example: does it make sense for a political science program to only have liberal professors?  Probably not.  But in the absence of information about the leanings of professors, the prospective student doesn't have critical information about that school.

Why is it critical?  Shouldn't the QUALITY of the professors be the criteria for selecting a school rather than the POLITICS of the professor?

I'm suggesting that information like this is worthwhile and worth reviewing.

But you haven't explained WHY it is worthwhile.  This sort of information is, at best, only generally accurate.   If I have 10 professors in the political science department and 3 of them are vigorous Democrats while only 1 of them is a ardent Conservative that still means that most of them are neither.  And their politics have no bearing on their ability to teach.

Politics is far too influential in our society as it is.  I see little value in making it even more influential.

The "Georgetown Law Journal" conducted the study on political donations of professors at law schools across the United States. Presuming the study was accurate, now we know: law professors tend to donate more heavily to democratic candidates. However, to what degree does this bolster the theory that academia as a whole is firmly based in the liberal camp? What percentage of university faculty serve in law schools? Have analagous studies been conducted to determine the donating habits of professors in business, engineering, and art departments? If so, what are their findings?

So you are demanding a change in hiring pratices in order to affect the market. Because you believe the political affiliation of some professor affects the quality of the education someone might receive and you are looking out for the best interest of the public, right?

If you and your group are vocal enough I'm sure some private universities will listen. In fact, I'm sure we can find some examples of private universities that have listened.

But for the public universities who are not in the business solely to make money, what's the best way to affect their hiring policies? With budget cuts and the threat of budget cuts, right? And how do you get away with intentionally damaging institutions of higher education? Convince the public it's a worthy cause because "they don't deserve it". Ergo, smear campaign.

I believe I've adequately proved that these public outcries of political imbalance in academia is nothing more than a smear campaign, whose goal is to get more conservative professors pushing their political agenda on their students.

Otherwise why do you, as a "free-marketer", care what some "company" is doing with it's hiring practices? or do you instead believe in equality at the sacrifice of perfectly free markets?

That quote is generally attributed to Winston Churchill.

This is a good example of something that's plausible in principle, but is there any evidence of this?

And seriously, folks, what kind of ideology comes out of math and science classes?

Finally, do you really think that kids get their "indoctrination" from professors, as opposed to their peers, and to youth culture in general?  I think that puts FAR too much weight on what influence profs can have, and how much the average student pays attention to them.

In other words, the students may retain as much liberalism from the prof as they do, say, calculus.

...and made all the more so when the maxim's abstracted dogma is sapped of all meaning by concrete experience.

Haven't you just supported his argument?  

the line of original argument seems to be 'those who can't, teach', to which your response was that of ad homily and of lacked concrete experience.

While I am inclined to instinctly agree with this anecdotal evidence, I think the explanation goes much deeper than the surface reasoning purported by Tbone and others.

I would be intersted, however, to hear the ideas of those in academia.

Political affiliation is not a protected 'class' in most states, so it is within employers rights to question employees, and even to fire them if the employer does not like the employee's bumper stickers.  This is especially true in so-called right-to-work states in which there is no requirement for a documented reason to be given to fire an employee.