Over the weekend I read through the paper that prompted KC Johnson's column in Inside Higher Ed (discussed by Jim last week). Leaving aside the data issues that the authors raise there, I want to explore the "alternative hypothesis" that the authors there raise as the nondiscriminatory explanation for the observed data. I will follow the convention of referring to all non-left/liberal ideologies as "conservative," however inapt that may be.
Here's the author's alternative hypothesis, followed by my analysis:
[Continue reading under hidden text]:
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We offer self-selection as the likely culprit. First, there may be a rural/urban divide driving the relationship. Conservatives may want to live in communities whose ideological climate is more consistent with their own belief structure. Thus, given the strong correlation observable between the metropolitan density of a particualr county and the mean conservatism of its citizens, it would not be surprising if conservatives, academic or otherwise, prefer to work in smaller, more rural areas. ***
Second, regional selection affects hiring... It is no secret that Midwesterners and, especially, Southerners are more conservative, more religious, and less Jewish than Northeasterners. ***
Third, many conservatives may deliberately choose not to seek employment at top-tier research universities because they object, on philosophical grounds, to one of the fundamental tenets undergirding such institutions: the scientific method.... Furthermore, cultural conservatism, as revealed in antipathy toward gay rights, the women's movement, and abortion rights (among other things), has been shown to stem in large part from an embrace of Christian fundamentalism as a dominant worldview. Fundamentalism, by definition, is an absolutist, "faith-based" allegiance to a particular dogma, the veracity of which is considered beyond question or argument. Such worldviews are (again, by definition) antithetical to the philosophy of science, which permotes reason and evidence as the determinants of truth. Challenging entrenched dogma is the essence of science.... In other words, the faith-based reasoning of Christian fundamentalism (and by extension, of most socio-cultural conservatives) is essentially incompatible with the mission of contemporary researc universities. So, in sum, we are suggesting that the relationships [identified] might be a spurious function of self-selection based ona fundamentalist antipahy toward the scientific method and other approaches to revealed "trust"--precisely the busines of "top-tier" research universities.
The authors offer no evidence to support these explanations (they appropriately protest that the authors of the original study have not made their data available to researchers). On examination, however, none of them seem to be persuasive and available evidence tends to contradict their proffered hypothesis. Consider each element in turn.
1. Rural/Urban Divide: The authors argue that conservatives prefer to live in more rural areas and so will be disproportionately found at schools in such areas. If this is so, then an easy test of the hypothesis presents itself--my beloved alma mater Dartmouth College is one of two rural institutions in the Ivy League (along with Cornell). It is also in New Hampshire, historically the most conservative of the northeastern states. If the authors are correct about a rural preference, then we should expect to find more conservatives on the Dartmouth faculty than at urban-situated Ivy League schools, such as Harvard, Columbia, Penn, or Brown. A recent examination of party identification, however, finds that 66% of Dartmouth professors are Democrats and the ratio of registered Democrats to Republicans is 12.5 to 1, comparable to the ratios at urban Ivy League and other elite institutions. This is just one data point, of course, but it casts doubt on the idea that conservative academics have an unusually pro-rural preference. On the other hand, the University of Chicago, a rare institution with a historic reputation for a conservative presence (Strauss, Law & Economics, etc.) suggests that there are counter-examples in the opposite direction as well.
2. Regional selection: The authors argue that the South is disproportionately conservative, and as a result, conservatives might self-select for southern schools. Again, the testable hypothesis here is that elite schools in the South should attract a disproportionate number of faculty conservatives relative to similarly-prestigious schools in more liberal areas of the country. The only report I have seen on this is of Duke University, unquestionably one of the most prestigious institutions in the South. According to one survey of eight of Duke's humanities departments, however, Duke has 142 registered Democrats and 8 registered Republicans (17.75 to 1). The Duke History Department pitched a 32-0 Democratic shutout. Again, this is just one sample and only of humanities departments, but it lends little support for the conclusion that conservative professors are disproportionately drawn from and prefer to remain in the South. More generally, although I have seen no data on this, do we really think that rural midwestern small colleges (the three factors the authors identify) like Oberlin, Grinnell, and Kenyon are overrun with conservative faculty?
3. Willingness to Apply the Scientific Method: The fact that the authors would propose this explanation seemingly with a straight face is evidence of the straw-grasping going on here. But I will treat it as a serious hypothesis for the sake of argument. The authors argue that conservatism draws from fundamentalist religion and this makes them hostile to the scientific method. Again, this is subject to testing. If conservatives are hostile to the scientific method, then the disparity in ideology should be greatest in those fields where the scientific method is strongest--mathematics and hard sciences. By contrast, the gap should be narrower where the scientific method is least relevant, such as in the humanities.
Again, the available data don't seem to support this hypothesis. In fact, the ideological gap is much narrower in those fields where the scientific method is most relevant. Consider this summary of one such study:
I looked at the study itself and found the following for Liberal/Conservative identifications:
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Mathematics: 4.1 to 1
Physics: 6 to 1
Chemistry: 2.2 to 1
Biology: 4.4 to 1
Computer Science: 2.8 to 1
Engineering: 2.6 to 1
Economics: 1.4 to 1
By contrast, humanities and social science departments (except economics, which is probably more scientific than most of the other social science departments) have the following divides:
English Lit: 29 to 1
History: 7.7 to 1
Philosophy: 16 to 1
Theology/Religion: 16.6 to 1
Political Science: 40.5 to 1
Sociology: 8.6 to 1
Psychology: 10.5 to 1
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So, yes, a gap does exist in the sciences, and it is a rather large one, but not nearly as profound as in the humanities and social sciences (aside from economics).
So, the ideological divide is much narrower in the fields where the scientific method is used (including Economics), and widest where it is most absent.
More fundamentally, the authors are simply incorrect to argue that the religious beliefs of conservatives make them unable to apply the scientific method. As Larry Summers learned the hard way, the modern-day Lysenkoism of political correctness is a faith just as strong, if not stronger, than religious faith. Summers great heresy was to suggest that certain faith-based tenets of the modern academy could be subjected to testing by the scientific method. Make no mistake about it--the orthodoxy of political correctness is just as at odds with the scientific method as traditional religious belief. The only difference, of course, is that traditional religion is shunned in the modern academy, while political correctness is the academy's official religion.
The author's blind spot to this point is almost laughably provided by their own analysis of the situation--"cultural conservatism, as revealed in antipathy toward gay rights, the women's movement, and abortion rights (among other things), has been shown to stem in large part from an embrace of Christian fundamentalism as a dominant worldview." Give me break--if antipathy to these issues comes from religion, from where does the support for them come? Are the authors seriously suggesting that "science" supports gay rights or abortion rights and that opposition is faith-based? Again, we are back to recognizing that support for these rights is grounded in politically-correct faith just as the antipathy to them is as well.
The authors also claim, "It is difficult even to imagine ideological discrimination occurring at the point of hiring." This naivete again demonstrates the authors blind spot occasioned by their own narrow world view. There are a multitude of ways in which ideological discrimination manifests itself in hiring. The most obvious is simply the degree of skepticism that incumbent faculty apply to a given scholar's work. If they disagree with the ideological conclusions of the work, they approach it with greater skepticism and a higher burden of proof, and thereby it is easier to conclude that the analysis is flawed or incomplete. Again, this difference is reflected in the fact that the more subjective subjects (Philosophy, History, English, etc.) have greater ideological disparities than less-subjective subjects where standards of scholarly rigor are better-established and have an independent integrity that separate the craftsmanship of the field from the conclusions. (Some have observed that within political science itself, for instance, the more scientific quantative researchers have less ideological bias as well because of the indepdent standards of analysis applied there.) Other biases easily creep in as well--does the candidate do work that is "relevant" to the interests of the department, "collegiality," or common research interests. To say that "it is difficult to see how ideological bias" could creep into hiring is simply naive and perhaps just evidences the lack of self-awareness by the researchers themselves.
Even if this is self-selection, this is not necessarily responsive--when the elite academy is confronted with other examples of "underrepresented" interests, they do not simply throw up their hands and complain of a shallow talent pool. Instead, at Columbia for instance, the diversity committee is "tasked with finding ways to strengthen the pipeline bringing women and minority students into the University's undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral programs" and not merely take what the pipeline produces.
Based on my personal experience having known many bright students in many different fields (I meet many undergraduates and graduate students through IHS Seminars at which I lecture), I would say that if there is self-selection here, it is of precisely one type--libertarian and conservative students self-select out of pursuing an academic career because they are well aware of the political obstacles that will be placed in their way. They know that they will confront ideological bias at every stage of their careers--grad school, grad school mentoring to help get jobs, entry-level jobs, and tenure. Given the numbers reported by Klein and others, they are clearly acting rationally in refusing to invest 5 years of their lives to get a PhD to try to roll this stone up that hill.
Finally--and I'm less confident about this--conservatives may be disproportionately turned off by the fundamental "unseriousness" of the modern academy. Conservatives may simply prefer the real world, with its mechanisms of accountability, merits-based determinations, and focus on solving real problems. The emptiness and triviality of so much modern scholarship (especially in the humanities) and the marbeling of every element of academic culture with the burdens and distractions associated with running the modern university--political correctness and its restraints on free inquiry, the whole edifice of the diversity machine and all it carries with it. The upward struggle to persuade colleagues to judge job candidates fairly and on the merits, rather than through the ever-present lens of political orientation and identity/diversity politics.
So the self-selection, if there is one, may be more along the lines of Michael Barone's distinction between "hard" and "soft" America--perhaps conservatives are more prone to self-select into the "hard" America of the private sector, where accountability is stronger and individuals are more likely to rise or fall on their own individual merits, rather than trying to survive in the bizarre ecosystem of the modern academy.
In conclusion let me add a thought--it seems utterly absurd that people are still making uninformed armchair speculation about the causes of the prevailing ideological imbalance in the academy. Is it self-selection? Conservatives are greedier? Conservatives are dumber? When it comes to addressing the issue of other "underrepresented minorities" on college campuses, the record overflows with high profile blue ribbon panels of leading scholars and administrators. No stone is left unturned and no penny left unspent to try to determine why women are "underrepresented" in teaching math and science, or the underrepresentation of minorities. I think maybe it is time to take even a small percentage of those tens of millions being spent at places like Harvard and Columbia and perhaps do a study of the causes of the ideological disparity in the academy, rather than simply speculate and pontificate. At the very least, such a study would eliminate some of the more preposterous hypotheses (such as the idea that conservatives generically like money more than liberals or that conservatives lack the intellecutal frame of mind to succeed in academia).
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Dan
Far be it from me to question the almighty anecdote, but the "Institute for Humane Studies" sure doesn't sound like a forum for hard science students. The "liberals are scary" thesis makes sense for humanities or law or sociology, but not so much for hard science or engineering. (But, hey, my evidence is anecdotal.)
You have to suck up *everwhere* to get ahead. It's not a phenomenon unique to academia. Nor, for that matter, is the business world a meritocracy by any means. Seniority often results in incompetent clods being hired over capable individuals who simply haven't worked for 'the company' quite as long.
In addition, guess what the biggest factor in getting hired is? Personally knowing the hiring manager. (sarcasm:) No, no favoritism there at all... (end sarcasm)
My guess? It's a combination of self-selection, the fact that the personality types attracted to teaching generally seem to be more "liberal" (for varying definitions of such), and one's tolerance for different types of politics - academic vs. corporate vs. non-profit vs. civil-service, each of which functions somewhat differently from the other.
But then again, I might be the one smoking hoo-haw... ;-)
Also, you'd be surprised how well that may generalize, even to the hard sciences. IHS programs are fairly general interest things, and I've known a number of engineers, etc. that have gone to their programs. Remember, there's a lot of people in engineering and science that are also interested in philosophy and whatnot- just look at the open source movement, composed entirely of software engineer types and having its own anarco-libertarian ideology.
Also, self-selection here. I bailed for law school despite admissions to a number of the most prestigious graduate programs in my old (humanities) field. I didn't want to spend the rest of my career dealing with Derrida, Lacan, and Foucalt.
Yes, IHS students are social science and humanities, but that was the point--those are the fields where the ideological hurdles are perceived to be highest.
In over 30 years around colleges and universitites, I never once heard an opinion other than the received wisdom of the left. Remember the punishment Sommers at Harvard got from an alleged scientist and professor of biology because he deviated from the feminist dogma. With few exceptions, higher ed, is a bastion of the left.
I've never had to. But I work in a field that has fairly obvious standards for judging performance. I don't get judged on whether my work is "relevant", I get judged on whether it was successful and completed on time.
I believe that even science/engineering faculty skew left, so I don't think the "liberals are scary" thesis is what's fundamentally going on in the academy (although it probably has some explanatory power). I misread your statement as stronger than it actually is, since you are uncertain if any sort of self-selection plays a big role.
Idle, perhaps redundant thought: what's the ideological mix for undergraduate students at top private universities and state schools? PhD candidates? Law students? Now they are (I think) liberal but less so than their professors.
But how does the ideological distribution among students 30 years ago compare to the professors of today?
I believe that self-selection and designated topic area are the main things at play, but I find it ridiculous when people like Juan Cole claim that not only does discrimination not occur, but it couldn't because nobody knows. I can offer my own (very successful) experience on the job market last year as a counter-example. At every meal I had with the faculty on my fly-outs, they wanted to talk about the election and how the world was going to hell in a handbasket and Christians are no different from Al Qaeda and the American people are morons and homophobes, etc. I didn't say anything I didn't believe, but I was also carefully evasive and tried to address the issues only in value-neutral, horse race terminology and change the subject back to academic matters. Fortunately I'm secular and suppressed my offense so it was relatively easy to pass, but still what they no doubt saw as engaging conversation, I saw as basically a series of interrogations. Anyway, the idea that nobody knows what candidates think about issues outside their expertise is ridiculous because in my case I was consistently asked.
In fairness to my field though, I have to say that I've also experienced a lot of ideological tolerance. Pretty much everyone at my graduate instition knows what I think and we got along fine. One very liberal professor at an institution where I never studied, worked, or interviewed, even seems to view my beliefs as vaguely exotic and has befriended me and repeatedly championed my career.
Overall, I view the experience of being an ideological minority as a humbling experience and character-building experience which has given me perspective which as a straight white American man I would otherwise lack. What didn't kill me has only made me stronger.
Second, to the extent there is a preference for hiring liberals, what is the problem? I often laugh at how so many free-market lovers are the first to complain at some perceived injusitce that is really nothing more than the market at work. Why shouldn't institutions be able to decide who to hire based on whatever criteria they want? Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, if there is a liberal tilt to law teaching it could be due in part to what the students (consumers) want? After all, Yoo's involvement in the torture memos drew some pretty spirited protests at Boalt. If enough students are upset about the liberal make-up of a faculty, they'll head to Chicago or GMU or some place with a conservative reputation. And, if Harvard, Yale, and Stanford start losing enough students to Chicago because they want to lean from Richard Epstein instead of a liberal prof, I'm sure Harvard, Yale, and Stanford will start zealously pursuing conservative scholars. This may explain why, despite TZ's pleas, there are no blue ribbon panels on why there aren't enough conservative scholars and there is more concern for other underrepresetned communities (people of color, women, etc.) Maybe there is just more demand on the part of students for African American or women teachers than there is for conservative teachers. At the end of the day, I just don't see why, if the lack of conservative teachers is a problem, it can't be corrected by the market.
During my senior year I chose several humanities and other classes as electives due to my interest in politics and philosophy... My political science teacher cancelled or dismissed early around 20% of his classes and assigned us a reading book that could easily have been entitled "A Guide To Common Sense." The class was amazingly easy, despite this professor being well recognized at the larger public school, and having a group of engineering students with multiple classes already completed involving philosophy (ethics, other electives.) The professor was unable to fill the entire class duration and spent over a week on a "model UN project” which he admitted was something he might have had time to get into. (This was at a quarter-based school.)
Personally, I have no doubt that I could have spent a full week on Plato/Aristotle, another on the proper role of government, perhaps another on modern conservatism/liberalism in the US with examples of ideology and prominent figures... But instead I was left with an easy "A" at a school where I had never before seen such a thing.
This experience really turned me away from pursuing additional classes in the liberal arts and helped commit to the view many have that liberal arts teachers simply don't care. I think there might be one other point...
Schools with large accountability (private, conservative) are less likely to have large liberal arts departments; while these departments are more likely to attract conservative teachers for the reasons in your article (less politics, more objective standards and a "real world feeling".) While larger schools, with an institutional methodology are more likely to attract liberals (who often see the legitimacy of larger organizations that are not private sector as a bonus.) The accountable schools are minor players in the market, while institutionalized schools give needed experience to those whom they hire that opens them a door to the accountable schools. This allows the selection of one group to directly influence the choices available to private institutions.
This might also help explain the differences between types of academia. Based upon the “origin” of many of my teachers accountable schools often search through private industries to fill posts within science fields, as many retired/current members exist with the knowledge within the field. The other fields, where the ratios are most extreme seem to have little direct translation from a private field, and in my experience, few teachers who have come from the private field.
I would argue that the substantial amount of public schools, both without market forces and with extreme differences in faculty makes the "who cares" argument unpersuasive.
As a federalist-minded law student, I haven't heard anything about this either. I checked the Fed Soc website, and there's nothing there about "$60k/ year fellowships that house you at law school". Had there been such a thing, I certainly would have applied for it.
It looks like there is only one Fed Soc fellowship even open to law students, and that is the Jay Fellowship, for $5k/year, awarded to up to 4 students per year. Maybe Dem is referring to the Olin fellowship, which is for $50K, and goes to as many as three (count 'em, three!) "top legal thinkers" each year who hold J.D.'s and want to pursue careers in academia.
Okay, so we've got $150K per year working on the conservative/libertarian side from a legal group that the MSM is actively working to demonize, versus millions of dollars on the liberal/left side. That should achieve parity in, what, 300 years or so?
I've seen arguments that schools would gain an advantage over discriminating schools by hiring qualified minorities that their rivals unfairly passed over. Why doesn't this argument apply with equal force for conservatives?
Why hasn't one mid-level university gone this route and obtained better faculty than at it's top-tier rival?
A conservative would be insane to bet his or her future on the chances of being peer-reviewed for tenure by such a group.
Chris in Wisc: I think you have a fair point about public institutions. I think public institutions have a particular obligation to make sure they are serving the public and shouldn't just be subject to the whims of the market. But, I don't see how this undermines my larger argument since the large majority of law schools are private and, certainly, the hyper elite schools (where the alleged bias seems to upset TZ and others most) are almost all private. I agree that public schools should probably have some obligation to provide ideological balance (whether or not the market wants it), but why can't Harvard hire whoever they want? If they make bad hiring choices they will lose students to other schools. Otherwise, it seems to me, that there isn't much of a problem. (And, in any event, I'd like to reiterate that there is absolutely no empiracle proof whatsoever that the large number of Dem law profs is due to "ideological bias" as opposed to some other factor. As TZ says, this is all speculation)
SP: I don't quite understand your point: when you go to law school you are purchasing a good. You are a participant in the market. Maybe the ideology of profs at a school doesn't matter enough to you to influence your choice. But, if the political ideology of professors was a problem for enough of students, they would go to Chicago over Harvard and it would create an incentive for schools to change their hiring practices. That, to my mind, is a pretty standard account of how a market functions.
Interesting that you don't question why conservatives have developed what is, essentially, a parallel professoriate.
It doesn't seem like a safe assumption that there would be "many" such people. Aside from the opportunity to teach grad students on a regular basis, what does the university have to offer such a person that he couldn't find elsewhere?
This may also help explain why there are fewer libertarian/conservative scholars. A conservative scholar may feel hypocritical to depend so heavily on tax-subsidized income.
That you don't neccesarily see that point is okay, because the National Review's Jonah Goldberg missed it too (and insulted me for the suggestion of the use of market forces). Then again, being told you aren't dumber than Jonah Goldberg is hardly comforting.
If you can't do that, then the starting point isn't bias without a "beyond a reasonable doubt" show of evidence that the bias extends to non-political fields (a "hypothetically possible" reason such as a vast liberal conspiracy doesn't sell).
Perhaps you missed this part of Todd's article:
"I looked at the study itself and found the following for Liberal/Conservative identifications:
Mathematics: 4.1 to 1
Physics: 6 to 1
Chemistry: 2.2 to 1
Biology: 4.4 to 1
Computer Science: 2.8 to 1
Engineering: 2.6 to 1
Economics: 1.4 to 1
By contrast, humanities and social science departments (except economics, which is probably more scientific than most of the other social science departments) have the following divides:
English Lit: 29 to 1
History: 7.7 to 1
Philosophy: 16 to 1
Theology/Religion: 16.6 to 1
Political Science: 40.5 to 1
Sociology: 8.6 to 1
Psychology: 10.5 to 1"
Justin writes:
"Anyone who wants to show discrimination has to show me first that the amount of liberals in the political bias fields (economics, political science, law, history, english, etc) are significantly larger than the amount of liberals in the non-political-bias fields (philosophy, physical sciences, math, engineering, architecture, etc).
Perhaps you missed part of Todd's article:
"I looked at the study itself and found the following for Liberal/Conservative identifications:
Mathematics: 4.1 to 1
Physics: 6 to 1
Chemistry: 2.2 to 1
Biology: 4.4 to 1
Computer Science: 2.8 to 1
Engineering: 2.6 to 1
Economics: 1.4 to 1
By contrast, humanities and social science departments (except economics, which is probably more scientific than most of the other social science departments) have the following divides:
English Lit: 29 to 1
History: 7.7 to 1
Philosophy: 16 to 1
Theology/Religion: 16.6 to 1
Political Science: 40.5 to 1
Sociology: 8.6 to 1
Psychology: 10.5 to 1"
I think, though, that more is needed to show bias than a comparison between disciplines. There are a number of possible reasons other than bias that could explain such discrepencies. For example, perhaps in those other fields, conservatives pursue academia more often than in they do in law. Or maybe fewer conservatives go into English Lit than go into computer science. I think that in order to prove actual bias, there would need to be a study focused on how conservatives who go on the teaching market do relative to liberals who go on the teaching market.
I think we're starting to see the edges of the self-selection argument, Chris. We've got a few more steps to go.
And the evidence provided confirms my suspicion that self selection and the liberal majority amongst the intellectual elite (sorry, I went to Michigan and Columbia, and it is simply fact that while liberals do not have a monopoly on intelligence, that the majority of the cream of the *elite* intelligent student bodies in this country (though not every brilliant student, of course), lean strongly left, and did so before coming to college or being "brainwashed".
last post should end
) compose the primary reasoning towards the fact that most college faculties are focused around what the general population at large would call the center-left. Heck, physics professors are as liberal as a group as DCites.
As far as the school's rankings in various survey tools, these tools may give some idea of how a school performs, but certainly are not the same on a public school, where ranking would only be one of dozens of metrics the school must monitor and constantly respond to. My point was also certainly not that no market forces exist for public schools, but that the structure of the schools signifantly weakens market forces... This is also likely true of K-12 public schools, which do feel effects of parents aignst about their children's education (my 18 year old son in spending his day drawing Unit-Circles with sideway chalk...) but at the same time have very little political power to change things, as the candidates in most local elections are chosen by the teachers unions themselves. This is simply a force you are not likely to ignore at a private school where even something as minor as a professor skipping class can involve calls from angry students/donors demanding an immediate answer and solution... And in which the means for the solution in disciplinary action are still present and have not been minimized/removed entirely.
Modern philosophy is open to anything that can pad the length of a journal article. :)
Well, no, actually one data point doesn't cast much doubt on anything unless the original claim had been absolute - which it wasn't. It's meaningless.
Sample of one, again.
Did you notice that the authors said "many conservatives might not..."? Many, not all. Do you deny that there is a significant faction within conservatism that tends toward a faith-based and often outright anti-scientific world view? Even if it's only a quarter, that's a quarter less conservatives compared to liberals (assuming the overall numbers are almost equal) in academe.
I've often seen conservatives (and libertarians) reject the theory that they are underrepresented in the academy because they're more interested in money, less given to pondering abstractions, etc. Now it looks like you're presenting the same argument but with more conservative-friendly terminology. That makes me wonder whether those other objections were really to the substance of claims or just the way they were worded. You say "merits-based determinations" and someone else might hear "money" because they actually do have their own idea of merit even if you don't accept it. You say "real problems" and they might hear "narrow problem domains" etc. In short, you try to paint these attitudes as positives and others might try to paint them as negatives but the real point is that they exist. Whether it's religious fundamentalism or materialism, there are personal-preference reasons why non-liberals might shun academe.
...and what you're doing is...?
Do you mean like the present study whose findings you refuse to accept? It seems to me that what you're asking for is not just a study but one that produces results you'll like.
Give me a break. Most of the modern academy (at least since the 1960s-1970s, when these organizations were founded) has been profoundly directed at influencing policy, and essentially always to the left.
Don't believe me? Let's look at some examples:
UC Berkeley Labor Center
Williams Project at UCLA Law
The Civil Rights Project at Harvard
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU
This is just a list off the top of my head. All of these things receive university funding; none of them conduct anything other than advocacy-related scholarship, exactly as the think-thanks do.
Also, I suggest that you pick up and browse a full volume of any major law review (top 25 or so should do). You will find a number of normal, actually academic articles. However, you'll also find a significant number of advocacy pieces, most (if not all) expounding a leftist vision. To claim that there's somehow a dividing line between "academic" and "advocacy" is to be willingly blind.
Yes, I believe that if colleges provided equal treatment and funding to conservatives as to leftists, organizations like Cato and AEI would not exist in the form they do. They would be operating centers of the university, like the ones I just named, rather than forced private institutions, as they are now.
Jamestown College was disproportionately conservative, except in the art department, which only 2 people.
Illinois State was probably pretty liberal overall, though the College of Business was pretty conservative.
Pepperdine is exceedingly conservative. Indeed, they will hire a less qualified candidate on the basis of his conservative politics here.
Yes I would. Those were only a small sample, as I said.
Additionally, even faculty unaffiliated with those centers feel free to, and do, publish what are largely advocacy pieces.
Entire departments are based on political advocacy. For example, pretty much every degree program/department whose official ends with the word "studies."
To draw any sort of distinction between "academic" and "advocacy" as Goober tried to is to ignore the last thirty to forty years of academic work.
Either you're still thinking the goal of public institutions..at least the more elite onese...is to maximize student enrollment. It is not. It is to get a class with the strongest sats/gpas/diversity/chance to succeed out in the real world. To get those, they're competing with private institutions without any important subsidy.
Yes, they are subsidized monetarily (as are Harvard and whatnot due to their endowments). That isn't the issue. The price of getting professors is irrelevant to the occasion. The only question is what product will get them the top students. If they discriminate by picking only liberal professors, they will lose students, lose prestige, and either lose elite status or be forced to change policies (this is why economists believe discrimination happens in monopoly employment situations but not in competitive ones).
In other words, the University of Michigan will get some of the top students at Michigan due to being the big public school. That's fine if it wants to compete with North Dakota. If it wants to compete with other top 25 (top 10 graduate) schools, it must compete on a market forces playing field or lose people to other schools. After all, North Dakota is way cheaper than Michigan, even for Michigan students.
Remember that the original discussion was whether or not the political diversity in colleges was even worth discussing.
While I understand that the competition for the top spots amongst the top universities is tough, there are still over 2000 universities, all of which suffer from the diversity issue in faculty, surely not all of these schools place such tests as you point out as a top priority. There are many schools which do compete for students in smaller markets, of which the governmental-run schools do not have to worry about patronage from former donors, admissions, prestige, or student-approval of the school as much as a private school would. I personally know that what that top professor from the local public school did by skipping class is something I simply don't see because the school's administration would not tolerate it, and I suspect he isn't coming back to my former school in the future.
Secondly, it is a different issue as to whether the differences in market forces between public/private lead to the diversity problem. That study and thought debate would have to take place after the problem of whether public/private schools have different forces present at all, as Dem pointed out, should they have no differences at all, and the governmental-run schools are EXACTLY the same as they would be if run by the private-sector... Then the diversity problem would move from being a possible instituionalized creation to a market force that one could look into off-setting with some additional force to create balance.
The fact is that taking GPAs/Diversity/Success Afterwards and stating these factors remain the same for public/private ignores additional factors such as Patronage/Student Opinion AT School/Financial Hardship/Current Professorship Powers/Community Needs and factors that also affect the decisions the schools make, these decisions being very different between private/public. Public schools have much less of a burden to the students currently enrolled, which is why class sizes are often larger and taught in part by TA's and others whom students would find less desireable. In addition, many public schools have the ability to be large research institutions instead of solely focused on education, creating professors who can work on large projects but cannot teach students anything of value.
Even with the top schools being mostly out for their ratings, they still receive professors from other schools as professors move around (experience is a great way to get in the door.) As long as a significant difference exists between the forces at work in a public school and a private school there will always be a difference from a "pure market" for education which would, as I've mentioned, move this debate out of how to change institutions and make it purely a debate of how to influence policy. Dem's suggestion that this topic need not be discussed as the "market has spoken" is simply not a strong influence on me.
Where? Here's a short list for starters: Harvard, Columbia, Yale, UPenn. Add to that just about every single other major American academic institution dedicated to churning out liberal scholarship, and you have the millions of dollars per year I was referring to. The only reason why right-wing (broadly defined) scholars have to turn to the comparatively meager offerings of explicitly conservative institutions outside of academia like the Federalist Society in the first place is because the formal academic structure is simply not interested in providing the resources for the kind of work conservative scholars want to do.
So while you, Dem, can potentially tap the entire Ivy League (presuming the quality of your work is robust), every single conservative who wants to be a law prof can look forward to competing for the three annual fellowships from Fed Soc, and then, if they're lucky enough to ever be named to a federal judgeship in the future, the privelege of being smeared by the media and Senate Democrats for their past relationship with that organization.