A recent paper by Matthew Woessner and April Kelly-Woessner argues that much of the massive ideological imbalance in academia may be due to self-selection. Theis survey evidence shows that conservative undergraduates are less interested in doing original academic research and developing a "philosophy of life" than liberal ones, while showing greater interest than liberals in making money and raising a family. The authors claim that these differences in attitude are likely to lead liberals to self-select into academia and conservatives to self-select against it.
Woessner and Kelly-Woessner emphasize that these self-selection arguments are not incompatible with discrimination-based explanations. Indeed, one of their other interesting findings is that conservative undergraduates have, on average, weaker mentoring relationships with faculty members (who at most schools are overwhelmingly liberal) even after controlling for the students' academic records. Obviously, faculty mentoring at the undergrad level is often crucial for facilitating later efforts to get into a top grad school. Nonetheless, the authors argue that their attitudinal variables probably do account for a large portion of the ideological imbalance in academia.
I agree that self-selection probably plays an important role. It would be a serious mistake to attribute the ideological imbalance in academia solely to discrimination, or even primarily. But I am somewhat skeptical about the particular variables emphasized by the Woessners. If interest in making money were a crucial variable in steering conservatives away from academia, one would expect their representation to be much higher in high-paying academic disciplines such as law, where faculty members routinely make six figure salaries and often have extensive consulting opportunities. Yet the ideological imbalance in legal academia is very large and fairly similar to that in other academic fields.
In my view, a focus on raising a family should make academia more attractive to conservatives rather than less. Relative to other professional jobs, academic careers are actually quite family-friendly. Unlike most other professionals, professors have a high degree of control over their schedules. They can also do a much higher proportion of their work at home, which makes it easier to spend time with kids. Universities also tend to have extremely generous family leave policies for faculty. Moreover, universities often give substantial tuition discounts to children of their faculty - an important benefit for social conservatives with large families. Some schools even subsidize private secondary school tuition for faculty children.
I'm not saying that the academic life is a family idyll. But it's closer to being so than most of the available alternatives for ambitious undergrads. It's true that the interest in starting a family is negatively correlated with interest in pursuing a PhD in the authors' regression model. I suspect, however, that this is a statistical artifact stemming from the fact that those conservatives with the strongest interest in raising families are also more alienated from the dominant academic ideology than even other conservatives are (perhaps because they are more likely to be highly religious and belong to theologically traditionalist denominations).
On the other side of the ledger, I'm skeptical that wanting to develop "a meaningful philosophy of life" really has much to do with wanting to be an academic. And, in the authors' regression model (Appendix A), this indicator is only a weak (though statistically significant) predictor of interest in pursuing a PhD.
Like other studies of academic ideology, the Woessner and Kelly-Woessner paper also suffers from the failure to consider libertarians separately from conservatives. As I discuss in this post, libertarians are about 10-15 percent of the general population and are likely to be disproportionately represented among non-liberals likely to be interested in pursuing academic careers. Relative to conservatives, libertarians are about 20% more likely to be college graduates (see Table 10 in the linked paper) and threfore more likely to be potential candidates for academic jobs.
Although I'm not aware of survey evidence on this point, I strongly suspect that libertarians are closer to liberals than to conservatives in their interests in doing research, developing a philosophy of life, and raising families. Yet libertarians are almost as underrepresented in academia as conservatives are. Certainly, they are nowhere close to constituting 10 percent of faculty in any field other than economics. It is possible that libertarians are more interested in making money than liberals are; the claim is often made, though I have yet to see any systematic study that proves or disproves it. But even if this stereotype is true, it doesn't explain why they aren't better represented in law and other high-paying academic fields.
UPDATE: As I implied in the original post, I don't think that either the ideological imbalance in academia or the flaws of some of the Woessners' self-selection arguments prove that there is extensive ideological discrimination. Indeed, I think the underrepresentation of conservatives in academia is partially due to self-selection factors (though probably not the ones this paper focuses on). On the other hand, there is significant evidence that discrimination plays an important role as well. See this post for links.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Self-Selection and Ideological Imbalances in Academia:
- Intellectual Diversity in Academia--Discrimination v. Self-Selection:
- Affirmative Action for Conservative Academics?
- Pitfalls of Ignoring Libertarianism in Studies of Academics' Ideologies:
- Academics' Ideology and "Moderation":
- Ideology and Academia - Liberal Dominance Only in Those Fields Where it Matters:
- Professors and Intelligent Design:
- Interesting Study on Professors' Ideology:
Families are expensive, which is one reason why I am now a lawyer, not an academic. (A liberal lawyer &ex-academic, but still.)
See my point about law school academia (where faculty can make very high salaries, yet are just as liberal as in other fields). Also, the cost of living in many college towns is relatively low.
Huh? The person with the qualifications to be an entry level law professor, who makes a 5 digit salary, tend to have magnitudes greater opportunities in the private sector. Those with the qualifications to be an immediate-tenured professor (such as, say, Judge Luttig), can easily obtain 7 or even 8 figure salaries.
And that's ignoring that law professorships are the hardest teaching jobs to get from the point of the college senior who has offers. Get into a good grad program, and your chances of teaching are substantial. Get into a good law school, and its still a long shot. If someone is actually determined to teach (rather than considering between teaching and non-teaching jobs), there are perfectly rational reasons why that person would still teach via the general PhD module, even if that person valued money much more than any other possible variable (besides the determination to teach).
Or, in short: You're confusing your inputs.
This point would apply to liberals interested in academia no less than to conservatives. It therefore fails to explain the imbalance between the two in legal academia.
As a PhD student (and at Yale Law) the social structure reinforces teaching.
So if your college senior who wants to teach but really likes money chooses law rather than social sciences, for instance - hes far more likely to change his mind once he starts his path.
At my top 6, not top 3 law school, I'd say less than a quarter of people (including me) who came in inclined to teaching are still so inclined.
In any event, the arguments for discrimination in law are much weaker than in other areas. One of the most prized possessions for a teaching position is a good clerkship, an area where hiring has a decidingly CONSERVATIVE bias. Getting published bypasses professors and goes straight to students, whose makeup reflects the law school society as a whole, not just the (more liberal) faculty society. There are only a few areas of law (the hardest jobs to get, mind you) where political bias in writing is all that necessary. And finally, I know a lot of schools that do practice affirmative action towards conservatives, because the school has a tough time retaining them, as their conservatives so often leave for more conservative schools of equal or greater calibur.
Once again, huh? One of the primary hypothesies of the self-selection bias is that liberals tend to care less about money relative to intellectual pursuits, in aggregate, than conservatives.
It's unlikely to be "magnitudes greater." The average untenured lawprof makes perhaps $120,000. The average associate at a top big-city law firm, perhaps $150-200,000. When you factor in consulting opportunities, generous pension rights, and larger health insurance benefits, the difference shrinks further. At the very least, it's much less than the difference between academia and the private sector in most other fields. So if money were a crucial determinant of the ideological balance in academia, we should expect to see a smaller imbalance in legal academia than in other disciplines. Yet we observe no such thing.
That may be true once you're established in academia. But I'm a junior (read, non-tenure track) academic, and I can tell you that attempting to establish yourself in academia and starting a family are not exactly compatible (admittedly, my sample is small and anecdotal, not scientific). The early child bearing and early career years have large overlap. Early-career academics are expected to produce and be everywhere at once, and be all things to all people. With so few "permanent" jobs in so many academic fields, every little bit you "fall behind" in career advancement hurts you (at least it appears that way). That doesn't mesh well with having to run home to pick up the baby from day care, or staying home with the five year old who has the sniffles. I know lots of young academics in two-career marriages that feel they've have no choice but to delay establishing families for years longer than they really want to so as not to "fall behind their peers/competitors". Whether that's real or not, it's a powerful and widely held worry for many of us.
Once again, huh? One of the primary hypothesies of the self-selection bias is that liberals tend to care less about money relative to intellectual pursuits, in aggregate, than conservatives.
The point in question was the relative difficulty of getting a lawprof job compared to getting one in another academic field.
I sympathize with these problems. But even "junior" academics 1) have more control over their schedules than most other professionals, and 2) can make use of university family leave policies. Moreover, "establishing" yourself in many other professional fields (e.g. - law, business, medicine) also requires a great deal of time and effort. This is anecdotal evidence. But the young lawyers, doctors, and other professionals I know are on average more pressed for time than the young academics - even the non-tenure track ones.
The average entry level law prof job is not $125,000. When I was thinking about this 2 years ago, I looked at one of those websites and it was more likey $65,000-$70,000.
Whereas the average entry attorney coming off a clerkship in NY will make a baseline salary of $180,000, plus a $50,000 clerkship bonus, plus an end of the year bonus that was something along the lines of $55,000 last year - thats almost $300,000.
Comparing average untenured to average senior associate, you don't fair much better: $125,000 to $400-500k.
Do you have data for the first part of your claim? Speaking for myself, making the switch led to a 60% pay cut, lower health benefits, and no time for consulting (but a much, much, much happier life on the whole). That seems to be the norm for other new faculty that I know. Do you have other data?
At the very least, it's much less than the difference between academia and the private sector in most other fields.
Again, really? Is the average income for a non-teaching English phd. more than double that of one who goes into academia?
Oh - and notice that most students at top 6 law schools are liberal - even at Chicago, I've read that Nader was running comparably to Bush in most student polls in 2000 - and then compare the numbers of academics to that population of students. Comparing it to the student body seems the wrong analysis.
After all, at business school, even at the Universities of Michigan and Yale, the student body is DECIDEDLY conservative. Your political ideology does play a lot into what - or whether (note that Bush beat Kerry amongst people with Bachelors, but Kerry beat Bush amongst those with graduate degres) grad school one goes into.
This thread's Clayton Cramer Number is 3.
Whereas the average entry attorney coming off a clerkship in NY will make a baseline salary of $180,000, plus a $50,000 clerkship bonus, plus an end of the year bonus that was something along the lines of $55,000 last year - thats almost $300,000.
I keep track of lawprof salaries pretty closely (having a self-interest in doing so). Very few schools pay salaries less than $100,000 to tenure track faculty and that doesn't count the usual $10-15,000 in summer money.
As for your NYC data, it seems high. Even if accurate, the proper baseline of comparison is to NYC law schools, which also pay more than law schools elsewhere. Most law schools are located in parts of the country with far lower taxes and cost of living than NYC.
The relevant comparison is not between a non-teaching English PhD and a teaching one, but between an English PhD and someone who could have gotten such a degree but chose to go into the private sector instead. The Woessner paper focuses on the decision to pursue a PhD.
BTW, some Universities use these departments to balance out the racial and gender quotas.
Wow, a new record! Only four posts before Clayton Cramer makes a gratuitous swipe at gays!
Most of this is simply inaccurate, particularly the claim of affirmative action for conservative professors. I'm not aware of even one predominantly liberal school that practices it. Liberal students at top law schools with strong enough academic records to become faculty candidates are unlikely to have difficulty getting clerkships, though it is true that there are somewhat more conservative judges than conservative ones. Moreover, mostly liberal faculty who do the hiring are more likely to prize a clerkship with a top liberal judge than a top conservative one.
Regarding publishing, it is true that students decide, but not true taht they aren't mostly liberal students. The kinds of people who run for top editoral positions at major law reviews tend to be left of center (almost as much so as law faculty, particularly since many of them are would-be future faculty themselves).
Finally, there are a few areas of law where ideology makes little difference to scholarship. But certainly not many.
Fine. Getting back to that, the average person who could have gotten a law degree from a good-but-not-HYS school has a very limited shot at ever being a law professor gig, even if that school is CCN. I think your argument is that if money was such a concern, why wouldn't they just get a JD? Well, because, unless they got into Yale, Stanford, or Harvard, they're fighting a significantly higher uphill battle.
And even then, although its hard to explain why, the best and brightest conservatives are just not taking the opportunity.
I mean, didn't you go to Yale? How many people who went to Yale were conservative? How many of THOSE wanted to be a professor? At both comparisons: the amount of conservatives at YLS, and the relative desire amongst YLS conservatives to go to academia, should be VERY STRONG EVIDENCE of a strong self-selection bias. As should the fact that HBS, Kellogg, Chicago Business are all decidedly conservative.
And then, if you don't go to HYS, not only are you fighting an uphill battle in terms of percentage of those who get a job, but you're also suffering from a lack of social and institutional support in terms of sticking it out in your efforts to get published, to make the right contacts, and all sorts of other efforts, that end up with practically no return for the vast majority of non HYSers who try but fail to get a teaching job.
So looking at it from there, it seems clear that the self-selection bias is very strong. Or do you think the LSAT has a liberal bias of some sort?
According to the theory, authoritarian personalities are linked to conservative political ideology, exhibiting a high level of submission to authority and loyalty to existing institutions and social conventions.
In American academe today, is it not the politically Leftist students who exhibit a high level of submission to (predominantly Leftist) academic authority and loyalty to (predominantly Leftist) existing campus institutions and social conventions? Who exactly has the authoritarian personality, the left-wing student who demands rigid adherence to liberal dogmas on campus, and who submits to liberal orthodoxy and the authority of liberal professors, or the right-wing student who defies this authority and mocks those dogmas?
Do conservatives generally enjoy the humanities and social sciences but allow practical considerations to push them into professional fields, or are these fields simply less appealing to them? Would conservatives find these courses more appealing if the faculty who taught them better represented their own viewpoints?
History and political science are appealing subjects, but when one sees that the entire history and political science department is dominated by politically ultra-liberal professors, a conservative student can only conclude that it is totally unrealistic to expect that he would be hired and promoted if he got a PhD. Furthermore, even assuming he could get hired, the idea of being the token conservative in an overwhelmingly liberal department is hardly appealing. Thus, conservatives self-select out of graduate school in predominantly liberal fields.
The first factor, the importance given to raising a family, is a useful predictor of educational goals, since pursing a doctorate usually involves postponing a family (or at least children) for four to six years.
I am skeptical of the importance of this factor. Most students are thinking of grad school when they're in their early 20s, and "family" just isn't a consideration (for guys anyway). "Yeah, I'll have a family someday - maybe ten years from now. Plenty of time to get a PhD in the meantime."
the importance of writing original works, provides some indication of a student’s desire to work in a creative environment.
The conservative simply has to come to terms with the fact that if he wants to write original works, he will not do so in an academic setting.
Conservatives are simultaneously more family oriented, less interested in writing original works, more focused on financial success, less interested in developing a meaningful philosophy of life, and less interested in making a theoretical contribution to science. It seems that, overall, the personal priorities of those on the left are more compatible with pursing a Ph.D.
There was a time in this country (say, before 1970) when academia was not so ideologically unbalanced, and there were plenty of conservative professors. Presumably these factors operated then, but for some reason did not discourage conservatives from pursuing PhDs. Thus, the explanatory power of these factors seems somewhat weak.
professors within the social sciences and the humanities should make a special effort to depoliticize their classroom.
In my experience, professors don't even know they are politicizing the classroom. They are no more aware of their ideology - which they regard as the "normal views of a mainstream moderate" even if they are overt Marxists - than a fish is aware of water.
academic programs might consider how their doctoral programs might be made more inviting to ideological conservatives.
The number one way they could do this would be to hire more conservatives! The presence of conservative professors would indicate to conservative students that an acadmic career was both possible and desirable.
I assure you that most professors at NYLS or Hofstra or Brooklyn are not "Supreme Court clerk types." In any event, comparing NYC salaries to law school salaries around the country is a clear case of apples and oranges given the difference in taxes and cost of living.
I call shenanigans.
"Regarding publishing, it is true that students decide, but not true taht they aren't mostly liberal students. The kinds of people who run for top editoral positions at major law reviews tend to be left of center (almost as much so as law faculty, particularly since many of them are would-be future faculty themselves)."
Uhhhhhh. Please read this and meditate over this. You've proven my point entirely.
They sent me a few months later a letter naming the three people they hired. Although I can't remember if any of them actually clerked for the Supreme Court (I think one of the three did), they all were at that level in terms of credentials - very prestigious clerkships, top law schools, and having done great things or worked for top firms off their clerkship.
BTW, I think you severely underestimate the credentials of Hofstra (which is decidedly not in NYC) Law
It is simply not true that HBS, Kellog, etc. are "decidedly conservative." I know people who attended all 3 schools, as well as other top B-schools such as Stanford and none of them have close to a conservative majority among the students.
As for YLS, it is indeed true that it has few nonliberal students. Probably only 10-20% of the total. Among them, however, the interest in going into academia was not generally smaller than among the liberals, except to the extent that they feared going into because of concerns about discrimination.
Much more importantly, the percentage of conservatives and libertarians at most other elite law schools is probably higher than at Yale for a variety of reasons. It certainly is at Harvard and Chicago. I don't have systematic data. But if the percentage of nonliberal lawprofs accurately reflected the percentage on nonliberal law students at elite law schools, it would be two or three times higher than it is currently.
Yes, self-selection plays a role (as I noted in the original post). But it is far from accounting for all of the imbalance, or even close to it.
They sent me a few months later a letter naming the three people they hired. Although I can't remember if any of them actually clerked for the Supreme Court (I think one of the three did), they all were at that level in terms of credentials - very prestigious clerkships, top law schools, and having done great things or worked for top firms off their clerkship.
The vast majority of all law professors went to top law schools and had prestigious clerkships. that is a far cry from being Supreme Court clerks (of whom there are only 34, I think, every year). In applying for a law firm job, a top law school grad with a good clerkship will do well, but will not get the huge benefits reserved for actual Supreme Court clerks.
Not surprisingly, a lot of these arguments are made in the context of African-Americans and affirmative action. And so while I think this theory *does* make a case for some conservative affirmative action (though hardly an impenetrable one), saying that it is proof of bias appears just as silly as saying that a school which chooses not to have an affirmative action program is racist. And while I'm sure some enterprising young commenter will find a liberal saying exactly that, that liberal would still be wrong.
Conservatives and libertarians see the money making process as having social utility. That's not the same thing as finding it personally fulfilling. I think that janitorial work and sanitation engineering are socially important. That doesn't mean that I would enjoy working in either of these fields.
I do agree with the last sentence. Self-selection does play an important role. Just not in the way that the Woessners suggest and probably not enough to account for the full magnitude of ideological imbalance in academia.
Uhhhhhh. Please read this and meditate over this. You've proven my point entirely.
I don't think it does. Part of the reason why liberal students are more likely to run for such positions is precisely because conservatives are less likely to try to go into academia due to concerns about discrimination. Moreover, even if the law journal imbalance is initially caused by self-selection factors (as I think to a considerable extent it is), there is a feedback loop that further deters potential conservative applicants because of the greater resulting difficulty of being published in top journals.
For what it's worth, I have never made any case for affirmative action for conservatives. Indeed, I argued AGAINST that idea in this post. I also do not believe that ideological imbalances in and of themselves prove the presence of ideological discrimination.
Attitudes about the nature and interpratation of law are intimately related to political outlook and conservatives are going to be much more likely to have a more 'boring' view of what legal interpretation and scholarship consist of and thus see academia as a less attractive option.
I mean whichever view you think is right surely it is more exciting to think that your scholarship could right great wrongs and root out injustices by discovering 'new' legal rights than it is to think you are engaged in merely determining the intent of those who passed/ratified/drafted the law. I mean even Eugene (hardly a liberal) seems to find his work advocating a medical necessity defense to be particular interesting and while conservatives (or libertarians) will sometimes advocate positions like Eugene's if they feel these are justified less frequently they will find legal scholarship less thrilling.
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Ultimately I think what this analysis goes badly wrong is that the presumption should be that a statistical difference has a non-discriminatory cause in the absence of reason to believe otherwise. There are hundreds of ways these variables could be correlated and we could speculate all day so I'm afraid I will need a bit more than a difference in the statistical presence of liberals and conservatives in academia to be convinced discrimination plays a significant role. I mean hasn't this blog made this very point about other discrimination allegations?
Ohh and sure I do think there is reason to believe the lack of like minded individuals is a factor in discouraging conservatives in academia. Just as isolationists might feel out of place in the state department and those liberals with strong sympathies for criminal defendants would be loney in police departments. While a few liberal academics might be aggressive about their political views I would be shocked if police officers never mocked the 'pansy liberals' who want to feel the pain of offender's poor childhoods. Even at a government supported institution you don't have a right to avoid hearing people mock your political views but and I don't see why it is a greater problem in academia than in the police force.
And I picked this particular example at random, the first 2006 or 2007 Hofstra hire I could find on their website.
Conservatives don't run for law journal gigs? You're off your rocker.
Moreover, even if the law journal imbalance is initially caused by self-selection factors (as I think to a considerable extent it is),
Eh? It's all grades and a statutory interpretation question, done anonymously, other than one person a year who writes on.
there is a feedback loop that further deters potential conservative applicants because of the greater resulting difficulty of being published in top journals
Uhhh, when a conservative is deterred from doing something, isn't that SELF-selection?
I entirely agree that imbalances do not by themselves prove discrimination or even come close to doing so. However, I discussed some evidence suggesting that discrimination does play a significant role in this post.
I observe job fields where there is an imbalance of conservatves. Oil, mining, construction, civil engineeirng, and mechanical engineering seem dominated by cons. So are agriculture and commodity trading firms. Has anyone ever heard of a conservative social worker? Guidance counselor? Psychologist?
If blacks were as statistically underrepresented in academia as conservatives are, methinks few liberals would "presume a non-discriminatory cause in the absence of reason to believe otherwise"... ah, but when it's conservatives being discriminated against, it's different.
Not really. It is an attractive occupation for obvious reasons that should appeal to any person, independent of ideology. Moreover, there were plenty of conservatives in academia prior to 1970. What suddenly caused them to lose interest?
But is he a homosexual?
Not particularly, as I don't want to betray any particular professor's trust. And by affirmative action, I simply mean informally - i.e., said schools were really on the lookout for a decent conservative for balance reasons, or having just lost one to a better school.
Even the average law student makes very little until they graduate and get their first job, but thy do acquire a lot of debt that can delay starting a family.
I don't think that originalism and textualism are necessarily more boring than other interpretive methodologies. Moreover, consitutional law is only one small part of legal academia.
I mean whichever view you think is right surely it is more exciting to think that your scholarship could right great wrongs and root out injustices by discovering 'new' legal rights than it is to think you are engaged in merely determining the intent of those who passed/ratified/drafted the law. I mean even Eugene (hardly a liberal) seems to find his work advocating a medical necessity defense to be particular interesting and while conservatives (or libertarians) will sometimes advocate positions like Eugene's if they feel these are justified less frequently they will find legal scholarship less thrilling.
Conservatives and especially libertarians believe that there are many areas where courts can usefully constrain "wrongs" created by the political process (e.g. - affirmative action, federalism, property rights, free speech, etc.). The minority of conservatives who disagree with that approach and instead favor extremely tight limits on judicial review tend to believe that the exercise of broader judicial power by liberal judges is itself a "great wrong" to be righted. That should provide motivation enough for would-be conservative legal academics.
But is he a homosexual?"
Given his endless obsession with homosexuals and all their doings, the smart money says...
I started a family on a stipend of 9k a year in the early 90's. In the sciences.
Related to this is the difficulty two-academic couples have finding employment in the same city. Unless they are targets of a spousal hire, they will often have to live apart during most of the academic year or else one spouse will have to leave the profession. Lawyers, physicians, and other professionals don't run into this problem nearly as much. I don't know what the statistics are on how many academics are married to other academics, but anecdotally it's quite a high number among those 40 and below. They were in grad school at the prime spouse-meeting time and tended to meet other grad students.
My guess is that the current situation makes people who want to control where they live less likely to enter academia than those who are willing to go wherever they find work and possibly to postpone marriage or live apart. It's possible such willingness tracks with a liberal-conservative divide.
I agree that's a major drawback of academia. However, it's not clear why it should affect conservatives more than liberals. To the contrary, conservatives (though perhaps not libertarians) might on average be more willing to live in relatively isolated rural areas than liberals, who are more likely to prefer the major cities of the East and West coasts.
No.
You're introducing regional preference as a category of analysis; I'm just talking about having any control over where one lives. Many people like to have the option of living near where they grew up but this is simply never going to be in the cards for most academics no matter how hard they try. A bright kid from, say, Illinois will have no trouble becoming a lawyer in Illinois; it's the default if he goes to law school, particularly in state. But he will have a small chance of becoming an English professor in Illinois no matter what.
As one recovering from academe, I can attest to the existence of a large number of academics (liberals, of course) who say they will live anywhere but the south, and a smaller state that will live only in the northeast. But I have mostly lived in the south and practically all the arts &sciences academics I know are liberals. (There is a token conservative in each department, normally identified by his penchant for bow ties.) I can't see regional preference having a measurable effect, because practically all academics are liberals, and the prospect of being sentenced to a career in a "red state" doesn't deter enough of them.
Also, college towns tend to be pretty liberal: they are "blue dots in red states." Whatever's the matter with Kansas is not a problem in Lawrence.
The category of analysis I wish the study had considered was gender.
Attractive and appealing to any person? Should appeal to any person? By what standard? Lots of people don't find school at all attractive and many very successful people couldn't wait to get out of school. Staying in school even longer, so they could stay forever, is hardly appealing to them. Tastes and preferences for various occupations vary with different people. An academic career is no exception.
I know conservative psychologists. I know a couple who will be (at least relative to the average academic) conservative social workers in a few months. My daughter tells me of a student who was kicked out of a social work program because she indicated that if a client indicated discomfort with his homosexuality, she would encourage him to consider some of the reorientation programs that have been shown to work. And this was the basis for kicking this gal completely out of the program.
Which is true.
That is the reason that Randy and others had to misrepresent his argument.
Not that they did a particularly slick job of it.
From my experience, liberals--and leftists generally--are as "under-represented" among military officers, corporate managers, etc. as conservatives are among academics.
As a matter of curiosity, do posters and commenters here regard the situations as comparable? Are the same forces are at work in those institutions as in academia? And are similar remedies appropriate?
Of course there are conservatives who like the academy. My speculation is that fewer conservatives than liberals share that enjoyment. It is possible that 1)fewer conservatives are attrected to an academic career AND 2)the academic community has contempt for conservatives.
Another way of looking at it is that conservatives see many avenues other than academia which are more attractive to them.
I am glad to know that the social work schools are treating both liberals and conservatives with professional respect. Or were you simply citing exceptions to the rule? (I'll admit that's what I asked.)
I agree with your observation. (I will also acknowledge we can find lots of exceptions, so no need for anyone to list Soros and Buffet.)
Suppose some people are attracted to both conservatism and the military? They are not attracted to the military because they are conservatives, but something about their makeup makes both conservatism and the military attractive.
Likewise, something about the makeup of aother person would make both liberalism and the academy attractive.
A remedy would only be appropriate if there were some problem. What's the problem?
Interesting idea. Another speculation is that affirmative action has to stop somewhere.
Not "anyone". I've enjoyed a few guest teaching gigs, but I'd never want to do it for a living. After a while it's boring and repetitive, and the departmental politics are excruciating. And the pay? Don't get me started... I'm much more satisfied pursuing my career in the open market, where there are no limits to my advancement or potential income.
not at the CIA they ain't, and it's loaded with military personnel.
one case, one point.
2. Having been in a field vaguely resembling academia -- HQ government work -- it's quite attractive to a person starting out with a family. You're not looking for an incredible sum per year. What you want is (a) a very, very secure income and (b) medical benefits and (c) preferrably a 40 hour a week job rather than one that might escalate to 80+ at times . With a wife and a kid and a new house, you'd happily trade a lower income for a situation where you can't be fired absent a major misconduct and your income doesn't vary and you go home at 5 to play with the kid(s) and have weekends off.
This isn't a very good argument.
Law professors usually come from top schools. People from top schools typically can make even more money working at law firms than as professors. While law professor salaries don't suck, they are usually not as good as what you can make in a law firm.
The average practitioner has a snowballs chance in hell of becoming a law professor.
I currently teach at a state school that is ranked in the fourth tier by USNWR. It is decidedly not liberal, either by reference to the student body or the faculty. With respect to the latter, as far as I can tell, and many of my colleagues simply do not talk about politics, we are at most 50-50, with Republicans probably edging out Democrats. I doubt we are atypical among law schools of similar stature.
But there is a larger point to be made here. From my experience, both at the school where I teach and the school where I was educated, political ideology is largely irrelevant. The notion of a liberal bias in legal academia, like the notion of a liberal bias in the mass media, is largely a myth that gets repeated so often that it becomes the accepted wisdom. With one or two minor exceptions, I never felt like my professors were indoctrinating me. To the contrary, these were men and women of great intellectual integrity who rarely presented anything other than a balanced view of the law.
And while I am a Democrat, and would probably be considered by many to be a liberal, I doubt this is reflected in my teaching. It certainly is not reflected in my scholarship. Indeed, if one looks at my writings on the Establishment Clause and the Self-Incrimination Clause, one would likely conclude that my views are closest to those of Justice Thomas than any other sitting Justice. And in my upcoming piece, I argue for significant limitations on Miranda.
Indeed, it would make little sense for law professors at the "non-elite" schools, the overwhelming majority of whom toil in virtual anonymity, to simply toe the liberal party line in their scholarship in order to appease liberal law review editors. They are trying, most of all, to get noticed by the rest of the academy. And legal academia values not liberalism but novelty and heterodoxy (in much the same way that the supposedly liberal media value not liberalism but conflict and drama). Certainly, heterodoxy will often be liberal, but that is simply a coincidence; it will just as often be conservative, depending on what the prevailing orthodoxy happens to be in the particular area on which one is writing. No one gets noticed in legal academia by preaching to the choir. (This is not to imply that the positions I take in my scholarship are anything but sincere, but I will admit that the desire to get noticed will sometimes have an influence on which of my many ideas for articles I will devote my precious time to).
No because I know the difference between a floor and a ceiling, particularly after a pretty long conversation.
As I said, I'm not going to reveal confidences - but if you want to, go right ahead. Unfortunately, as one of the school's search has shown, is that there aren't that many quality conservatives out there who are not already pretty happy with where they are at.
If you're right on the 10-20% being conservative when you were at Yale, then that actually lines up pretty well with what the demographics currently are at UChicago. Although, of course, its hard to get a perfect picture of where people fall, due to either ideological apathy or ideological moderateness (especially hard to pick up who qualifies as a libertarian). But for the most part, 10-20% seems accurate at UChicago, so I wouldn't say the percentage of conservatives/libertarians is higher here than it was at Yale. I can't speak for Harvard, but I imagine the same is true there.
But if the percentage of nonliberal lawprofs accurately reflected the percentage on nonliberal law students at elite law schools, it would be two or three times higher than it is currently.
Now that seems pretty accurate here, sadly.
Ahhh, the NYT gambit. Works every time.
While most of my professors, and my wife's professors, were careful not to engage in the type of petty and irrelevant insults to which I am referring, we both had professors who would throw out the most outrageous remarks, often completely outside the subject of the class. My wife took a "Musics of the World" class where, in the midst of a discussion of Native American music, the professor suddenly started talking about how the Indians respected the environment, "unlike Christians who came here to destroy everything." This is both irrelevant to the class, and historically inaccurate. We both had a number of similar examples.
Hey, maybe University of Texas doesn't suffer those problems. But isn't this the school where faculty were arguing that a tenure decision should be made based on a professor's membership in the NAS, because that made him immediately suspect of homophobia?
I know some closed minded liberals who ridicule conservatives generally and your story has some credibility for some humanities programs, I fear. But I don't see it in law schools. I'm not aware that a very conservative Lino Graglia has any great complaints about the faculty, though he's taken his abuse from the media.
It is widely acknowledged that it is very difficult to get into teaching in the legal field. Assuming you're not HYS, and you're "just Tier 1", then, at a minimum, law school hiring committees look for the following:
1. Top 5% of the class.
2. Published.
3. Law Review (or most prestigious journal, if not called the Law Review).. also, an editor/managing/EIC position wouldn't hurt.
4. Clerkship.
Once you've done this, you can enter the academe game, with the possibility of tenure in the future, and low salaries in the present (and you'll never get a really high salary), or go private, and get the clerkship bonus, the years of the clerkship applied to your partnership track, the end-of-the-year bonus, and the prospect of making partner (however dim that might be) with the attendant rewards.
In short, the academic track is a choice, and one that has (potentially severe) financial consequences. While Prof. Somin is correct that there are aspects of the academic track that might be countervailing, I think he underestimates the financial cost. Because of this, he also underestimates the self-selection bias.
I write this only because of my limited, and anecdotal, observation. Those that I have seen that are on Law Review who view it as a credential for wealth are both liberal and conservative. Those that are on Law Review simply because they know it is a requirement for teaching are all liberal. This may be because of earlier factors (such as mentoring by professors), but it is what I observe.
Clayton knows more about gays than an actually live gay man? Well, okay, if you say so....
Aubrey: "Cramer wasn't talking about gays. He was suggesting that if the supposed lack of charity toward conservatives was, instead, aimed at gays, there'd be hell to pay. "
Interesting. He is mentions gays (actually, homosexuals) but he isn't talking about them.
But okay, I'll bite. Suppose Clayton had said instead that the supposed lack of charity toward conservatives was, instead, aimed to blacks, or native Americans, there'd be hell to pay. I would argue that of course, there would be hell to pay. Anyone who is less than charitable towards any group should be condemned. However, if you are a liberal or conservative, those are stances that you choose to take, and you should be able to defend them or not, and they are legitimate reasons to discuss whether a conservative policy is correct or not. To discuss whether it is legitimate to be black, gay or American indian, is not.
(Of course, I would concede that it is legitimate to discuss certain aspects said groups, if you were going to discuss whether blacks have a higher incidence of diabetes, or gays with HIV, or Indians with some other behaviorial aspect, then that would be fine too)
OK. So what? I had profs who talked about everything from their cars to the chances of Boston winning the World Series. The same thing happens in all occupational fields. The workplace is full of talk about politics, sports, new computer gadgets, the bosses new bimbo, etc.
My personal experience in school was that the greater the quantitative nature of the subject, the less the extraneous small talk. English and sociology had the most small talk. Linear algebra and physics had the least.
Okay, this is pretty close. From the April 1, 1991 Time magazine article about NAS:
It could be that my memory is defective about UT, but here's one of the more prominent leftists in academia baldly stated that prejudice based on membership in a organization alone is good cause to be ghettoized.
Perhaps law schools are better in this area. I have one friend who is a liberal law professor and agrees that conservatives are a small minority of law school faculty. They are accepted generally because of their brilliance. What's that saying? "A black man has to be twice as good as a white man to get the job?" That's not the case anymore; there's just a new group that has to be twice as good.
Are you really this dense? He was saying that I might know a bit more the academic community than you.
It's an example of how widespread hostility towards group X might discourage members of group X from pursuing academic careers.
I would also suggest that your claim to expertise because you are gay means that no man can ever be an expert on gynecology, no white can ever be an expert on blacks, and no limousine liberal can ever be an expert on poverty. There may be advantages to being in the aquarium if you want to understand fish, but being a fish may make it difficult be objective in understanding the relationship of fish to other species.
Are you really this dense? There's two serious holes in your argument:
1. By the "you choose to be conservative or liberal" argument, then religious discrimination by universities is perfectly okay. In practice, there is some self-selection going on; Christians of moderate to conservative theology are unlikely to pursue academic careers because it is a fiercely hostile environment. And of course, quite a number of people think that homosexuality is a choice. You don't think it is a choice; I'm not persuaded that it is always or even mostly a conscious choice; but what makes your claim correct and the claim of others incorrect?
2. There is a difference between respectfully and intelligently challenging a particular perspective, and what your side does. Compare two possible statements and tell me if you see a difference:
"Conservatives, libertarians, liberals, and socialists have differing perspectives on the relative merits of free markets vs. governmental regulation or ownership as a method for improving the condition of the poor. Let us examine the arguments that each group makes in defense of its position...."
"Conservatives want poor people to sell themselves into slavery so that they abuse and beat them whenever they want!"
And I've heard professors make statements even more outrageous than the latter on more than one occasion.
I will concede that the commentator's comments could have been intrepreted as saying that Clayton knows more about the academic community than I do, rather than saying he knows more about the gay community that I do. His language didn't make it clear, and i assumed the latter.
"but what makes your claim correct and the claim of others incorrect? :
The scientific research. Any academic should know that.
That is one of the plausible reasons. I suppose the weak may shy away from academia based on those perceptions. I would ask if their perceptions are based on reality. Are conservatives actually discriminated against in hiring and promotion? Does the perceieved bias lead to actual discrimination? Is the perception reasonable?
Regarding gays, I think they are much more concerned with their sexual orientation than anyone else. When someone doesn't care about gays, yet fires a gay, the gay often sees it as anti-gay discrimination. It's a tendency that seems to transcend ideology. People think what is most important to them is likewise a decision vaiable of everyone else. It's also a convenient way to avoid admitting personal failure.
I agree with you--if homosexuals would shut up, do what they want in private, and not make a big deal about their sexuality with continual demands for active governmental and societal approval, there would relatively discussion of it--rather like the situation was in the 1970s. Most of my generation (at least, those that I knew) had the same attitude that I did: if homosexuality was what you want, that's cool. It's not for me, please accept rejection of your advances politely, and there's no problem.
The desire to see anti-gay discrimination for what might be personal rejection isn't just a gay thing. It is potentially a problem anytime that someone sees themselves as different from the group with power.
Many years ago, when I was on way to college, I had an overheating problem develop in my heap of a car. I pulled off the Santa Monica Freeway in the Fairfax District, and into a gas station. There were two older guys working there. One of them was named Sol; I don't remember the other guy's name. Both of them could have been sent over from Central Casting: "Needed: two stereotyped New York Jews, with heavy accents." They very quickly persuaded me that I needed a new radiator cap--which they just happened to have. The radiator cap wasn't defective, but it was a few miles down the road before this was apparent. In retrospect, they were pulling a fast one on me--using a device to "test" the radiator cap that was bogus.
Now: did they take advantage of me because I was a Gentile? Or would they have done that to a Jewish college student, too? If they hadn't been so obviously Jewish, I would not have considered the possibility that there was a discriminatory intent there. I have no idea for sure, but the thought did occur to me.
I think this is a natural reaction any time that a person finds himself being injured by someone who is from an identifiably different group: are they picking on me because I am not part of their group? A white guy who gets beat up by a white guy doesn't say, "It's because I'm white." He says, "It's because this thug thought he could get away with it." A black guy who gets beat up by another black guy doesn't assume racial animus. But when the injuring person is from a different group, it is very easy to assume, "I'm being picked on for being different." It may well be true--but you are correct, it is very easy to assume that, when that isn't the reason.
In the case of academia, we do have members of the establishment, Stanley Fish for example, who make it very clear that they actively promote discrimination against people that are part of a group that he perceives as conservative. (Anywhere but a college campus, the average NAS member would be properly classed as a liberal, I suspect.) How much of the failure of conservatives to advance in academia is hard to tell--but when you have actively stated intentions to discrimination, and grossly disproportionate numbers of conservatives and libertarians in these departments, there is a prime facie case for discrimination. At least, it would be sufficient if blacks were failing to be hired in proportion, with active statements of racial bias.
Regarding gays' making a bg deal out of their homosexuality, that's fine. They can say whatever they want. I don't care. However, I will determine what is important for myself. If I don't care about other peoples' sex lives then I will make that determination regardless of how much anyone talks. So, let them talk, march, and proclaim their exploits as they see fit. It doesn't bother me. And I will then make up my own mind about what is important to me.
Are there sufficient civilian profs to make this a reasonable question? Are there tenured civilian profs?
Talking to a geograph prof at a party, I asked about Walter Christaller, whom I had seen referred to in a scifi novel.
He asked me if i was a prof around the area.
"I did my post-grad work at Ft. Benning."
Sometimes God is just too good to me.
But when my kids were in school, I discovered a scam. When the parents show up to take kid out to dinner and see how things are going, three or four friends go, too.
Since I suppose all parents are chumps in a similar fashion, I expect the kids are pretty well fed.
In my kids' undergrad work, I heard a lot. And this was a Enormous State University.
They were getting liberal indoctrination in at least one class per semester. They knew to pretend to believe. Get the grade, let the dumbass prof think he was making some kind of converts, move on.
The atmosphere is manifest far before the question of thesis or hiring.
As for gays, everyone should get a grip. Gay people should be allowed to mention the fact of homosexuality socially, the same way other people mention their heterosexual dating and family relationships. Nobody wants to hear about anyone else's bedroom antics (unless the scandal is really, really juicy), but the mere existence of a same-sex partnership is not equivalent to "talking about sex." But this goes both ways -- gays and lesbians who do kiss and tell in detail should get the same social treatment as straight people who provide the proverbial "too much information."
Liberal or conservative, liberal arts professors and law professors are selling degrees that have such a low value, when one considers the mammoth student loans many students are burdened with (my friend has $250k in loans, is a law school graduate, and still unemployed), the degrees are practically worthless.
How do Tier 3 and Tier 4 law professors sleep at night? It's a fair question. There are NO jobs for new graduates.
I'd assume liberals are more drawn to teaching from some misguided assumption they are "making a difference" - most of my liberal law professors waxed eloquently about helping the needy and fighting for social change. Kind of hard to do when you're eating beans out of a can every night y'know? These profs make 6 figure salaries, have tenure, and for what? To stand in front of a room and repeat the same lecture every semester, crank out a few law review articles? It's a SCAM, people.
Ah, yes, the good old days, when gays were closeted and had no positive images in the media, blacks knew there place in society, and the woman's place was in the home.
I don't think that the intellectual orthodoxy of university faculties is similar at all to the military or business. The difference is obvious--the entire enterprise of the university is the exploration of ideas whereas in other areas is a secondary exploration. There is no obvious way in which having a diversity of intellectual outlook beyond what it is today would enrich the enterprise of business or the military. Perhaps a small bit at the margin--but then again there is neither such a lopsided ratio or absence of contrary voices in those enterprises, especially in the military which is in the end subject to civilian control.
It seems difficult to argue, by contrast, that an absence of diversity of ideas in an enterprise defined by the study of ideas at its very core is not a problem. I do not see how universities can perform their social function of helping students to form a meaningful philosophy of life and understand themselves, or to educate responsible citizens, if they are exposed to only a limited range of ideas.
This thread's Justin Number is 17, handily beating out Clayton Cramer -- and bracketing him both top & bottom.
Does that count?
They have a better right to a night's sleep than liberal arts profs in non-top-20 schools who agree to direct dissertations. A new JD from tier 3/4 schools has a far better chance of getting a law job than a new PhD from a tier 3/4 school does of getting an academic job.
I doubt they perform that function. Maybe it would be nice if they did, but I don't see the evidence. There are many other avenues of information today which compete with the university, and none of them existed fifty years ago.
So, I'd have to question if a univ is necessary for one to develop a philosophy of life or gain self-understanding. Looking at university graduates of all ages, I'd have to say No. They do provide good professional schools, and turn out good engineers, biologists, and accountants; and basic research is incredible. But individual human development? I don't see it.
Universities were invented when cities weren't very far along yet, and they concentrate a lot of the attributes of a city into a very small space. They're kind of fake, but they are a good place for young people to practice before they are turned loose in the wider world. The more career-focused majors can insert real information into students' heads, and any program can help students with writing and other skills. But it's not clear to me why modern universities, especially those actually located in cities, have to be full-service institutions. What's with all the gyms, for instance? There are plenty of those already.
I'd like to see universities uncoupled, if that makes sense. The research, educational, cultural, and infrastructure (gyms, playing fields etc.) bits of universities are all interesting, but it's not clear that they all need to be part of the same entity. And it's not clear that a person who wants an education should have to buy all that other stuff as well. If society wants it all, and I think it does, it should find a better way to finance it.
"if conservatives would shut up, do what they want in private, and not make a big deal about their politics with continual demands for active governmental and societal approval, there would relatively discussion of it--rather like the situation was in the 1960s."
But I don't find that very persuasive other. Or fill in the bolded text with married people, or Jews, or whomever.
In my time at Annapolis, I didn't see very many professors wear their politics on their sleeves. You have to realize a few things about the Academies that distinguish them from civilian institutions:
(1) The primary mission of the faculty is to teach the mids and cadets. They are not assisted by grad students. The military attracts civilian profs by giving fairly easy access to research funds and facilities.
(2) Although we certainly did have career academics, many of the profs were in their second careers, all of them distinguished. To give an example, my controls prof was a fighter pilot in Vietnam, then he had a full career with a major electronics company before coming to the Academy. In other words - unlike most professors in civilian institutions - the faculty tends to have years of real-world experience, and relatively little tolerance for "theories" that don't hold up in application.
(3) Each department has both a civilian head and a military head (O-5 or O-6), one of whom is technically "in charge," with the other serving as XO. Both have input into hiring, management, and tenure. I think the presence of the military officers tends to prevent the domination of a department by a runaway academic with a political axe to grind. Moreover, introductory classes are taught by active duty officers (mid-career shore tour, usually with masters degrees) rather than grad students, so there is always a large cadre of instructors who aren't beholden to academic trends. [Overall, military/civilian balance is about 50/50.]
(4) Remember, the mission of the academy system is to produce 22 year olds who are wise in the ways of the world, and who won't test out the latest theory-du-jour using someone else's 18 year old kid.
"Does that count?"
No. I think you missed the joke, Smokey.
Astonishingly, I've agreed with most of what you've said in this thread, Elliot. I'll take issue with this, though. I had a wonderful time in college, learning a wide variety of subjects, and doing a lot of things I've never had the chance to do again--paint pictures; write for the student newspaper; help run the campus radio station and program the classical music; study history, literature and science. Maybe I could have done some of these things on my own, but the college provided professional instruction and access to such things all in one package. And the knowledge and experiences I gained have served me very well since then--exceptionally well, I should say. Many, if not most, of the things I studied have stayed with me and enriched my adult life with a love for and interest in studying, reading and learning for its own sake.
I enjoy travel and museums because, thanks to my art history courses, I know what I'm looking at and can be surprised and delighted at new things. I love music because of my experiences at the campus station, and the classes I took that revealed the structure and logic of the music. I remember my drama teacher encouraging me to read writers who had nothing to do with theater. "You've never read so-and-so? Oh, you've got to read so-and-so." I remember one of my lit teachers, an old ham, gleefully reciting passage after passage from Cyrano de Bergerac while giving Maxim Gorky a literal "raspberry." (Talk about instructor bias!) And the patient physics teacher who, in spite of being stuck with the "gut" course, took the time to make the basic concepts fun and understandable, to the extent that I still love reading about science.
And even better, ALL of these things have given me a professional edge, one way or another, throughout most of my life.
I think the really successful college student, regardless of what field he or she eventually enters, should look back on university days and be able to say, "Gee, I got a chance be on stage, even though I'll never be an actor," or "That professor really made me enjoy history, and I've never forgotten it." I think if only a fraction of adults came away with that feeling, our struggle to provide quality continuing education would be worth it.
I knew a lot of kids whose parents wouldn't *let* them take courses outside their major--they weren't going to waste their money on that crap! I think that's a shame, and I think a lot of those kids suffered for it.
I'm sure this sounds absurdly idealistic to some, but I know a lot of people who loved college because they got to dip a toe in just about any subject they wished, even if it was something they might never "use." Of course, many of us end up "using" these experiences far more than we might have suspected at the time.
How do Tier 3 and Tier 4 law professors sleep at night? It's a fair question. There are NO jobs for new graduates.
My school has, I think, about a 93% employment rate 6 months after graduation. I sleep fine.
I'd assume liberals are more drawn to teaching from some misguided assumption they are "making a difference . . . .
The main "difference" I seek is to make sure my students don't screw their future clients, paying or otherwise, by being bad lawyers.
[M]ost of my liberal law professors waxed eloquently [sic] about helping the needy and fighting for social change.
I do no such thing, though I do plead guilty to waxing eloquent, and sometimes ineloquent, on Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and Evidence.
These profs make 6 figure salaries . . . .
I still make five figures.
[They] have tenure . . . .
Nope.
To stand in front of a room and repeat the same lecture every semester . . . .
Any law professor who is lecturing should find another profession. Ditto, any law professor who doesn't update his or her materials.
I believe that should be one of the goals of education. Whether universities today actually perform that function is doubtful. But that's part of my point--the intellectual orthodoxy that exists on university campuses today is contrary to that purpose. And I suspect that it is in part because universities have abandoned that objective (in favor of the more narrow ones that you identify) that the negative effect of the intellectual orthodoxy on the educational process is ignored.
On the specific point of whether this is a valuable goal for the university I recommend Tony Kronman's recent book on education in the modern university. Michael Oakeshott's collection of essays on liberal education is also quite good--Oakeshott makes a similar point in a bit of a different way. He says that the purpose of the university is to make us "human." By which he means that a human being is fundamentally a reflection of what he believes and what he values. So that the education that shapes what one believes and values as the ends of life is fundamentally what makes us "human." I'm not sure I necessarily agree with the full line of logic, but it is quite an interesting thesis with a good deal of truth to it.
I'm sure you entered teaching with noble ideals. I've researched your school and your tuition is not excessive (at least for in-staters) and you are not enrolling an excessive number of students, compared to other Tier 3's and Tier 4's. Nevertheless, this law school explosion jumped the shark a long time ago. Does KY really need 4 law schools?
I urge you to look beneath the surface re: the 93% employment rate. My Tier 2 construed "employment" very loosely, counting unpaid internships, temp jobs (when we made it clear such jobs would expire upon graduation), even jobs outside the legal industry (who needs to incur $70k plus in debt just to return to their old job selling insurance or roofing houses?). The job market is terrible. How many recent grads do you keep in touch with? Even the government jobs are unbelievably competitive. An agency can post an unpaid internship on a job board and will be flooded with resumes. How are the quality of jobs posted on your school's listserve? And seriously, you went to Columbia, you've never experienced what a Tier 3 or Tier 4 grad outside the top 10% of their class has to experience.
You're too high to see down. Law school is not profitable for most, I'd recommend to you the infamous WSJ article on the job market, if you've not read it already.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/
SB119040786780835602.html
All the things you list are excellent in themselves. My question is how they relate to each other and to:
1) Getting basic research done,
2) Giving people the qualifications they need to get jobs, and
3) Providing a lot of other services (health care, athletics etc.) to a select group of people.
It's also not clear to me that all that cultural exposure works best at ages 18-22. A lot of ideas in literature don't even make much sense to people at that age.
Lots of people really just need the paper to get that first job, and they should be able to buy that cheap without all that other stuff. That doesn't mean it's all they will ever need... it's just all they can finance before they have a decent income. And even the people who do go for the whole liberal education... why should they be expected to give up acting or art once they enter adult life? Makes no sense to me. I know a lot of enthusiastic amateurs and part-time professionals in these areas.
The notion of putting all our cultural eggs in the university basket is the problem, and it gets worse when all the political eggs are supposed to be in there too.
Maybe it's all a mission creep problem.
That question may be better directed at Kentucky's newest law school, though they seem to be busy with their own problems. My law school is 118 years old, though it has been in Kentucky only for about 35 years. We are also unique in being not only a Kentucky school but also a Cincinnati-area school. Does the Cincinnati area really need two law schools? Probably, especially since the other one does not have a part-time program.
Is the claim really that conservatives are more "family friendly" than liberals in the sense of, "it would be nice to settle down and have a family myself I could spend some time with"? Because I know liberals and conservatives in and out of academia, and I don't see any great distinction in this regard (note: citing liberal advocacy for gay marriage and then claiming that this position "anti-family" doesn't count for this purpose).
Any large university still teaches the basics of liberal education. You can generally find courses on Shakespeare, Milton, languages, art, history, etc. Of course, they can be difficult, and many students specifically shun these classes in favor of 'practical' classes like accounting. However, I really don't believe that any intellectual orthodoxy prevents any student from taking classes that open the mind and explore new areas of thought.
Sure, perhaps in upper level classes, there are professors who might make you toe the line regarding their bias, but so far, few people in this thread have been able to come up with any concrete examples of such a thing happening, and in fact have stated the contrary.
AC:"t's also not clear to me that all that cultural exposure works best at ages 18-22. A lot of ideas in literature don't even make much sense to people at that age."
Perhaps, but you have to learn sometime. So what if they don't understand ALL the nuances of Hamlet? Better that they learn something about it that nothing at all. When I was in high school, I soaked up ideas of classical music because I studied the piano, and I could tell you the difference between Vivaldi and Bach even then.
I would argue that it's best to expose them to cultural issues when young, so that they can see that it's not that hard, and nothing to be scared of.
BTW, I also know a lot of people, really smart people, whose cultural education ended the day they graduated from school. So without that exposure, they would have nothing.
Nah. A lot of students gravitate to English, Poli Sci, and History because they are easy - all you have to do is regurgitate the PC balderdash that the professor is spouting. The reason some students shun them is not because they are impractical, but because they have no truth value.
Fortunately, this change seems to be happening more and more. It will be interesting to see what happens to the historical, campus-based colleges in the future.