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Conservatives in the Academy IV: Oppressed?

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In this essay on the dearth of conservatives in higher education, the possible oppression of conservatives will be considered. I am obviously not the first to advance this hypothesis, but it is certainly worth new consideration. The idea is a familiar one: a group is being unjustly discriminated against in an institution and this accounts for the under-representation of this group. In this case, the group is not defined by ethnicity, religion, or gender but by political ideology.

The claim that conservatives are victims of oppression/discrimination might be met with snorts of derision or even the assertion they are getting what they deserve. After all, conservatives have generally not expressed concerns about the exclusion of other groups. As such, it could be said that their concern is not based on a principle of fairness but on their lamentation that they are not dominating or at least a major force in higher education. The logical reply to this assertion is that their apparent inconsistency and their allegedly selfish motives are not relevant to whether their exclusion is just. After all, if it could be proven that feminists did not care about fairness and are motivated by selfishness, then it would not follow that they are wrong to claim that the underrepresentation of women in various fields is wrong. To believe otherwise would be to fall into a classic ad hominem, that a person’s motives or bias must discredit their claim. It is, of course, morally fine to point out inconsistencies between claimed ideals and actual behavior—but that is another matter. As such, the claim that conservatives are being unjustly excluded from higher education cannot be dismissed so quickly. The challenge is, of course, to provide evidence.

As noted in earlier essays, conservatives tend to respond to claims about oppression or exclusion by asserting low representation is due to the allegedly excluded being either uninterested or incapable. The same could obviously be done to their claim of discrimination, a matter discussed earlier in this series of essays. But the focus now is on trying to make the case for the claim of discrimination and I will set aside that counter and turn to considerations of evidence.

One obvious source of evidence is complaints from conservative faculty. This does occur and should be taken as seriously as any other claim of discrimination. Christopher Freiman, a fellow philosophy professor, has contended that a significant percentage of faculty have admitted they would discriminate against conservative applicants and he also points to claims of their being underplaced and fired at a higher rate than liberal faculty for political speech.  This is the same sort of evidence that would be advanced to support a claim of discrimination against women or minorities and hence should be given the same sort of due consideration. To do otherwise would be mere prejudice and inconsistent with the moral principle that discrimination is wrong. That said, as conservatives will note when it involves others, claims about discrimination need not be actual evidence of discrimination. Ironically, the same tools and methods that conservatives have used to dismiss concerns about discrimination can be applied to their claims. However, to use them as weapons with the express intent of dismissing evidence would be a moral error—rather, the evidence should be examined neutrally with the tools of science and logic with a goal of determining the truth, whatever it might be.

Since I do not have the resources to conduct a proper large-scale investigation, I will begin with my own experiences. It must be noted that this entails a limited sample size and biasing factors. That said, I have served on or chaired numerous search committees over the years and not once was there an inquiry into the political ideology of the candidates. The job description, ranking standards and questions included nothing about political ideology and hiring decisions were made based on academic qualifications. As would be suspected, I and all the other members of the committees had to attend meetings about how to run job searches and the bulk of the meetings were spent on instructions on how to avoid discrimination (and lawsuits). Speaking with other colleagues across the country, no one has ever mentioned anything that would be evidence of discrimination against conservatives in their hiring practices. It should be noted that there was never a directive to seek ideological diversity in hiring—mainly because, as I said, ideology was never considered as a factor (positive or negative) in the hiring process.

There are a few obvious replies to my alleged evidence. One counter is to assert that I am lying—if I was discriminating against conservatives, I would surely deny it and carefully conceal all evidence. That is a fair point: as feminists and others have long pointed out, discriminators are inclined to lie about their discrimination. Those who think I am a liar will obviously not be swayed by my claims that I am not. Those would just be more lies to hide my other lies, at least in their eyes.

A second counter is that while I claim that we did not consider ideology or even inquire about it, we could surely infer a person’s ideology from their research, presentations and publications. For example, if someone gave a presentation entitled “reflections on the evils of capitalism within the context of cultural Marxism ideology” or “a stalwart defense of conservative values within the context of a biased academy”, then we could surely infer their likely ideology. This does have some merit: candidates can, of course, send signals to prospective employers via their research, presentations and publications. The influence can even be unconscious, as some claim occurs when people are biased against applicants with female or minority sounding names. The use of ideology signaling via these means is something I think is worth investigating—especially its potential for biasing (unconsciously or not) search committee members. As such, I would recommend this a research project—it would make an excellent subject for a dissertation.

A third obvious counter is that even if I am being honest, my experience is limited to one institution and a limited number of search committees. As feminists and others have long argued, the absence of evidence for discrimination in some cases is not evidence of the absence of discrimination in others. Of course, it is also the case that evidence of discrimination in some cases is not automatically evidence of broad or systematic discrimination. What is needed, then, is a proper investigation of the claim of discrimination. Fortunately, or unfortunately, discrimination against women, minorities and others has resulted in the creation of tools and methods to ferret out discrimination and these should be neutrally applied to see if there is evidence of the systematic oppression of conservatives within higher education. If it is occurring, then it can be addressed with methods analogous to those used to address discrimination against women, minorities and otehrs. For example, job descriptions might start including “we encourage conservatives to apply” and affirmative action programs might be created for avowed conservatives interested in academic careers.

 

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Conservatives in the Academy III: Not Capable?

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As noted in previous essays, there is a diversity issue in higher education: liberals (or at least Democrats) significantly outnumber conservatives (or at least Republicans). Since the subject of diversity has long been addressed by conservatives, it makes sense to use their approach when inquiring into the lack of ideological diversity in the ivory towers.

When faced with claims about a lack of diversity in an area (such as a dearth of minorities or women), conservatives tend to have two replies. The first is one that I addressed in an earlier essay: the seemingly excluded group freely chooses not to go into that area. For example, one might try to explain the low relative numbers of minority tabletop gamers (D&D players, for example) by claiming that minorities are generally not interested in these games. The second explanation is that the seemingly excluded group is not as capable as the dominant group(s). For example, the shortage of women in top business, military and academic positions might be explained in terms of women being less capable than men in these areas. The more charitable might soften this claim by asserting that the excluded group is capable in other areas—areas in which they are more proportionally represented or dominant. For example, it might be claimed that while women are less capable than men when it comes to science or business, they are quite capable as nurses and grade school teachers. In some cases, these assertions are obviously true. For example, men dominate American football because the strongest men are far stronger than the strongest women. As another example, women are obviously vastly more capable than men as wet nurses or surrogate mothers. Since conservatives tend to find this explanation appealing, it is reasonable to advance it to explain the dearth of conservatives in the academy.

Put bluntly, it could be claimed that conservatives generally lack the ability to succeed in higher education. While there are some exceptions, the ideological distribution is fair because of the disparity in ability. This is analogous to how a conservative might claim that the lack of women in the upper levels of business, academics and the military is in accord with the distribution of ability: most women are not as capable in those roles as men, hence men justly dominate. Likewise, most conservatives are not as capable in higher education as liberals, hence liberals justly dominate.

One obvious reply is that ideology is different from sex or ethnicity. Conservatives can be of any sex or ethnicity (though they are overwhelmingly white and tend to be male) because ideology is a matter of the values a person accepts and not what they are. As such, it could be claimed, the idea that conservatives are less capable than liberals would make no sense. It would be like saying that deontologists are less capable than utilitarians, that impressionists are less capable than surrealists, or that Yankees fans are less capable than Red Sox fans. This does have some appeal, but I am reluctant to abandon the conservative explanation so quickly.

This reply can be countered by arguing that while ideology does not change a person’s capabilities, a person’s capabilities can determine their ideology. That is, people with certain non-ideological qualities would tend to be conservative while people with other qualities would tend to be liberal. While psychology is not even an inexact science, it does show some interesting claims about the differences between conservatives and liberals. For example, conservatives tend to be more afraid than liberals and hence have a greater desire for safety and security. Given these differences, it makes sense that people who tend to be conservative would be less capable than people who tend to be liberal in areas in which these differences would have a meaningful impact. Higher education, it can be argued, is just such an area: the qualities that would make a person more likely to succeed as a professor would also tend to make them liberal. In contrast, the qualities that would make a person more conservative would tend to make it less likely that they would be successful at becoming a professor.

While some liberals would be tempted to say that conservatives are stupider than liberals, this need not be the case. After all, becoming a professor is obviously not just a matter of being smart—most smart people are not professors and not all professors are smart. Conservatives can be just as intellectually capable as liberals, yet some of the other qualities that make them conservative could impair their ability to become professors. One factor is that the process of becoming a professor typically involves having one’s most cherished ideas questioned, challenged and even attacked over the course of years—something that those inclined towards being liberal might handle better. As charitable conservatives might say that women and minorities are well-suited for some areas, a charitable liberal might say that conservatives are well-suited for areas outside the academy.

If it is true that what makes people conservatives or liberals is relevant to their ability to become professors, then there are various solutions to the problem of diversity. One is to engage in a process of affirmative action for conservatives: preferential hiring and lower standard to balance out the numbers. The conservatives who oppose affirmative action would not be able to accept this approach—unless their stance on the matter is purely a matter of self-interest rather than a matter of principle.

A second approach is to see if the academy can be modified to be more inviting to conservatives without such affirmative action. For example, it might be that the way grad school classes are taught that tends to weed out conservatives from the ranks of professors. While conservatives are generally not fans of efforts of inclusion, they would presumably welcome such efforts when they are to their advantage.

At this point, some readers are no doubt thinking that the real reason conservatives are lacking in the academy is that liberals are to blame. It is to this that I will turn in my next essay.

 

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Conservatives in the Academy I: Do not want?

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While some have raised concerns that Marxism is a dire problem in higher education, a more realistic concern is that higher education is dominated by liberals (or at least Democrats). Conservatives (or at least Republicans) are in the minority, sometimes to an extreme degree. Such a disparity certainly invites inquiry. One motivation, at least for liberals, would be to see if there is any injustice or oppression behind this disparity. Another motivation is intellectual curiosity.

While sorting out the diversity problem of higher education might prove daunting, a strong foundation of theory and methodology has been laid by those concerned with the domination of higher education by straight, white males. That is, professors like me. These tools should prove quite useful, and beautifully ironic, in addressing the worry that conservatives are not adequate represented in the academy.  But before delving into theories of oppression and unfair exclusion, I must consider that the shortage of conservatives in the ivory towers is a matter of choice. This consideration mirrors a standard explanation for the apparent exclusion of women and minorities for other areas.

One possible explanation is that conservatives have freely chosen to not be professors. This does make considerable sense. While not always the case, conservatives tend to be more interested in higher income careers than lower income careers. While the pay for full-time faculty is not bad, the pay for adjuncts is terrible. Professor salaries, with some notable exceptions for super-stars, tend to be lower than jobs with comparable educational requirements. So, someone who is interested in maximizing income would not become a professor—the same amount of education and effort would yield far more financial reward elsewhere, such as in the medical or financial fields. As such, conservatives would be more likely to become bankers rather than philosophers and accountants rather than anthropologists.

A second possible explanation is that people who tend to become professors do not want to be conservatives (or at least Republicans). While there have been brilliant conservative intellectuals, the Republican party has adopted a strong anti-expert, anti-intellectual stance. This might not be due so much to an anti-intellectual ideology, but because the facts are often against the Republican ideology—such as is the case with climate change. Republicans have also become more hostile to higher education. In contrast, Democrats tend to support higher education.

Since becoming a professor generally requires a terminal degree, the typical professor will spend six or more years in college and graduate school, noting the hostility of Republicans and the support of Democrats. As such, rational self-interest alone would tend to push professors towards being Democrats. There is also the fact that those who want to become professors, almost by definition, are intellectuals and want to be experts. As such, the attacks on experts and intellectuals would tend to drive them away from the Republican party. Those pursuing careers in the sciences would presumably also find the anti-science stances of the Republicans unappealing.

While my own case is but an anecdote, one of the reasons I vote for Democrats and against Republicans is that Democrats are more inclined to act in ways that are in my interest as a professor and in the interest of my students. In contrast, Republicans tend to make my professional life worse by lowering support for education and engaging in micromanagement. They also tend to make things harder for my students. The anti-intellectualism, rejection of truth, and anti-science stances also make the Republican party unappealing to me. As such, it is hardly surprising that the academy is dominated by liberals: Republicans would tend to not want to be professors and potential professors would tend to not want to be Republicans.

But perhaps there is a social injustice occurring and the lack of diversity is due to the unjust exclusion of conservatives from the academy. It is to this concern that I will turn in my next essay.

 

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Does Marxism Rule the Academy?

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One talking point in the culture wars is that post-modern neo-Marxist college professors are indoctrinating the youth. Some take a more moderate view of college professors, simply regarding them as excessively liberal and indoctrinating the youth in liberal dogma. While I am confident that the academy is not ruled by Marxists, there are still interesting questions about the extent of Marxism on campuses, the degree to which liberals dominate the academy and whether professors indoctrinate their students.

It is true that there are professors who are avowed Marxists. I have even met some. In some cases, they do understand Marxism and its implications. These are, not surprisingly, usually political science or philosophy professors. I have also encountered professors who seem to think they are Marxists, but do not seem to understand what that means. For example, I met one professor who claimed to be a pure Marxist, but also rambled about free will and what seemed to be metaphysical dualism. Real Marxists are metaphysical materialists and embrace economic determinism. Fortunately, Marxists are relatively rare even in the social sciences and humanities. As such, the idea that the academy is ruled by Marxists is not true. This is not to deny that there are weird Marxist professors who preach rather than teach, but to point out that that they are very rare. I do, however, have considerable sympathy for students who get caught up in that nightmare.

It is true that professors tend to be politically liberal and it has been claimed they are becoming more liberal. From my own experiences interacting with faculty from across the United States, I do agree that professors tend to be liberal. I do suspect that the claim that they are becoming more liberal might be because the political right in America has headed further to the right. To use an analogy, the distance between two cars will change even if only one moves. In any case, let it be accepted as true that professors tend to be liberal.

That professors tend to be liberal is no more surprising than the military and business tending to have more conservatives. However, there is the reasonable concern that the academy that is supposed to educate people is dominated by the left rather than representing the ideological diversity of the country. Ironically, consistent conservatives would presumably oppose affirmative action or diversity initiatives aimed at recruiting more conservative faculty. However, they could still go out and earn terminal degrees or support other conservatives in doing so and thus help increase the number of conservatives in academics. It would be a positive thing to have more conservative intellectuals in the academy (and in general). After all, ideology without opposition in the academy leads to a multitude of sins, most especially intellectual laziness.

While the liberal domination of the academy is a matter of concern, there is also the question of whether these faculty strive to indoctrinate their students in leftist ideology. There is also the question as to whether if they try, they succeed. In my own case, I am careful to teach the class content without pushing my own ideology. For example, in my ethics class I do not try to convert the students to my own ethical theory—they get the tools of moral reasoning as well as information about a range of moral theories. But, of course, I am but one professor.

As would be expected, there are those who have researched the matter and argue that the academy does not indoctrinate students and that college does not make people more liberal. It could be contended that those making these claims are biased since they are liberal academics or liberals. This is a fair point: liberal professors and liberals defending the academy must be justly regarded as biased. This does not, however, entail that they are wrong or that their arguments are flawed—to think otherwise would be to fall victim to an ad hominem. This is because while bias provides grounds for suspicion, it does not disprove a claim. After all, the same sort of bad reasoning could be applied to the conservatives who claim that the academy indoctrinates students to be liberals—as conservatives, they would tend to be biased against liberals.

This question is an empirical one—researchers can comb through a representative sample of syllabi, PowerPoint slides, course notes, and recordings of lectures to find the relevant evidence for or against the claim of indoctrination. This research would need to meet the usual standards of a proper inductive generalization: the sample would need to be large enough and representative enough to provide strong support for the conclusion. Because of this, singular tales of crazed Marxist professors or professors who teach in a fair and balanced manner would not suffice as adequate evidence. Such appeals would be examples of anecdotal evidence, which is fallacious reasoning. This fallacy involves taking an anecdote as evidence for a general claim. Samples that are too small would result in the fallacy of hasty generalization and biased samples would result in the fallacy of biased generalization.

As would be expected, both conservatives and liberals can be tempted to use anecdotes, excessively  small samples and biased samples to “support” their view. I am certainly open to the results of a properly conducted, large scale study of the academy—perhaps this is something that could be conducted by a bipartisan team of researchers. I am, of course, sure that there are some professors who do try to indoctrinate their students. This would be of concern, but the real worry would be if this occurred often enough to be a significant problem. One can use the analogy to how some make the point that while there are some bad police officers, this should not be taken as condemning the police in general. Likewise, for professors.

Even if it is found that a significant number of professors try to indoctrinate their students, there is also the question of whether they succeed. Having observed many professors across numerous institutions, I would say that we are generally not likely to indoctrinate our students. As the all too true joke goes, we have a difficult time getting them to do the readings, complete the work properly and show up to class. The idea that most professors can mold the youth into liberals with their diabolical temptations seems unlikely. This is not to say that professors have no influence at all nor to deny that there are not professors like Jordan Peterson who can sway the minds of the youth. But such charismatic corrupters are obviously quite rare—and would be more likely to pursue other, more lucrative careers.

It is worth noting that even if professors fail to indoctrinate their students, they are still wasting class time trying to preach rather than teach. This is a fair point—while off-topic discussions can be some of the best learning experiences in college, having a professor spending class time pushing their ideology rather than teaching is a disservice to the students. Of course, professors rambling about fishing stories, stamp collecting, or their favorite movies also wastes students’ time.

That said, it could be argued that professing does have a legitimate role in the classroom—if it has pedagogical value. Even if it does have some value, there is also the worry that by pushing a specific ideology, the professor will mislead the students about the merits or demerits of specific views.  This all ties into the classic problem of the proper role of a professor—although the ideal often advanced today is that of a neutral conveyor of information and skills designed to prepare the job fillers for their existence as workers.

 

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Committee Blues

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This semester is a rather busy one for me. In addition to my usual four classes, advising, serving as the philosophy & religion facilitator, I have a few more duties. These include the program review and serving on seven (possibly eight now) committees. Two of these committees are hiring committees. I have had plenty of experience on such committees, but they are always a considerable amount of work to do properly.

Serving on a committee and assessing applicants is somewhat like grading papers-the idea is to assess the candidate on the basis of the materials provided. As with student papers, the application material varies considerably. However, there are some fairly easy ways for a candidate to put together a better application package.

One common mistake made by candidates and students alike is to
simply leave out things that are supposed to be turned in. I have seen applications missing a few things (such as transcripts) and others that are missing almost everything. While search committees will often review incomplete applications, some committees will not consider them-especially when they are large numbers of applicants to consider. Even if the incomplete application is reviewed, the fact that it is incomplete will mean that those reviewing it will have less information to go on and this will tend to result in a lower evaluation.

A second mistake common to applicants and students is turning or sending in too much. In some cases, people seem to have thrown anything close at hand into the envelope they send in. There are some good reasons to not send in too much material. One is, obviously enough, the extra cost of mailing all that extraneous material. An important reason is that some unfortunate person probably has to make copies of or scan all the material sent on paper to make it available to the committee. As might be suspected, pushing an entire dissertation through a scanner is not something most people enjoy. People enjoy reading through it even less and, as might be suspected, some committee members will elect to simply skip over all those extras. In most cases this is quite reasonable-after all, the committee is supposed to assess based on what is requested and not based on whatever an applicant decides to send in (apparently in the hopes of increasing his/her chances).

A third mistake is to send in the requested material, but to make it needlessly long, perhaps in the attempt to “pad” the application. While the material should present all that is requested and provide adequate coverage of what should be covered, making committee members plod through needlessly long material will tend to not contribute to the desired result. As with a good paper, the application material should do what must be done, yet remain as concise as possible.

A fourth mistake is have material that is poorly organized or unclearly written. As might be suspected, this sort of material makes it difficult for the committee members and does not create a good impression.

Back to work…

Deadlines

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When I first started teaching, I just had due dates for papers and found that students would often turn papers in late. To deter this, I added a penalty to late papers. Then, in a bout of altruism, I decided to try rewarding students for turning papers in on time with a small grade bonus. Interestingly, a reward worked far less effectively than a penalty.

Eventually I switched to having a due date for the paper draft and then a deadline for the revision of the paper. The due date for the draft comes with no rewards or penalties.  I set the date mainly to motivate students to at least start on the paper within the first month of the semester. I also have the draft so that the students will have a paper grade in place, just in case something goes wrong.  Not surprisingly, a significant number of students do not bother with the draft.

The deadline is different in that I do not accept a paper after the deadline. The deadline is, of course, near the end of the semester. While most students do make the deadline, some do not. Some do attempt to turn in something a week or two after the deadline, but I do not accept those papers. In such cases, the student gets the draft grade (even if it is a zero).

On one hand, I might be seen as cruel and unfair for setting a deadline. After all, students can run into problems and, of course,  getting a zero on the paper will cerainly result in a rather bad grade in the class. It might also be argued that deadlines are arbitrary-why that day and not another?

On the other hand, a good case can be made for having a deadline and not alowing exceptions. First, the deadline is fair as I use it. It is clearly noted on the syllabus and I announce it in class everyday. As such, it is not something that simply sneaks up to kill a student’s grade.

Second, the students have most of the semester to work on the paper and turn in drafts for grades. As such, it is very poor planning on a student’s part to do nothing until after the deadline. Third, since most of the students stick to the deadline it would be unfair to them to allow people to simply turn in papers late.

Fourth, allowing students to ignore deadlines teaches bad habits. While the deadline is a date I set, life is full of deadlines and it is both important and useful to get into the habit of meeting those deadlines. I do not do a student any service by helping train him/her that deadlines can be safely ignored and bypassed. After all, when the student runs into that deadline that cannot be ignored or bypassed and ends up in dire straits, then I would have to accept some tiny measure of the blame for encouraging that bad habit.

Finally, I meet the deadlines that I am required to meet as a professor (such as recording attendance so the students can get their financial aid and  entering grades on time so they can graduate). As such, it hardly seems unreasonable for me to expect the same of my students. Naturally, I also have a selfish reason for he deadline-I want to be able to get all the papers at once so I can grade them and be done with my work. Having papers trickle in after a deadline is like doing the dishes after dinner, asking in there is anything left to be cleaned, draining the sink, putting away the soap, towel and sponge…and then having one person after another drift by to throw in a dirty cup or plate and demand that it be washed.

Fortunately, most of the students do meet the deadline and have thus learned a valuable lesson.

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