After 3 Years, U. of Colorado Deems Its Conservative-Scholars Program a Success
By Courtney KueppersApril 28, 2016
In 2013, Steven F. Hayward accepted what he calls a “gonzo challenge” from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Seeking to support an underrepresented viewpoint on their campus, the university’s administrators invited Mr. Hayward to fill a newly created and unusual position there: a one-year term as a “visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy.”
“I was somewhat reluctant about the whole idea,” said Mr. Hayward, who had been a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, written for The Wall Street Journal and other national newspapers, and published a two-volume biography of Ronald Reagan. “It’s an imperfect idea, but it has this advantage: The fact that I was so well advertised and it was such a high-profile appointment meant that I did not have to practice any kind of self-censorship that a lot of conservatives feel in academia.”
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In 2013, Steven F. Hayward accepted what he calls a “gonzo challenge” from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Seeking to support an underrepresented viewpoint on their campus, the university’s administrators invited Mr. Hayward to fill a newly created and unusual position there: a one-year term as a “visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy.”
“I was somewhat reluctant about the whole idea,” said Mr. Hayward, who had been a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, written for The Wall Street Journal and other national newspapers, and published a two-volume biography of Ronald Reagan. “It’s an imperfect idea, but it has this advantage: The fact that I was so well advertised and it was such a high-profile appointment meant that I did not have to practice any kind of self-censorship that a lot of conservatives feel in academia.”
Today, as the program nears the end of its three-year pilot period, the university says it has been worthwhile and will be extended, with a fourth scholar taking over the position in the fall. Many conservative professors in higher education, including Mr. Hayward, say it has been a positive step to counter the liberal bias they say dominates American campuses. But they do not go so far as to suggest it should be adopted by other colleges looking to expand their ideological diversity.
A lot of conservatives don’t want to go to graduate school or pursue an academic career because ... it’s a crapshoot for everybody, academic jobs are hard to get these days.
For one, it relies on private funds, with close to $1 million, raised from alumni and others, needed to get the program off the ground.
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What’s more, Mr. Hayward and others point out, there is a supply problem. There simply aren’t enough qualified conservatives in higher education for more colleges to try a program like Colorado’s.
“A lot of conservatives don’t want to go to graduate school or pursue an academic career because, one, it’s a crapshoot for everybody, academic jobs are hard to get these days,” said Mr. Hayward, now the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy. “But then also there’s the fear that if you’re a conservative, it will be harder to get hired.”
Career ‘in the Closet’
The visiting-scholar program started in part because Boulder had earned a leftish reputation and because it said it wanted to expose students to a broader range of ideas.
Still, the move wasn’t universally supported. Matthew Aitken, a graduate student in physics, wrote a guest column for The Daily Camera, a local newspaper, that questioned the assumption that the university needed the position. “By providing a false sense of ‘balance’ where none is needed, CU looks like the Fox News of higher education,” he wrote.
The success of the program led the university to embed the scholar in a more formal home — the Center for Western Civilization, later renamed the Center for Western Civilization, Thought, and Policy. That practice started with this year’s visiting scholar, Brian Domitrovic, who is an associate professor and chair of the history department at Sam Houston State University, in Texas.
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“The center will ultimately host up to four visiting scholars, one of whom will always be the conservative-thought-and-policy scholar, who will continue to provide teaching and outreach,” said Ann Carlos, the associate dean for social sciences who oversees the program, in a written statement to The Chronicle. “In hosting a number of fellows, the center will focus on dialogue across intellectual perspectives.”
While the Boulder program is somewhat unusual in academe, the problem of conservative professors’ feeling they are a minority unable to freely express their views is not.
So say Jon A. Shields and Joshua M. Dunn Sr., authors of a recently released book, Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University.
For the vast majority of closeted conservatives, tenure presents a new birth of freedom.
For their project the authors interviewed 153 self-identified conservatives or libertarians at 84 universities. They focused on professors in six disciplines in the social sciences and humanities: economics, history, literature, philosophy, political science, and sociology.
Mr. Dunn, an associate professor and chair of the political-science department at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, said in an interview that he knew it might be tough to find conservative professors in some of the more left-leaning fields, like sociology, but just how hard it proved to be surprised him.
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In one of their first interviews, when the authors mentioned how many conservative professors they hoped to speak with, the subject asked if they were “going to raise the dead.” And when the authors did track down conservative professors, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. Even under the veil of anonymity, some worried that speaking out about their experiences would harm their career. One subject agreed, somewhat sheepishly, to speak with them in a secluded off-campus area.
“Given the drama of this encounter, one might think that he is concealing something scandalous,” the authors wrote of that encounter. “In truth, this professor is hiding the fact that he is a Republican. It is a secret he guards with great care.”
They found that many conservatives’ careers are spent “in the closet,” often not revealing their political views until after they obtain tenure and sometimes not even then.
“Nearly one-third of professors in the six disciplines we investigated tended to conceal their politics prior to tenure,” they wrote. “Thus, for the vast majority of closeted conservatives, tenure presents a new birth of freedom.”
‘Flamboyant’ Conservative
Mr. Hayward said not having to worry about concealing his conservatism was a highlight of his time in Colorado.
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“An awful lot of conservatives in academia practice self-censorship,” Mr. Hayward said. “Well, I didn’t have to do that — in fact, quite the opposite. The administration and the donors who funded the program really wanted me to be a public presence, not so much to pick fights but to invite outside conservative speakers.”
Ms. Carlos said all of the scholars had invited a host of speakers to the campus, sometimes attracting as many as 200 attendees.
When being courted to join the program, Mr. Hayward insisted that he would accept only if he would be hosted by an established academic department and would teach classes in the course catalog. “That way,” he said, “you’re getting people who resemble normal academics who just happen to be conservatives.”
Mr. Hayward, who thinks he may have been the most “flamboyant” and outspoken scholar to date in the position, tips his hat to the administration for supporting the program’s continuation.
Conservatives aren’t always beating down academia’s door, so if academia is really unwelcoming, conservatives will do something else.
Both Mr. Domitrovic and Bradley J. Birzer, a history professor at Hillsdale College, in Michigan, who was the program’s second scholar, agree, saying they felt welcome on Boulder’s campus.
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“If you go all in, it has been shown it can do very well,” Mr. Domitrovic said in reference to Boulder’s commitment to the program. “Conservatives aren’t always beating down academia’s door, so if academia is really unwelcoming, conservatives will do something else.”
Boulder’s atmosphere alone makes the program a positive step, said Mr. Shields, an author of the book. Mr. Shields, an associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, said such programs “might send more welcoming signals to young conservatives” and “express institutional support for political diversity.”
His co-author, Mr. Dunn, said it’s hard to say what institutions should do to be more welcoming to conservatives. However, he said, there are a couple of ways to get started.
“The first step is for people to recognize that it is something to be concerned about, and then if that happens, then it’s possible to do some other things,” he said. “Maybe more programs like Boulder. Certainly doing things like not disinviting conservative speakers would help.”