A spate of reports examine the liberal bent of academe, revealing some real research leavened with partisan bickering
In recent years, conservatives have referred in public to a “growing body of research” that purports to document liberal orthodoxy’s grip on the academy. Much of the time, the response from academic insiders has been, You call that research?
Critics trumpeting the existence of the “one-party campus” have grown more and more successful at generating grist for the news-media mill. Are professors plugging their noses against rotten social science, or are they plugging their ears against an inconvenient truth? Or are they doing both?
The American Federation of Teachers recently commissioned a study to review the research that finds liberal bias run amok in academe. (Of course, the AFT, a labor union that regularly battles with David Horowitz, is no dispassionate observer of this debate.)
At right, we provide our own survey of the genre, and we include one study that recently joined the fray in a kind of counterattack, saying there is not a systematic liberal slant in higher education.
Behold the battlefield of bias.
The study: “Political Bias in the Administrations and Faculties of 32 Elite Colleges and Universities,” David Horowitz and Eli Lehrer, Center for the Study of Popular Culture, 2003
The project: “To discover whether there is a grossly unbalanced, politically shaped selection process in the hiring of college faculty.”
The method: Using a list of 32 top-tier colleges and universities (30 private, two public), the authors checked voter-registration rolls against faculty rosters in the institutions’ economics, English, history, philosophy, political-science, and sociology departments.
The findings: Well over half of the professors were either absent from local voter-registration records, unaffiliated, or shared a name with someone else on the rolls. Of those who had registered with either major party, Democrats outnumbered Republicans about 10 to one.
The fightin’ words: “The governance of American universities has fallen into the hands of a self-perpetuating political and cultural subset of the population, which seems intent on perpetuating its control.”
The buzz: Plugged by a columnist at Townhall.com, a popular conservative news and commentary Web site. Mentioned, though not by name, in a Washington Post column by George Will. Served as the precursor to several similar studies.
The retort: The data generated by the study are too incomplete to draw many conclusions, says John B. Lee, a higher-education researcher commissioned to review the study by the American Federation of Teachers. And regardless, he says, no amount of voter-registration data could prove a systematic “bias in the training and hiring of college instructors.”
The study: “Politics and Professional Advancement Among College Faculty,” Stanley Rothman, S. Robert Lichter, and Neil Nevitte, 2005
The project: To examine “the ideological composition of American university faculty” and then check “whether ideological homogeneity has become self-reinforcing.”
The method: The authors analyzed a 1999 survey of professors called the North American Academic Study Survey and then compared its results with a 1984 survey of professors by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
The findings: The proportion of self-identified liberal professors jumped from 39 percent to 72 percent between the 1984 and 1999 surveys. Conservative professors were more likely to teach at less prestigious institutions.
The fightin’ words: “Conservative complaints of the presence and effects of liberal homogeneity in academia deserve to be taken seriously. ... Political conservatives have become an endangered species in some departments.”
The buzz: Covered by The New York Sun, The American Spectator, and the Rocky Mountain News, along with a handful of other news outlets.
The retort: The 1984 Carnegie survey included community-college professors — historically a relatively conservative bunch — but the 1999 survey did not. That sampling discrepancy may account for the reported giant leap in campus liberals, says Media Matters for America, a watchdog group.
The study: “How Many Ward Churchills?,” American Council of Trustees and Alumni, 2006
The project: To find out, “Is there really only one Ward Churchill? Or are there many?”
The method: The authors searched the Web sites of 48 prestigious institutions for course descriptions that appeared to promise “extremist rhetoric” or “tendentious opinion,” or had a general hate-America-first whiff about them.
The findings: Marxism! Pornography! Gender! Queer theory! Race! Sex! Oppression! Those and other left-flavored terms litter 65 course descriptions reprinted and discussed in the study.
The fightin’ words: “Ward Churchill is everywhere. ... In both traditional disciplines and newfangled programs, the classes offered and the faculty who teach them are displaying an ideological slant that is frequently as uniform as it is severe.”
The buzz: Blogged to kingdom come.
The retort: Anecdotes and guilt by association do not a scientific study make. There is almost nothing systematic about the study’s design, says John Lee, and it supplies no contextual data that would help a neutral reader get his own bearings. Also, is it possible to judge a course by its description? Does “race” equal “little Eichmanns”?
The study: “How Politically Diverse Are the Social Sciences and Humanities? Survey Evidence From Six Fields,” Daniel B. Klein and Charlotta Stern, forthcoming
The project: To improve on other studies (like the Horowitz study listed above) that have set out to measure the voting behavior of humanists and social scientists.
The method: The authors distributed a survey to 5,486 members of six national academic associations — anthropology, economics, history, political and legal philosophy, political science, and sociology — and asked for their voting histories as well as their views on several policy issues.
The findings: The survey had a 31-percent response rate, with 1,678 completed questionnaires. Across the humanities and social sciences, the authors estimated that Democrats outnumbered Republicans about seven to one. In economics, the ratio was three to one. In anthropology, it was 30 to one.
The fightin’ words: “Our results support the view that the social-sciences and humanities faculty are pretty much a one-party system. ... Quite possibly, the academic environment, even in economics, keeps the minority voices muffled and fearful.”
The buzz: Called the “most careful” of these studies by The Nation, which was nonetheless wary of the study’s claims. Linked to by an op-ed article in the British newspaper The Guardian. Blogged extensively, even though it has not yet been officially published.
The retort: The low response rate diminishes the usefulness of the findings, says Mr. Lee. And it is not clear how or why one’s personal voting record would make one “muffled and fearful” in many academic matters, he says.
The study: “Is the Academy a Liberal Hegemony?,” John F. Zipp and Rudy Fenwick, 2006.
The project: To find out, "(1) Have faculty become increasingly liberal? and (2) Are these liberal faculty pushing their agendas on their students?” Also to seek out a more “representative” sample of institutions and disciplines, including two-year colleges and fields like business and science.
The method: The authors assembled data on professors’ political orientation from the 1989 and 1997 National Surveys of Faculty conducted by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
The findings: Professors are more likely to identify themselves as left of center than as right of center. However, on a five-point scale of political orientation, professors made an overall move toward the middle between 1989 and 1997.
The fightin’ words: “Despite little evidence for an overwhelmingly liberal faculty pushing its values on campus, the clamor continues to ring out. ... Much of this outcry surely is based more on partisan politics than on dispassionate scholarly inquiry.”
The buzz: Blogged by the Volokh Conspiracy, one of the most prominent academic blogs, which also linked to a retort from Mr. Klein and Ms. Stern, authors of “How Politically Diverse Are the Social Sciences and Humanities?” Mr. Zipp and Mr. Fenwick also sat for an interview for the American Federation of Teachers Web site.
The retort: Unlike voting behavior, self-reported political orientation is slippery and relative, write Mr. Klein and Ms. Stern. They also ask, Why bother factoring in the politics of chemists? The humanities and social sciences are where politics is most relevant — and most lopsided.
http://chronicle.com Section: The Faculty Volume 53, Issue 21, Page A8
