Are American Universities Liberal?
by danielg [+/-] show/hideOne of my liberal coworkers and I had a heated discussion about this - amazingly, he thinks that universties are NOT overly liberal, that it's just a bunch of conservatives complaining about not always getting their way. I guess he missed the recent Univ. of Colorado affair and the previous firings of conservatives. So I provided the following links for him.
1. New York Times Op-Ed
This article talks about how each university has it’s token conservative, but they are seen not as representative, but as “dissenters.”
He'll run into even more intense discrimination because the establishment gets more concerned the closer you get to the golden ring….The most common advice conservative students get is to keep their views in the closet....
Will Inboden was working on a master's degree in U.S. history at Yale when a liberal professor pulled him aside after class and said: "You're one of the best students I've got, and you could have an outstanding career. But I have to caution you: hiring committees are loath to hire political conservatives. You've got to be really quiet."
2. AEI Shows Most University Professors Register Liberal
Our Cornell sample showed 171 Democrats, 7 Republicans, and 21 professors registered as independents or in other (mostly left-wing) parties.
The Stanford rofessors broke out this way: 163 Democrats, 17 Republicans, and 6 independent/other.
- At Brown University, for instance, we uncovered a total of 54 professors registered in a party of the Left, to just 3 registered in a party of the Right.
- University of Colorado, 116 on the Left, 5 on the Right.
- UCLA totalled 141 professors on the Left, 9 on the Right.
- University of Maryland: 59 Left, 10 Right.
- Syracuse University: 50 Left, 2 Right. And so on.
This blog has a nice summary of similar statistics.
So, Q.E.D.
posted by danielg at
2:03 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Actually, Mitchell was making a distinction between the classical definition of liberal, someone who is openminded and open to dissenting opinions, and the modern "liberal," who are really just puppets of the "radical left." He isn't denying that universties are run by liberals, but that they are run by leftists, a.k.a. modern liberals, a.k.a. "progressives." Face it, trying to deny the hardcore liberal (in the modern, Democratic Party sense) bias and control of universities is a losing proposition.
By
danielg, at 3/10/2005 3:13 PM
Well, that shows that you were reading the article through your filter.
However, logic would tell you that when a "conservative Christian" says he wishes that "liberals were running the university," he means it tongue in cheek, i.e. the true "liberal" does not exist in academia anymore - only "leftists."
That's what his quote meant, in context.
By
danielg, at 3/10/2005 3:32 PM
psykotedy,
it's kind of silly to insist on using the classical definitions of terminology when the common (modern) definitions are clearly intended.
By
LotharBot, at 3/12/2005 12:04 PM
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