Rising periodically in the op-ed media and blogosphere are calls for more conservative university professors. There is seems to be an idea out there that everyone's children are being brainwashed by leftist ideologues giving them 'F's if they don't write papers agreeing with the professor's politics, because there is no room in these classrooms for different points of view.

Perhaps those on the right wing are concerned because they are imagining that this is how they would run their classrooms (if they had them), but their insistence that there is a problem is clearly belied by the fact that while Ph.D.s indisputably tend to have more liberal political opinions, I know of no identified trend in political opinion among those with bachelor's degrees. Nonetheless, this call for more 'conservative' professors is misguided for many other reasons.

People tend to hire those who they relate to and desire to interact with. In this sense, academia is no different from law, business, or any other profession. It seems likely that political conservatives are overrepresented in business, for example. There are those who find examples of conservative academics who do not get a job offer or even and interview and use that to support their charge of political bias. This is a straw man, as anyone who has recently been involved in an academic job search knows. There is a glut of Ph.D.s in most fields searching for jobs; for example, something like a third of the English Ph.D.s graduating now can expect to get a tenure-track position. When one of us looking for a job has a stellar publication record and recommendations, yet does not get an interview, it is easy to pick any reason we want as to why, and claim a bias. Certainly bias exists, but these days it is damned hard to prove because there are just too many qualified candidates out there for the number of positions available, and the reality for those of us who are not white liberal males is that there probably is one applying to the same job that is equally or more qualified than us.

But why do those with academic careers tend to be liberal in the first place? (The term 'liberal' is used here in its traditional sense, rather than the Right's derogatory term for 'leftist', though liberal opinions do of course coincide more with politics that are left of center.) Perhaps there is actually a reason that those who follow the long path of their studies to the point of becoming professors tend to be liberal. First of all, part of the true definition of 'liberal' is open-mindedness, and those who seek scholarship as a lifelong endeavor are more naturally curious about the world than those who don't. So the profession is self-selecting. Clearly if your goal in life is to make a ton of money, academia is not a career you will choose. As people who work hard for low pay, academics are not naturally sympathetic to policies that favor the affluent.

But a tendency toward liberal thinking is certainly reinforced in the field of education. No, not because we were all brainwashed by our predecessors, but because unlike those in many other professional careers, educators are exposed to people from a large cross-section of society, especially if they work at a large state university (as the majority of them do). One finds it harder to objectify and stereotype people of a certain race, social class, religion, etc. if one knows personally people in that group. The policies supported by those who consider themselves to be conservative tend to make the assumption that all Americans are born equal and treated equally. This is understandable when one largely associates with people within one's own social class, but much harder when the realities of inequality are staring you in the face all day. Faculty and graduate students at a large state university get to know students as people from across the societal spectrum, and as a result tend to support policies (associated with liberals) that treat different groups differently, in an attempt to make up for some of these inequalities.

So, acknowledging that most professors are liberal, should there be 'Affirmative Action' for conservatives? No, because Affirmative Action targets groups that are disadvantaged across society, and is meant to address unchangeable qualities such as race and gender. Though one can be discriminated against for one's opinions, they are a lot easier to keep to oneself. The truth that is never brought up in these discussions is that the political opinions of the professor are almost never relevant to any class discussion; professors who impose their views to the point of making students uncomfortable are wrong not because they may be liberal instead of conservative, but because it is inappropriate of them to do so no matter what their political persuasion. Sometimes however, a subject that happens to be a hot political issue is relevant to a class. If a professor is teaching an ecology course, he will naturally be passionate about his beliefs that ecosystems should be preserved. Should then his campus find an ecologist who supports clearcutting to 'balance out' his opinion? Such a person is not likely to exist -- after all, who would choose a field of study that he was not passionate about?

But aren't liberal universities then indoctrinating your children into beliefs that to you are wrong? There are several reasons you have nothing to fear. First, hiring and promotion have pretty much nothing to do with what goes on in the classroom. At most universities, they are all about how much money a faculty member brings into campus. But the uncomfortable truth is that questionable personality traits in a job candidate who hasn't ever received a grant suddenly recede into insignificance when that candidate shows he can bring in big bucks.

The main irony about those who fear indoctrination, however, is that they obviously do not believe in education. By definition, education involves learning the ability to critically think for oneself. Those who think that students will come out of universities as leftist automatons are the same type who fear that those who are exposed to the ideas and science of evolution will suddenly lose all religion. Simply, those who fear indoctrination are those who believe in the power of indoctrination. Those who make a career in education receive no benefit from indoctrination of their students; if they like to make outrageously one-sided arguments in the classroom, it should only have the effect of forcing students to learn to develop the proper counter-arguments to what the professors are saying - that is, to think critically. Universities are not madrassas of leftist thought that need "balance". A student who complains about a "D"on a paper in which he asserts the evidence for global warming is inconclusive is not being punished for his ideology, any more than a student who touts creationism in a paper about evolution. He is getting the grade he deserves for ignoring the known body of scientific evidence in his paper.

Imposing some sort of quota for conservative professors, as some suggest, would make a mockery of education, which is not about the promotion of specific ideologies, but rather the free exchange of ideas. Again, if a professor is not living up to this ideal, her actual political opinions are irrelevant; the issue is not a 'liberal' vs. 'conservative' one. When it comes to job applications, political opinions are as taboo as marital status, sexual orientation, etc. at a job interview; the interviewer has no business bringing them up, and the interviewee should not either, because they have no bearing on the interviewee's qualifications for a job.

There are lots of ways that people at work behave inappropriately, in ways that make clients or coworkers uncomfortable. Are professors to be held more accountable because they have the serious task of educating the next generation? Perhaps so. But the inappropriate remarks and behaviors by professors cited by those on the right as examples of why we need conservative 'balance' on campuses are not inappropriate because of the particular opinions of a professor or group of faculty; the nature of the problem is that of a hostile environment. If universities truly are making conservative students (or faculty) feel threatened, they need to address appropriate workplace behavior with staff. In my experience, the conservative students hold their own quite well, and I've never met a professor who was a shrinking violet.

Labels: education, politics