Call It A Comeback
Perhaps he’ll be behind the great veil now, but in nice tribute with some links, Jacob Levy discusses the impact of John Rawls.
And for entertainment go to Sullivan’s site see his comments.
Update: Levy also has some intelligent comments on academic ideological imbalance. The comments on Campus Watch are interesting.
Brad DeLong explained why Republicans should be like abortion; safe, legal, and rare. Free trade is one of the most vital policies for the United States to pursue and generally Democrats aren’t as strong on it as I would like. So today I actually have nice things to say about the administration. A proposal has been made to significantly reduce tariffs on manufactured goods. Even better, this includes textiles which have been a sticking point for many Southern Republicans.
The Prince of Darkness, um, ahem, well, um, just read it from Jonah Goldberg on The Corner.
BOB NOVAK: Mr. May, I wonder if we can cut through all of this because I’ve been around this town a long time. I’ve never seen such an attack on Saudi Arabia. Isn’t this all part of a plot that is hatched in Israel that, what you do is you attack Iraq, you get the oil supplies from Iraq, that means you don’t have to — the United States doesn’t have to rely on the Saudi Arabian oil supplies. You destabilize the Saudi Arabian government, change the balance of power in the Middle East, and you change the ratio of oil politics? Isn’t that what is going on
No, not Bod Dole. Given the hysterics over the Democrats changing leaders I thought this was a decent lead. &c does a nice job describing another example of how the Republicans are facing tensions between business and social conservatives. Just one big happy dysfunctional family.
Oh my, the Fitzgerald challenge is getting ugly.
"I’m thinking about trying to make sure Peter has an opponent," LaHood told the Sun-Times. "I think we can do better than him."
This is very interesting. The feud between Hastert and Fitzgerald has been well publicized. This indicates, Hastert is probably actively targeting Fitzgerald in the primary. LaHood is a very low key guy who learned at the hand of Bob Michel as his long-time chief-of-staff. A move like this doesn’t happen by LaHood without serious consideration of the impact and consultations with others. It is hard to imagine this occuring without Rove and Hastert signing off.
This is an especially risky maneuver. If it fails, Fitzgerald is hurt in the primary with a bruising battle setting him up to lose in the general if a decent Democratic candidate is selected (largely meaning not Carol Mosely Braun). If it is successful, Andrew McKenna loses the right wing base for the general election, meaning they stay home and don’t vote for Bush or McKenna. I can’t imagine Bush or Rove being able to signal opposition to Fitzgerald and maintaining the conservative base of voters in Illinois. Without a strong conservative base vote, Illinois is unwinnable for Bush. It is a stretch with the conservative base.
In many ways this is more difficult than California. Riordan was a sure winner in the general election. Simon wasn’t an incumbent either and realistically California isn’t voting for Bush, but Riordan as Governor would have made the Democrats spend money in the state in 2004. There was nothing to lose. In this case there is a potential downfall. If McKenna is on the ticket, Illinois may be out of play for the presidential race, but Republicans will have to spend a lot of money on McKenna, a likely loser.
There is a bit of intrigue on the Democratic side as well. I’ve got a full day so I’ll post more tonight.
David is taking a break from blogging to work on his dissertation. Write, man, write. It is too bad, he is one of the most interesting, if underrated, conservative bloggers out there. While everyone gets excited around election time, his blog offered up some interesting and detailed policy critiques and seldom resorted to the boilerplate whining that overtakes nearly all of us around elections.
I think David presents a good case and pretty convincing case other than a few minor quibbles.
The first thing I should point out is that I do think more ideological balance would be better. That isn’t clear on earlier postings and I think that is an important point. I agree with David that I don’t think most professors are that concerned with ideology, but that he is absolutely correct in stating some specific fields are probably more concerned than others. His example of women’s studies and African-American studies are very good. I’d say their uniformity varies by department and probably by department chair. Gerald Early, for example, (formerly Af-Am Studies Chair at Washington University in St. Louis) probably isn’t concerned with ideology, but with work. Whether he is representative is a good question, and I’d have to say probably not.
David’s point that some may use ideology is a good point and one that is probably not clear to me not having to think about it. While I would argue that most don’t care, even a small number of faculty or events can make being hired difficult or discourage one from trying the academic market. I haven’t seen it personally, but given the pettiness of many academics, I shouldn’t discount it occurring. Even more important is the realization that small numbers of cases might be discouraging.
Of course, the most damning thing I know of at a dinner with a candidate was when the candidate wouldn’t eat a roast beef sandwich after several suggestions. Strange place academia. Academics are known for all sorts of no-nos during the hiring process. One of the more amazing for a ‘liberal profession’ is the habit of asking about family status. In some departments, chairs have to send out yearly reminders about what is and is not acceptable.
On socialization, I do disagree with David a bit. While I agree most come in with distinct views, I have seen several friends who were at least to the right of the average social scientist become more liberal over time. The reason seems to be from having constant discussions on politics with people who were more liberal. I wouldn’t call this a majority or even a large number, but examples of why not only is their a majority of liberals, but a supermajority. I don’t have any way to quantify that, but it is a hunch I have.
Lott is a good example of the problem. I think there are some serious problems with Lott’s work (most of them voiced by Gary Kleck), but that is true of many professors out there . IOW, there wouldn’t be many professors at all using that standard.
The problem is I don’t know how solve that imbalance and neither does anyone else from what I have read. An ideological affirmative action is unlikely to work because the problem is very similar to getting minorities into disciplines–there simply isn’t the supply available even if they are sought out. Trying to get 12% African-American profs would damn near be impossible because 12% of the PhDs aren’t African-Americans. The number of conservatives with PhDs is also below the background population of conservatives. Perhaps a mentoring process would be in order, but much like with African-Americans, such efforts haven’t worked well because an institution who does the initial mentoring, doesn’t receive the benefit since individuals move on to other universities.
The first step, I suppose, would be to make academia a nicer place.
Okay, stop laughing.
This is at the core of the problem. Academia needs to be a place of vigorous disagreement over ideas. Naturally, this leads to the issues David points out below because when people disagree and a particular view is underrepresented, those with those views are likely to exit the institution creating even further unbalance. Being nicer to conservatives is a nice statement, but in a place that can be quite competitive, I’m not sure how realistic this is. IOW, yeah, ideological imbalance is a problem, but I don’t know of any way to correct it.
Any ideas out there?
From David Hogberg concerning his thoughts on conservative/liberal imbalance in academia:
(Note: I did some minor editing due to problems with my e-mail program, so if there are mistakes below, it is safe to assume they are mine and not David’s)
I looked over your posts on the liberal-conservative (im)balance in academia and found them quite interesting.
First, let me say that I don?t think discrimination against conservatives is as widespread as it often hyped up to be. Certainly, some disciplines are far more hostile to conservatives in their midst?women and minority studies?than others. However, I don?t think there is an overwhelming amount of professors in academia who are determined to keep conservatives from becoming faculty.
That said, it is there, and does rear its ugly head on occasion?the case of John Lott, Jr. and his inability to find a tenure-track job comes to mind. And it plays a part in the fact that there are more liberals than conservatives. To explain, let me start with Stanley Fish?s thoughts. I think Fish was being a bit disingenuous with his editorial. Of course, ideology isn?t a part of the interview process; it would be way too easy for an aggrieved party to sue if it was. But surely Fish must know that
the hiring process is more than just interviews. For example, a prospective hire is often taken out to dinner by faculty, or to a party at a faculty member?s house. It isn?t too difficult to use such situations to discover the prospective hire?s ideology. Simply engage him or her in conversation, make remarks like ?Bush is a terrible president,? and chances are you?ll figure out their political proclivities. Do faculty members then bring such considerations to the decision to hire? Hopefully most do not, but surely some do.
Fish also ignores a huge part of the process, that of tenure. By the time a professor comes up for tenure, everyone in the department will know his or her ideology, unless that professor has made titanic efforts to be discreet. Do faculty members then bring such considerations to tenure decisions? Again, hopefully most do not, but surely some do.
As I said above, I doubt that such instances are widespread. They do occur often enough that it likely has a discouraging effect on many conservatives considering academia. They either avoid graduate school altogether or they get their degrees and seek employment elsewhere.
On your point of socialization I have to adamantly disagree. I don?t think most academic liberals are socialized as they continue on in the profession. The vast majority have their views well formed by the time they enter graduate school. The question, then, is why does the profession attract so many liberals? Frankly, I haven?t a clue. Why do so many conservatives go into business, why do so many liberals go into journalism, etc., etc.? I?d
really like to know the answer to such questions.
That leads me to the other reason why I think so few conservatives are in academia. I suspect that many of them feel like the turd in the punchbowl when they enter graduate school. They find themselves in a situation where they are in a very small minority, and they routinely encounter a lot of stereotypes about their political views. Not too many people are going to stay in that type of environment for the long haul.
To sum up, I think the stories about the occasional academic being denied a job because of his or her ideology, along with an often inhospitable environment in graduate school result in fewer conservatives in academia.
Even if these factors weren?t present, there would still be an imbalance (as I noted, the profession just seems to attract liberals.) It just wouldn?t be as severe as it is now.
As for me, I don?t intend to pursue work in academia. There are a lot of reasons, not the least of which is I?m pretty happy working in a think-tank. Two others are:
1. I had no success getting published in academic journals, which suggests I?m not very good at that type of research and writing.
2. I initially went to graduate school because I wanted to teach. After acouple of years, I was burnt out on teaching. I had lost most of my patience with students. I found myself correcting exams or essays, and screeching like Mr. Hand ?Is everyone on dope?!? Definitely not a good thing.
Falwell (Scott not Jerry) apparently got free pot for favors. When he goes to testify I guess he can claim short term memory loss.
Mike Finley takes on an ideological hack complaining about faculty partisan identifications
I don’t have a lot more to say other than what I said here.
Stanley Fish wrote an op-ed pointing out that partisan ID doesn’t come up in academic job interviews and described the process. It is a process that is mind-numbingly boring and has little to do with ideology in terms of liberal vs conservative. I can only think of one case where an issue of ideology came up at all and that was in relation to teaching style. The individual played an advocate role in teaching instead of using the Socratic Method. Most of the time if ideology is at stake, that ideology fight is over schools of thought which are theoretical points, not conservative vs liberal.
The assumption made by FrontPage magazine is that hiring decisions are made by ideology. There are several problems with this. PhDs are more liberal than the population as a whole regardless of field. If one examines voting behavior, for a long time there has been a relationship between increasing education and an increase in likelihood of being Republican until one gets to the PhD level and then it turns into an increase in the likelihood of being Democratic. As the parties have realligned, education doesn’t have the same impact on partisan ID anymore, but PhDs are still overwhelmingly Democratic.
The real issue is that as one is socialized into the education, one tends to change their views because of their political context. If you are a business exec you talk to other execs about your political beliefs and, not surprisingly, this affects your views. The same happens amongst PhDs and academics in general. It isn’t a dark conspiracy, it is political context. In the 1960s evangelicals voted for both parties. In 2002, evangelicals vote in high proportions for Republicans because their political context reinforces such choices. For studies on political context see Huckfeldt and Sprague.
The study itself was deeply flawed by not including those within other areas of the university. While I’m guessing the engineering and chemistry professors aren’t as liberal, they are still registered Democratic at much higher numbers than the population as a whole. Knowing this bit of information gives one something to compare the rates while controlling for education’s effect alone.
More troubling is what are we supposed to do about this? The lambasting of liberal faculty that are instilling their left wing agenda is a nice whine (and inaccurate for most classes), but it doesn’t tell us how to solve the problem. I defy anyone to demonstrate de jure discrimination. De facto imbalance may occur, but to solve such a problem, one would need to identify why this imbalance occurs.
From my experience in political science, conseratives don’t last in programs. It isn’t because they aren’t smart, it is because they see graduate education as a way to become advocates and not scientists. This isn’t universal, but for those who enter programs and are conservative, they are far less concerned with determing what is than they are advocating policy. Thus, they have less interest in becoming practicing social scientists. As an example, David Hogberg works for a think tank and hates doing professional conferences. He isn’t dumb, he just has a different interest from his public comments.
Update: Instead of assuming what David thinks I asked him. He said he’d reply later. Also some minor edits have been made above.
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