Bias In The Academy

Here are some fascinating words of wisdom from Larry Summers:

Summers, the former Harvard president, was the first to discuss these topics, and he did so only weeks after the latest political incident involving him — an invitation to address the University of California Board of Regents that was rescinded because of faculty opposition.

Noting that he had served in the Clinton administration, Summers said he identified strongly as a liberal and a Democrat, but that while in Washington he viewed himself as being on “the right half of the left,” in Cambridge, he landed “on the right half of the right.”

In advance of the symposium, Summers ran some numbers from the study. He focused on elite graduate universities and on what he defined as core disciplines for undergraduate education (excluding health professions, for example). When conducting such an analysis, Summers said, he found “even less ideological diversity” than he thought he would, and that in the humanities and social sciences, Republicans are “the third group,” after Democrats and Nader and other left-wing third parties.

To date, Summers said, he has largely viewed the political imbalance as one of “able people making choices.” He said that if you are a smart individual, and you like the market, profits, and “striving for profits,” you have “a wide range of choices in life,” of which an academic career is but one. If you are a smart person who doesn’t like the world of markets and profits, “you have a much narrower range of choices,” he said, and academic careers may be quite desirable. In this way of thinking, he said, it’s not surprising to find more liberals than conservatives on college faculties.

At the same time, he added, the extent of the imbalance and some informal research he has conducted “give me pause” and has him wondering about the possibility of bias against right-leaning thinkers. He examined the scholars being asked to give Tanner Lectures (a top lecture series at leading universities) and the political leanings of economists and political figures among honorary degree recipients at a top university (which he declined to name). Liberals receive more such honors by far, he said.

It’s not that there are no conservative professors, he said, but their share is so small as to raise questions that deserve more attention. Summers wondered if the situation isn’t like it was in the early days of baseball’s racial integration, when people trying to say equality had arrived could point to the relatively equal performance of black and white stars. “But it appeared that there were not any African-American.250 hitters,” Summers said. “The only [black] players who played were stars.”

Let me add a brief personal anecdote to give readers a sense of just how out of touch the academy is: I have actually heard left-leaning professors at unnamed universities turn the bias question on its head by arguing that it is the absence of progressive professors we should be concerned about!

(HT: Marginal Revolution)

Comments

[T]

"I have actually heard left-leaning professors at unnamed universities turn the bias question on its head by arguing that it is the absence of progressive professors we should be concerned about!"

I've heard the exact same thing. "Well, business is all conservative [I assume because they're not Marxists]. No one really questions the status quo." They say the same thng about the media; it's really actually conservative.

And it seems to me there is bias against professors who aren't far enough to the left.

[Alexander Nekvasil]

Affirmative action for an oppressing minority -- that's one hell of an idea!

[Werner Patels]

Academia has always been full of liberals. How capable they really are becomes apparent when they leave their ivory tower and enter active politics -- as happened with Michael Ignatieff, who left Harvard to seek the leadership of the Liberal Party in Canada.

As soon as he set foot in politics, it was clear that he was completely inept -- intellectually and psychologically -- to be a politician.

The general public is actually quite well off with those bozos safely stowed away in academia where they can't do much harm.

[Roland]

I think that people who feel compelled to change the world are disproportionately drawn to arenas where they believe they can have that world-changing impact - notably, academia and journalism.

In academia, however, when leftists gain control they often launch pogroms against the conservative remnants in their departments. I just heard some horror stories yesterday from conservative friends who were victims of academic lynchings by "liberal" department heads.

[ashok]

I just want to thank you for blogging about this. It's something that hits at a very personal level, to be considered thoughtless because I don't share exact same thoughts another has.

I have expressed in my own blog concerns about Dr. Summers' characterization of what causes the problem. To what degree do activist departments and left-liberal feel-good logic thrive because of the mere existence of the modern research university? Capitalism seems to come with a sense of value, an idea that psychological satisfaction is just as good as the "common good."