Power Politics at Postmodern U
by Rusty Benson
July 5, 2005
(AgapePress) - Christian parents who are committed to nurturing biblical values in the lives of their children may want to strongly consider the results of recent studies when it comes time to send them to college. Three such studies, conducted by two sets of researchers, analyzed the politics and ideologies of college faculty. Across the board, results indicate that our institutions of higher learning, both private and public, are thoroughly dominated by political and cultural liberals.
In "Politics and Professional Advancement Among College Faculty" [PDF] by Stanley Rothman, S. Robert Lichter and Neil Nevitte, 72 percent of professors describe themselves as "left/liberal." That's about four times as liberal as the general public. Among elite universities, that number was 87 percent.
The same study, published in the March issue of The Forum, an on-line political science journal, indicated that professors' beliefs translate into strong support for controversial issues. These include the acceptance of homosexuality, abortion rights and extramarital cohabitation. (See following table.)
A separate study that tracked voting patterns among faculty members showed a similar bent toward liberal politics. Over a 10-year period, 80 percent of professors voted for Democratic candidates compared to only 8 percent who voted for Republicans.
The study is based on data taken from 1,678 survey responses completed by members of professional academic associations. The authors are Daniel Klein, an economist at Santa Clara University; Andrew Western, a student at the same school; and Charlotta Stern, a professor at Stockholm University.
Politically Endangered Species
In an earlier study the Klein team scoured voter registration records in the California counties around the University of California-Berkeley and Stanford University to determine the party affiliation of faculty members at the two schools. Including both schools, the authors found 445 Democrats and only 45 Republicans. Among female faculty the disparity was even greater: 172 Democrats, 7 Republicans.
The much broader Rothman/Lichter/Nevitte study asked faculty members to identify themselves according to political party. Fifty percent said they were Democrats; 11 percent declared Republican; and 5 percent called themselves Independent. The remaining group identified with other parties.
Humanities and social science departments leaned the farthest left with 88 percent in English literature; 84 percent in performing arts; and 84 percent in psychology calling themselves "liberal." However, even 49 percent of business faculty -- the lowest percentage among 22 departments surveyed -- used the same label.
That gap between the number of conservatives and liberals in faculty positions is likely to increase. The Klein study of Stanford and Berkeley faculty showed that the few Republicans remaining at those schools are mostly older. Commenting on the findings in The American Enterprise (January/February, 2005), Karl Zinsmeister wrote: "Among the rising generation of professors, in other words, Republicans are almost extinct."
Institutionalized Bias
The Rothman/Lichter/Nevitte study not only examined the ideological make-up of university faculty, but asked if their liberal single-mindedness resulted in discrimination in career advancement for conservatives.
Although the study's authors say their work does not definitively account for the differences in advancement between liberal and conservative faculty members, it does show that conservatives and Republicans -- particularly Christian ones -- generally teach at lower-quality schools. The study concludes that its findings "are consistent with the hypothesis that political conservatism confers a disadvantage in the competition for professional advancement."
"Republicans get worse jobs than Democrats," Lichter plainly said in The Washington Times.
Martin Trow, a former Berkeley professor, told the New York Times that discrimination based on politics is not intentional. He explains, "Their view comes to be seen not as a political preference, but what decent, intelligent human beings believe. Debate is stifled, and conservatives either go in the closet or get to be seen as slightly kooky. So if a committee is trying to decide between three well-qualified candidates, it may exclude the conservative because he seems like someone who has poor judgment."
No Balance, Narrow Perspective
Christian and conservative faculty may not be the only ones who get the short shrift as a result of liberal rule. Students are also part of the equation.
In a one-of-a-kind study commissioned by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), 49 percent of students said their professors often made political comments in the classroom even when it had nothing to do with the subject they were teaching. The study surveyed undergraduates at the top 50 colleges and universities as listed by U.S.News and World Report.
Almost half the students said there were no alternative views offered to counterbalance their professors' political presentation, leading 29 percent to think that agreeing with their professors' politics was necessary for good grades.
"In short, according to those with first-hand knowledge, in the college classroom today, many professors are preaching rather than teaching," said ACTA president Anne D. Neal at a recent symposium sponsored by The American Enterprise.
When such leftist preaching sees the world only in terms of race, gender, class and ethnicity, students are robbed of diverse perspectives that make a classic liberal arts education valuable, writes author and professor emerita Paula Sutter Fichtner. Such an unbalanced education will result in "supposedly educated people ill-prepared to interact with others across the world."
Change Is Possible
The difficulty in bringing balance to liberally lopsided universities, according to Neal, is that those who are the most empowered to bring about change are the ones most intent on preserving the status quo -- the faculty themselves.
The reason for resistance is that many contemporary educators don't believe in balance, but the postmodern values of power politics, she says. "In years past whether you were a Democrat or a Republican, you pretty much believed that students were entitled to multiple perspectives and different theories about issues," according to Neal. "Once power politics was imported into the classroom, the more traditional perspective of providing balance went by the wayside."
But Neal asserts that change is possible, particularly in publicly supported universities where 80 percent of students nationally attend. The leverage points to re-establishing balance in the classroom are the trustees of state college boards of higher education.
In most states, college board trustees are appointed by the governor and given full authority to oversee the financial and academic health of their institution. Therefore, Neal says, it is completely appropriate for parents and concerned citizens to contact their governor and board members to ask that they charge university presidents with fostering a new atmosphere of free and open exchange in the classroom.
She suggests that one simple and effective strategy is for state college boards to include on student evaluation forms questions concerning the balance of views in the classroom. These surveys are already widely used at most universities to evaluate the performance of faculty and even influence salaries.
Neal says parents must educate themselves with the facts and have a "give-me-my-money's-worth" attitude.
Rusty Benson, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is associate editor of AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association. This article appeared in the June 2005 issue.
