No Republican Need Apply

No Republican need apply
by Bruce Bartlett

December 7, 2004

Although conservatives complain loudly and often about liberal bias in the mass media, the truth is that one is far more likely to read a conservative perspective in The New York Times than hear it from a college professor. At least the Times publishes an occasional conservative on its op-ed page. At many universities, just finding a Republican anywhere on the faculty is problematic.

Two recent studies by Santa Clara University economist Daniel B. Klein prove my point. In one study, he looked at party registration of the faculty at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley. He found 7.7 registered Democrats for each Republican at the former and 9.9 Democrats per Republican at the latter.

In certain departments, Republicans are literally nonexistent. There are no Republicans in either the anthropology or sociology departments at Stanford or UC-Berkeley. At Berkeley, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans is 11 to one in the economics department and 14 to one in the political science department. Stanford is a model of intellectual diversity by contrast, with a Democrat/Republican ratio of seven to three in economics and nine to one in political science.

In a larger study, Klein looked at voting patterns from a survey of academics throughout the country. He found that in anthropology, there are more than 30 votes cast for Democratic candidates for each one cast for a Republican. In sociology, the ratio is 28 to one. Republicans do best among economists, who only vote Democratic by a three to one margin. In political science, the ratio is 6.7 to one. On average, across all departments, Democrats get 15 votes for every one going to Republicans.

Not surprisingly, the ideological orientation of college faculty skews heavily toward the left. According to a survey in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 47.9 percent of all professors at public universities consider themselves to be liberal, with another 6.2 percent classifying themselves as far left. Only 31.8 percent say that they are middle of the road, and just 13.8 percent are conservative.

Obviously, this puts the vast majority of professors far to the left of the population as a whole. But interestingly, they are even well to the left of their students. A survey of last year's incoming freshmen found only 24.2 percent calling themselves liberals and 2.8 percent classified as far left. More than half said they were middle of the road, and 21.1 percent were conservative.

Liberals pooh-pooh these data, sometimes implying that they result because conservatives aren't bright enough or sufficiently intellectual to make it as university professors. The truth is that it is very, very hard to get a tenured faculty position at a university. And the hiring process is unlike anything in a private business. In most cases, one needs a unanimous vote of professors in one's department to get tenure. This puts a high priority on intangibles like collegiality, which often translates into sharing the same politics and ideology.

Bias works in other ways, as well. It is extraordinarily difficult to get an article in a top academic journal or get a book published by a university press unless it slavishly parrots the liberal line. That is because such things must be peer-reviewed by experts in the field before they can be published. This makes it very easy for anonymous reviewers to blackball those with a conservative point of view, effectively killing the careers of those who must publish or perish.

Finally, it is essential these days to be taken under the wing of an established professor in your field and be mentored if you have any hope of getting a teaching position at a good school. With so few conservatives on the faculty -- and many of those hiding their politics to avoid retribution -- the deck is very heavily stacked against any conservative hoping for an academic career, no matter how qualified they may be.

Students pay a heavy price for this state of affairs. In certain fields like political science, it is simply impossible to receive a good education unless exposed to conservative thought. Nor are students likely to receive an adequate appreciation or understanding of the conservative perspective if it is only taught by those hostile to it. According to a new survey by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, almost half of students reported hearing only one side of political issues in their classrooms and that professors often use their positions to promote personal political views.

Unfortunately, fixing this problem will take a long time. It is certainly not amenable to a legislative fix, such as a quota for conservatives. The only thing that will help is to shame universities into treating intellectual diversity the way they now treat race and gender. But first they have to admit they have a problem. That hasn't happened yet.

Bruce Bartlett is a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Townhall.com member group.

I am thinking more in line with using liberal tactics to diversify these discriminating institutions - i.e. getting conservative students to file lawsuit after lawsuit. Prima facie tort is what opos into mind with this haf baked idea:

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., is credited with the introduction of the prima facie tort doctrine in this country. Porter at 269. [FN1] Justice Holmes' thesis was that "[T]he intentional infliction of temporal damage, or the doing of an act manifestly likely to inflict such damage and inflicting it, is actionable if done without just cause." Holmes, Privilege, Malice and Intent, 8 Harv.L.Rev. 1, 3 (1894) (footnote omitted). In an ambitious article tracing the historical basis of responsibility for tortious acts, Dean Wigmore classified the prima facie tort as one of four general bases for tort liability. Wigmore, Responsibility for Tortious Acts: Its History, 3 Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History 474, 475 and n. 1 (1909). [FN2]

FN1. See also Note, Prima Facie Tort, 11 Cum.L.Rev. 113, 115 and n. 20 (1980); Note, The Prima Facie Tort Doctrine, 52 Col.L.Rev. 503, 504 (1952).

FN2. See generally Forkosch, An Analysis of The "Prima Facie Tort" Cause of Action, 42 Corn.L.Q. 465 (1957); Note, supra, 52 Col.L.Rev. at 508.

The uncomfortable generality of the prima facie tort doctrine--as a definite theory of recovery--has not escaped criticism. Professor Dan B. Dobbs has recently described the concept as "... [seeming] to be a philosophical effort to state all tort law in *552 a single sentence rather than an effort to state a meaningful principle." Dobbs, Tortious Interference with Contractual Relations, 34 Ark.L.Rev. 335, 345 (1980). Even so, the prima facie tort doctrine has been given considerable judicial countenance, particularly in those cases we now consider to be "economic" torts, and in labor litigation before that field was preempted by statute. [FN3] To illustrate, a reasonable research discloses that the prima facie tort concept was held applicable to a case remarkably similar to the case at hand by a divided Minnesota court in 1909. Tuttle v. Buck, 107 Minn. 145, 119 N.W. 946 (1909). Although the elaborate and malicious charade considered by the Oklahoma court in Mangum Electric Co. v. Border, 101 Okl. 64, 222 P. 1002 (1923), was most certainly an unlawful act, the court undoubtedly relied on the prima facie tort concept in affirming an award of damages for injury to Dr. Border's professional reputation. Id. 222 P. at 1005[3]. And, it was in the context of early labor legislation, rather than in Porter, that the prima facie tort notion was first recognized and applied in Missouri. Lohse Patent Door Co. v. Fuelle, 215 Mo. 421, 114 S.W. 997, Annot., 22 L.R.A. (n.s.) 607 (1908). In Lohse, our Supreme Court held the plaintiff had stated a cause of action by pleading a common-law boycott as an enjoinable tort, buttressing its rationale by quoting extensively from Barr v. Essex Trades Council, 53 N.J.Eq. 101, 30 A. 881 (1894), which in turn cited Justice Holmes' article by book and page, and quoted Lord Escher's dictum word for word. Further examples of criticism and approval could easily be cited, but what we have said is sufficient to show that: 1) the prima facie tort doctrine is a subsisting and potentially useful principle, but 2) the broad generality of the concept demands careful formulation and limitation of the constitutive elements of a prima facie tort cause of action if it is to be useful in any way or respect except as a "catch-all" action sounding in tort.

FN3. Note, Prima Facie Tort Recognized in Missouri, 47 Mo.L.Rev. 553-554, n. 5 (1982); Note, supra, 52 Col.L.Rev. at 508-509.

In Porter, the court relied heavily upon the case law of New York and the Restatement (Second) of Torts to synthesize a modern, workable form of the prima facie tort cause of action. Such an approach is unexceptionable. The views of the American Law Institute are ordinarily entitled to considerable respect and deference even though they may not be "the law" in any particular jurisdiction, and New York has given the prima facie tort notion its broadest application. The cause of action synthesized in Porter consists of the following elements: 1) An intentional, lawful act by the defendant; 2) An intent to cause injury to the plaintiff; 3) Injury to the plaintiff, and 4) An absence of justification or an insufficient justification for the defendant's act. The elements of the prima facie tort cause of action in New York are: 1) The infliction of intentional harm; 2) damage to the plaintiff; 3) lack of excuse or justification; 4) by an act or series of acts which would otherwise be lawful. ATI, Inc. v. Ruder & Finn, Inc., 42 N.Y.2d 454, 398 N.Y.S.2d 864, 866, 368 N.E.2d 1230, 1232 (1977). The elements of the causes of action articulated in Porter and in New York are similar. New York requires the allegation and presumably a showing of special damages, Id. 398 N.Y.S.2d at 866, 368 N.E.2d at 1232, and in general, the New York cases have held that the remedy will not lie if plaintiff has a "traditional" or "nominative" tort remedy available. See: Ruza v. Ruza, 286 App.Div. 767, 1 App.Div.2d 669, 146 N.Y.S.2d 808, 811[6-8] (1955). As noted, Porter did not attempt to decide whether the remedy will lie if plaintiff has a well developed tort remedy available.

Bandag of Springfield, Inc. v. Bandag, Inc. 662 S.W.2d 546, *551 -552 (Mo.App. S.D. 1983)

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