How Did Colleges Get So Far Left?

Intercollegiate Studies Institute ^ | Nov. 30, 2004 | John Zmirak

[Brilliant]

This is what happens when you make academia beholden to government spending.

[blackeagle]

bump

[bahblahbah]

VOTE BY EDUCATION

BUSH

KERRY

NADER

TOTAL

2004

2000

2004

2004

No High School (4%)

49%

+10

50%

0%

H.S. Graduate (22%)

52%

+3

47%

0%

Some College (32%)

54%

+3

46%

0%

College Graduate (26%)

52%

+1

46%

1%

Postgrad Study (16%)

44%

+0

55%

1%

VOTE BY EDUCATION

BUSH

KERRY

NADER

TOTAL

2004

2000

2004

2004

No College Degree (58%)

53%

n/a

47%

0%

College Graduate (42%)

49%

n/a

49%

1%

[RKV]

So Yale and Stanford and Harvard are dependent on government spending? I think not. Their endowments yeild incomes that are larger than the federal monies the receive.

[Angry Republican]

It gets better. Click here for a great documentary about the attack on college Republicans.

[Cobra64]

Because few of the professors never found work in the real world.

[Billthedrill]

It happens that theory-heavy, jargon-laden Marxism and its related offshoots map well to the preferences for theory and jargon that have typified the "town vs. gown" dichotomy for as long as universities have existed. That's part of it. And part of it is many such elites are consciously self-selecting. Another part is the insecurity and resentment of a second-rate intellect faced with a first-rate intellect that disagrees with it. And, again, that there is always a tension between the insularity of a university campus and the worldly pretensions of its inhabitants.

Campuses are like wombs - you can make a baby there, but not an adult.

[swilhelm73]

I think the origin is in many ways Vietnam era deferments.

So, study for that PHD in English, and you don't get sent to Vietnam to shoot at your fellow communists.

Then what do you do with that PHD? Teach...

[Question_Assumptions]

Ping for later.

[Question_Assumptions]

I think people should keep in mind that points (1), (2), and (3) in this article can also apply to opinions on Free Republic and talk radio.

[lunarbicep]

bump

[x]

The idea developed that the intelligentsia -- the experts, technicians, specialists, and theorists -- could produce a better world, a very flattering idea to intellectuals. A lot of this goes back to the Enlightenment. The example of how technology transformed the world in the 19th century gave added momentum to the idea. The Progressives of the late 19th and early 20th century brought this idea into US politics, and Wilson and FDR put it in the mainstream.

With the expansion of the universities after WWII a class emerged that was wholly defined as "intellectuals" or "academics" in opposition to the older, established middle class or the commercial/managerial class. Postwar academics cut many of their ties with their commercial or professional peers or relatives to become a class of their own. Since then, the increased influence of the media and educational institutions have simply accelerated developments. And the liberal or progressive attitudes of the professoriat have spread through the college-educated professions.

If you get enough people who are really devoted to something and confident in their pursuit of some common goal, they'll eventually come to regard what they want as essential and try to reorganize society to achieve their purpose. And once you get enough people in such a group, the original aim may well fade or fall away, leaving only a faction committed to expanding its own position and influence over the wider public.

[Revolting cat!]

How? We wuzn't looking, that's how!

[Blue Screen of Death]

I think people should keep in mind that points (1), (2), and (3) in this article can also apply to opinions on Free Republic and talk radio.

I was thinking the exact same thing as I read the article.

[rocksblues]

By looking at this I have to laugh at how stupid/clueless/no common sense Postgrad Study people are/have.

[Cobra64]

I think we're on the same track. See my #7. I should have typed "Ever" not "Never." Sorry.

[speekinout]

Their endowments yeild incomes that are larger than the federal monies the receive.

I don't think you're counting all of the Pell grants, student loans, etc. that allow so many students to attend these expensive schools. They don't give scholarships to everyone who can't afford to pay outright.

[Starrgaizr]

Draft + Deferment + Vietnam

[LS]

But he avoids the real question---which I don't think Kimball's book answers either---and that is, how did they get so radical?

We offer the following theory in our forthcoming book, "A Patriot's History of the United States" (Penguin Sentinel, Dec. 29):

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1595230017/qid=1092168718/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/103-2896973-9763812?v=glance&s=books

1) Part of it was backlash: the universities (many, willingly) excluded any leftists in the late 1940s and early 1950s out of fears of being tainted with communism. After the mid-1950s, the universities began to reverse their policies and to encourage leftists to apply.

2) Another factor was the massive expansion of colleges and universities as a result of the baby boom providing new customers and the $$$ provided by Uncle Sam in reaction to the Space Program.

3) Some of it was self-selection---those who can, do, those who can't . . . . which meant many conservatives went into the "real world." Conservatives on campus tended to go into business and engineering where there was more money.

Some of you laugh and say, "So what?" Well, that's very shortsighted. We are now reaping the harvest of allowing fruitloops to run our institutions of higher learning, in part, precisely because good conservatives would not take a pay cut to teach.

The quickly eroding position of existing conservatives was exacerbated by the fact that conservatives truly were "open minded" and could tolerate a liberal who happened to be a good scholar, but not vice versa. When liberals built up enough power to staff search committees, they would bring in no one but libs.

4) We lost the argument over what constituted "scholarship." Sometime in the 1960s, it no longer was sufficient to write a biography of a famous American or to research the military or business. Instead, "class, race, gender" became the mantra, and ANY "scholarship" not tied to that in some way was viewed as not worthy of attention. Professional organizations like the AHA and OAH started to feature increasingly leftist panels, and, as the author points out, conservatives started to feel not only left out, but under attack. I quit the AHA (which I had only stayed in to get the jobs listings) some 20 years ago, and I haven't been to an actual conference in 15---and then only because I had to go as a part of a search committee.

I have always been confident that in the marketplace, conservative ideas would win. I always knew in my heart that the leftist media would be, if not defeated, easily surpassed.

I have no such illusions about higher education. We can still control k-12 through private schools and home schooling, and even parental participation in public school boards; but trustees of universities are easily cowed and made to feel inferior by a bunch of puffed-up pansies, and I see NOTHING on the horizon that offers and hope for recapturing academia in the next 30 years.