Posted on 05/02/2018 11:56:09 AM PDT by DeweyCA
What would you say if I told you that the faculty at most colleges and universities, particularly the larger liberal arts schools, is predominantly composed of liberal Democrats? You might find that surprising if you happen to have been living under a rock for the past several decades but otherwise, this is pretty much a dog-bites-man story. But just how bad is the imbalance? Mitchell Langbert at the National Association of Scholars (NAS) recently finished a lengthy research project examining the question and has published the results. No matter how bad you think the level of liberal bias is at most schools, it’s probably worse.
In this article I offer new evidence about something readers of Academic Questions already know: The political registration of full-time, Ph.D.-holding professors in top-tier liberal arts colleges is overwhelmingly Democratic. Indeed, faculty political affiliations at 39 percent of the colleges in my sample are Republican free—having zero Republicans. The political registration in most of the remaining 61 percent, with a few important exceptions, is slightly more than zero percent but nevertheless absurdly skewed against Republican affiliation and in favor of Democratic affiliation. Thus, 78.2 percent of the academic departments in my sample have either zero Republicans, or so few as to make no difference.
My sample of 8,688 tenure track, Ph.D.–holding professors from fifty-one of the sixty-six top ranked liberal arts colleges in the U.S. News 2017 report consists of 5,197, or 59.8 percent, who are registered either Republican or Democrat. The mean Democratic-to-Republican ratio (D:R) across the sample is 10.4:1, but because of an anomaly in the definition of what constitutes a liberal arts college in the U.S. News survey, I include two military colleges, West Point and Annapolis.1 If these are excluded, the D:R ratio is a whopping 12.7:1.
The numbers which include the two military schools should be disregarded. Obviously, there’s going to be a significantly larger percentage of conservatives among those who answer the call to service. And how you define West Point or Annapolis as a “liberal arts school” is something of a mystery to begin with. But as for the rest of the schools, that’s a bigger gap than even I had imagined. Nearly eight out of ten of these colleges either have zero Republicans in their faculty or a number so small as to be statistically insignificant. And even the schools with a measurable number of Republicans still find them being vastly outnumbered.
Sadly, despite the broad swath of the country away from the coasts where conservative views are more dominant, this is one area where Republicans and conservatives have failed to make any inroads. And it’s not a trivial matter. It’s true that many people emerge from four years of college and 100% immersion in liberal doctrine with a decidedly leftward worldview, but later go on to slowly grow more conservative. This usually happens when they wind up having to begin paying their own bills (and taxes), are faced with raising children or try to purchase a home. But that process can take decades and obviously they don’t all make the journey.
Allowing nearly all of the schools to be conducting this sort of liberal indoctrination program and supporting an agenda where any opposing views are shouted down leaves us with one generation after another of young workers – and voters – who are still tilted in the direction of socialism. It’s a dangerous situation and flies in the face of what true education should be about. Spirited debate and exposure to both sides of each fundamental question would produce a more thoughtful generation of graduates. How we make any inroads in that area remains a mystery as long as the numbers are as horrid as Langbert found in his analysis.
Sarcasm alert “shocker”
Hhhhuuuuhhhhh, imagine that, most serious companies don’t hire snowflakes from Top Liberal Arts Colleges...Isn’t funny how that works.
I would never hire someone from a liberal arts college with a worthless degree...That would only be inviting trouble.
And yet conservative parents will still pay to send their children to these indoctrination camps.
Go read about The Frankfurt School to get some background on how this came to be.
Those who can, do. Those who can,t teach. All the conservatives are busy being productive. Liberal Arts colleges should come with a warning labels much like cancer and cigarettes. Those entering these halls risk exposure to least productive elements of our society who do not reflect the reality outside.
So, what can we going to do about it?
By 2026, the department estimates, 57 percent of college students will be women.
The new minority on campus? Men.
“Obviously, this huge disparity could NOT be just a matter of chance. It is deliberate liberal policy to discriminate against conservatives.”
They don’t need a policy. They just act that way. Birds gotta fly; fish gotta swim; leftards gotta hate.
Liberals have been successfully packing the education system, government and the courts for years while conservatives were holding down jobs !
We can pressure legislators into withholding public money — including federal ztudent loans — from institutions that are grossly imbalanced. Why should conservative taxpayers foot the bill to train our enemies?
Set up a quota system. If it worked for affirmative action ...
I think this war is lost. We need to move on recognizing that we have no representation in liberal arts and related field in academia.
I wonder if all these liberal profs, deans, etc realize that when the German, Russian, Chinese countries fell into a dictatorship, one of first groupss loaded into the box cars were college professors?
To quote Joe Pesci in “ My Cousin Vinny,” “now there’s a big f*cking surprise!”
There's a key distinction to keep in mind: The problem with liberal colleges is that they don't teach the liberal arts, they teach an illiberal thing called "liberalism," or actually Progressive group-think. The discipline susceptible students learn at such places is how to flinch or hide when the hive starts buzzing at you.
The liberal arts refers to the broad swath of knowledge of Western civilization, including literature, history, philosophy, rhetoric, classical and modern languages, mathematics and the sciences. The liberal arts teach you how to think. I believe they are necessary preparation for any way of life or career.
My observation is that the only way to get an actual "liberal" (that is, broad) education is at a small, conservative Catholic or Evangelical college that focuses on this goal, a service academy, or a conventional college where you get to pick and choose your way through the course catalogue and the faculty (with your parents) to get exactly what you want. With that kind of preparation, even Yale and Harvard turn out admirable and fearless conservatives, many of whom go on to be very influential.
The problem is that most parents either are not savvy intellectuals who can't be intimidated by b.s., or they are folks who spend so much time at work that they don't know how to read the culture and its vultures. So their kids enter college as consumers of whatever the college is selling. Unfortunately, consumers get consumed.
Diversity: many races, colors, and genders. One Party line.
My guess is that leftism is baked in to the accreditation process, also. There needs to be lots and lots and lots of “accidents” to balance this thing out. It is completely unacceptable.
When we get more judges with Trump, maybe there needs to be some lawsuits for violations of civil rights of conservatives. Effectively, that is what is happening. We are losing speech and we are prevented from “pursuing happiness” with tax-funded actions against our way of life.
It’s a communist take over of the United States without military means. It has been largely successful. We were warned.
A liberal arts degree will guarantee you a job at where?
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