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The “Liberal” Bias on College Campuses
Last Saturday, April 3, 2004, I was invited to speak at the Ohio College Republican Federation state convention, meeting at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, on the topic “Is there a liberal bias on college campuses?” Following is a summary of my remarks. * * *
Is there a “liberal bias” on America’s college campuses? Yes, indeed, as overwhelming evidence shows; but first we must define what we mean by “liberal bias.” As a libertarian – that is, a “liberal,” in the classic, 19th-century meaning of the term (which refers to the great intellectual movement that emphasizes maximizing individual freedom and responsibility, on the one hand, and minimizing the role of government, or the coercive power of the law, on the other) – I almost always qualify my use of the term liberal, by pointing out that most of what modern Americans call “liberal” really is virtually the opposite of what liberal meant, historically. Those of us who consider ourselves true “liberals,” in the classic sense of the word, therefore usually substitute the phrase left-liberal, or more simply the word leftist, as a more accurate, or honest, label for the political/philosophical orientation that tends to dominate on the campuses of most American colleges and universities. A large majority of college and university faculty members, in general, view the world through a left-liberal or leftist political/philosophical bias. To be more precise, they are biased: in favor of socialism and against capitalism; in favor of organized labor, government, and the so-called “public interest” and against business; in favor of the welfare/regulatory state, paternalism, and elitism and against individual responsibility and the notion that ordinary persons can be trusted fully to govern themselves; in favor of a planned economy and against the free market; in favor of collectivism and against individualism; in favor of group identity and “victimhood” and against individual freedom and responsibility; in favor of “multiculturalism” and against genuine diversity; in favor of post-modernism and relativism and against objectivity and traditional standards; and of course, in favor of the Democratic Party and Democrats and against the Republican Party and Republicans (and particularly against President Bush). Although many academics deny there is such a bias, objective evidence of the bias can be found in a number of studies done in recent years. For example, in my primary field (law), Northwestern University law professor James Lindgren a few years ago conducted a survey of the faculty members at the nation’s top 100 law schools. Professor Lindgren found that approximately 80% of law professors identify themselves as “Democrats” and only 13% identify themselves as “Republicans.” Despite all the talk about “diversity” and having law faculties that mirror society at large, Professor Lindgren found that the segment of the general population most underrepresented on law school faculties was that consisting of white, female, Christian Republicans! (For more on the leftist bias in legal education, see my report on the AALS law professors’ convention in Washington, D.C. in January 2000, posted online at the Capital University Law School Federalist Society chapter’s website: http://users.law.capital.edu/federalistsociety/fp4/mayer.htm .) According to an article in the August 29, 2003 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, a solid majority of those teaching at both public and private universities described themselves as being “liberal” or “far left.” (Indeed, it is true that in many schools or departments, the ideological diversity of the faculty ranges merely from the left to the far left.) Less than a third of the faculty members considered themselves “middle of the road,” and only about 15 percent identified themselves as “conservative.” These numbers show that most faculties are well to the left of not only the general public but also their own students. According to the same source, less than 28 percent of students classify themselves as “liberal” or “far left”; more than half consider themselves “middle of the road” and 21 percent say they are “conservative.” A recent Gallup poll suggests the disparity may be even greater, for it found that 29 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 24 consider themselves to be conservatives (compared to 30 percent saying they are liberals). Yet another survey last year by pollster Frank Luntz found that just 3 percent of Ivy League professors called themselves Republicans, with 57 percent identifying with the Democratic Party. In the 2000 presidential election, 84 percent voted for Al Gore while only 9 percent voted for George W. Bush, barely more than the 6 percent who voted for Ralph Nader. Moreover, those few faculty members who are Republicans, or who are conservative or even libertarian in their politics (and thus most at odds with left-liberal policies) tend to teach in schools or departments like engineering, math, or the hard sciences – in other words, those schools or departments that are least likely to deal centrally or explicitly with political or public policy matters. Among faculty teaching in the humanities or the social sciences (including my other two fields, history and political science), the left-liberal dominance is overwhelming on most campuses. Even in business schools, the left-liberal bias in at least one of its aspects, the bias against business, is evident. Indeed, it seems to me that at many business schools, ironically, the faculty members are just as anti-capitalist as the typical faculty of law schools or history departments. (Frankly, it is not just left-liberals or Democrats, but also many Republicans and conservatives, who are biased against business and against capitalism, as well. That bias merits further discussion – perhaps a future blog entry – well beyond the scope of this piece.) As a result, despite the efforts of so-called “diversity” advocates to get faculties that “LOOK like America,” most college faculties do not THINK like America. In other words, real diversity – the kind of diversity that’s most important, diversity in thought, diversity in ideas – is really lacking on most campuses, in those schools or departments where it matters the most. Many leftist professors will strenuously deny the existence of a bias because the left-liberal orthodoxy is so dominant, so pervasive, so deeply-rooted, and in many cases so subtly influential, that they aren’t aware of it. In this respect, academia is much like journalism. Indeed, the pervasive and often subtle influence of the left-liberal bias in academics is much like the bias in the news media, which has been persuasively documented by former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg in his books Bias and Arrogance. As Goldberg observes in the introduction to Arrogance, “the uncomfortable truth – uncomfortable for ideologues on the Left, anyway – is that there now exists a huge body of literature . . . documenting a widespread left-wing bias in the news. . . . And much of the evidence comes not from conservatives with axes to grind but straight from the journalists themselves, who in survey after survey have identified themselves as liberal on all the big, important social issues of our time. [Yet} Despite the overwhelming evidence, . . . the elites remain in denial. Why? Well, for starters, as I say, a lot of them truly don’t understand what the fuss is all about, since they honestly believe that their views on all sorts of divisive issues are not really controversial – or even liberal.” Ditto, with regard to academics, I’d say. The left-liberal bias affects almost all academic matters on college campuses. It influences the curriculum: consider, for example, the increased emphasis on non-Western courses (and the associated de-emphasis of Western, and particularly Anglo-American courses) in many History, Political Science, or Sociology departments. It influences course syllabi, including choice of major topics covered as well as choice of textbooks. And it influences both the substance and the style of professors’ teaching in the classroom. One way in which the left-liberal bias influences the way professors teach is their tendency to use the technique that Ayn Rand called “the argument from intimidation.” She describes it as a type of argument, resembling the ad hominem fallacy, that is not really an argument at all but rather a means of forestalling debate by psychological pressure. “The essential characteristic of the Argument from Intimidation is its appeal to moral self-doubt and its reliance on the fear, guilt, or ignorance of the victim. It is used in the form of an ultimatum demanding that the victim renounce a given idea without discussion, under threat of being considered morally unworthy. The pattern is always: `Only those who are evil (dishonest, heartless, insensitive, ignorant, etc.) can hold such an idea.’” Rand’s examples cite explicit uses of the technique – “Surely you are not an advocate of capitalism, are you?” uttered with a tone of “scornful or belligerent incredulity.” Or, to use another of her examples, “`Professor X?’ (X standing for the name of a distinguished theorist of free-enterprise economics.) ‘Are you quoting Professor X? Oh no, not really!’ – followed by a sarcastic chuckle intended to convey that Professor X had been thoroughly discredited. (By whom? Blank out.)” “Such teachers are frequently assisted by the `liberal’ goon squad of the classroom, who burst into laughter at appropriate moments,” Rand adds. In addition to such explicit uses of the technique, many professors use it more subtly, to shut off class discussion from a non-leftist perspective. Conservative or libertarian students in, say, economics classes who try to inject the ideas of scholars such as Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, or Walter Williams, know what I mean here. (For more on this, see Rand’s essay “The Argument from Intimidation,” in her book The Virtue of Selfishness.) I’m not saying that professors ought to hide their own views, when they are relevant to the subject matter of the courses they’re teaching. On the contrary, one of my personal heroes is Professor Kurt Huber, the philosophy professor who served as mentor for “The White Rose,” a resistance movement among a small group of Munich students in Nazi Germany, who in his trial for high treason in 1943 defended his stance by saying that a professor – as the title means – is a scholar and a teacher who “unflinchingly professes his philosophical and political convictions.” (For more on Professor Huber and the White Rose, see Richard Hanser’s 1979 book, A Noble Treason: The Revolt of the Munich Students Against Hitler.) Professors are human beings and thus cannot avoid viewing the world through their own eyes, with their views colored by their own values and experiences. Professors, however, should be honest about their biases, and they should strive not to let their views influence their evaluation of students’ performances. (Because I’m fairly upfront about my own views, I typically warn my students that I do not expect them to parrot my views in their papers or on their exams: in other words, that I do not grade students based on their agreement or disagreement with me but on the quality of their work. Because so many other faculty do not try to be objective in this regard, I find I need to be explicit about policies, to help reassure my own students.) In addition, whatever their individual views, faculty should strive to have an honest, fair, and open discussion of competing views and perspectives in class. And they should be what I call ”epistemologically humble”: they should be always aware that they may be wrong. Finally, they should be supportive of the principle of ideological diversity and value those faculty colleagues who provide a perspective different from their own. One of the most ominous ways in which the left-liberal orthodoxy has influenced higher education has been in the proliferation of so-called “speech codes” on many college campuses. These codes, although ostensibly designed to foster civility and to protect individuals from harassment or intimidation, can have a devastating impact on freedom of speech, or on academic freedom, generally on campus. As applied at many schools, speech codes often result in the silencing of students or faculty whose conservative or libertarian views might be regarded as “racist,” “sexist,” “homophobic,” etc. and therefore in violation of the codes. (For more on the danger posed by such speech codes, see the excellent book by Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A. Silverglate, The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses (1998).) Thankfully, organizations like the National Association of Scholars and FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) have had much success in challenging these speech codes on many campuses. And, thanks to the negative publicity that the tyranny of “political correctness” has received in the news media in the past decade or so, the “P.C.” police have been put on the defensive on most campuses. (For more information on NAS or FIRE, see my “Links” page.) To conclude on a cautiously optimistic note, in addition to these successes, I can note that slowly but surely, more young faculty are being hired who have conservative or libertarian views that can genuinely diversify faculties. That’s partly due to the availability of scholarships, fellowships, and other support (non-financial as well as financial) for conservative or libertarian scholars, from organizations like the Heritage Foundation or the Institute for Humane Studies. At many schools, the faculty body is more diverse, ideologically speaking, than it was a generation ago. Nevertheless, the left-liberal orthodoxy remains so dominant on most campuses, there is a long way to go before college and university faculty really begin to think like America. Students, parents, and alumni should demand that in hiring new faculty members, colleges and universities ought to give a priority to real diversity – political and ideological diversity, and not just the superficial categories of race, sex, sexual orientation, etc. They also should demand that colleges and universities foster and protect true freedom of inquiry and discussion – that they provide their students a truly “liberal” education, in the best sense of the word.
| Link to this Entry | Posted Thursday, April 8, 2004 | Copyright David N. Mayer |
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