The Objectivist
ARE CONSERVATIVES BEING SHUT OUT OF THE ACADEMY?
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
2/15/06
At colleges and universities, conservatives are present in surprisingly few numbers. For example, in one 2004 survey of six academic fields (Anthropology, Economics, History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Sociology), the author found that Democrats outnumber Republicans 15 to 1 and estimated that there was an 8 to 1 ratio overall in the social sciences and humanities. The ratio in some fields is much higher: 30.2 to 1 in Anthropology and 28 to 1 in Sociology. This one-sided distribution of professors is also present at elite schools. For example, in 2000 the popular vote in America was roughly evenly divided with George W. Bush and Al Gore each getting 48% of the vote. In contrast, at Ivy League Schools, 80% voted for Gore whereas only 9% voted for Bush.
This effect is probably strengthened in part by features of these colleges or universities that tend to appeal to a leftist worldview. By a leftist worldview, I mean support for higher taxes and larger government, race and gender preferences, gun control, etc. Consider SUNY Fredonia. It has balkanized fields of studies, such as women’s studies, American Indian Studies, and multi-ethnic studies, and administrative departments, such as multicultural affairs and affirmative action, that will not appeal to the political right. It also offers classes such as Education 313: Cultural and Linguistic Diversity Field Experience (where students “incorporate multicultural concepts, including cultural awareness; tolerance and acceptance …”) and English 349: Feminist Theory. Any student in these classes who states his opposition to homosexuality, abortion, or welfare will undoubtedly get a chilly reception.
In addition, there is a strong push to diversify the faculty. This is sometimes implemented by hiring women and minority (specifically black and Hispanic) candidates who are not as good as their competitors. Since these same candidates tend, on average, to be farther left than their competitors, the hiring process tends to push the faculty to the left. So strong is the concern for white-male bias that the University Senate decided last academic year to require that the search committees have adequate numbers of women and racial/ethnic minorities. Apparently, members of the senate thought that a committee made up of only white males can’t be trusted to be fair.
The invited speakers have the same political orientation. This year, for example, Robert Kennedy spoke on environmentalism, but trashed Republicans and corporations along the way. The part of the Fredonia website in which faculty discuss ideas regularly features articles and emails arguing for leftist politics and promoting leftist causes. For example, this year there were calls to join protests of the Iraq War and constant criticisms of Bush for trying to cut taxes and restructure social security.
There is an important issue as to whether the lopsided distribution of leftist faculty and speakers and the presence of academic concentrations with clear-cut political agendas results from the intentional exclusion of conservatives or merely reflects the pool who choose to go into academia or academic administration. My guess is that both effects are present, so in the end it’s not clear whether conservatives are being shut out of the academy. Either way, this pattern hinders the free discussion of ideas and shows the concern for diversity to be nothing more than a mask for a political agenda.
***
The Constructivist
CONSERVATIVES SHUT OUT OF THE ACADEMY? PLEASE!
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
2/15/06
There’s a story going around that conservatives are being unfairly excluded from the U.S. higher education system. Such stories have been making the rounds for decades. Have you heard the one that “tenured radicals” have taken over American colleges and universities? Or the one that “thought police” are patrolling the groves of academe enforcing “political correctness”? Even before the days of Fox News and the conservative blogosphere, these stories were spread by conservative organizations like Accuracy in Academia, the Madison Center for Education Affairs, and the National Association of Scholars, journals like National Review, Commentary, and New Criterion, politicians like William Bennett and Lynne Cheney, authors like Allan Bloom, Dinesh D’Souza, and Roger Kimball, and pundits like George Will and Rush Limbaugh, most with help from conservative foundations like Olin, Bradley, Smith-Richardson, and Coors (see The Myth of Political Correctness and Higher Education under Fire for the details). The latest conservative to make a splash with such stories is David Horowitz, who leads a campaign for an Academic Bill of Rights.
As in all good stories, ironies abound. Just look at the ones on “discrimination against conservatives” and “lack of intellectual diversity” in higher education. Conservatives who have spent two generations fulminating against the rhetoric of victimization and raising the evidentiary bar on race- or gender-based discrimination have spent the last generation portraying themselves as victims of discrimination by leftist academics. Conservatives who supposedly believe in limited government, the benefits of competition, and the dangers of regulation are calling for government intervention on behalf of their ideas and careers. Indeed, sometimes it seems as if long-time conservative opponents of affirmative action are building a case for affirmative action on their own behalf. As Roger Bowen, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, points out in a recent issue of Academe, to set up a system whereby conservative professors are hired on the basis of “their political party preference…smacks of Iraqi universities under Saddam Hussein, Soviet universities under Stalin, or Chinese universities today.” Yet this is precisely what the bill reauthorizing the Higher Education Act that’s coming before Congress this year would put into place. Clearly, the conservatives running the federal government today (and their business and media allies) find stories like Horowitz’s quite compelling.
But are they true? Despite the methodological problems with many recent surveys of professors’ politics, it is true that on most faculties and in many academic disciplines there are more card-carrying Democrats than Republicans, more self-identified liberals than conservatives, and more Gore or Kerry voters than Bush voters. Potential causes for these numbers besides discrimination abound, however, from culture to individual choice to market forces to disciplinary history. And for pernicious effects to follow from them, professors would have to be regularly acting unprofessionally and students would have to be brainless, spineless, and/or gutless. Yet as William Scheuerman, president of United University Professions, recently pointed out in testimony before the Pennsylvania legislature, no student in the entire SUNY system has submitted a formal complaint over political bias among the faculty.
So the next time you hear stories about conservatives being shut out of American higher education, check some facts. If people, programs, and policies at SUNY Fredonia are so hopelessly leftist, how is it that we graduate so many moderate and conservative students? How is it that the Objectivist himself has gained tenure and won both campus- and system-wide awards at Fredonia? If conservatives are dissatisfied with their numbers and influence in the American academy, they should follow his example and join him. To do that, of course, they’ll have to demonstrate the same commitment to intellectual rigor, fairness toward opposing evidence, and consideration of multiple arguments so evident in his research and teaching—as it is among his colleagues.
26 February 2006
Debating Diversity in US Higher Education
The Objectivist
AGAINST AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AT FREDONIA
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
2/1/06
Members of the Fredonia community should be opposed to current attempts to diversify the SUNY Fredonia campus. Those who want to promote diversity usually want two things. First, they want a greater number of racial and ethnic minorities (usually blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans) and, in some cases, women. Second, this is to be done by lowering the standards for hiring and admission.
The reason these policies are a bad idea is that they sacrifice merit. Consider preferential treatment at competitive schools. When it comes to student performance at the competitive schools, the average black student ranks in the 23d percentile of the class and the average Hispanic ranked in the 35th percentile. Hence, replacing a black or Hispanic student admitted under these admission practices with one admitted without regard to race or ethnicity would likely produce a considerably better student. It gets worse. Further evidence that at elite schools black students perform less well than their likely replacement is that they drop out at twice and sometimes three times the rate of white students. This effect is also present in a broader array of colleges and universities. This is in part due to the lowering of standards for these groups.
Nor is there any clear benefit for white and Asian students from the lowered standards. From what I understand about the data, the studies do not indicate that majority students learn more academically when the beneficiaries of preferential treatment are put in their classroom.
Hence, preferential treatment likely leads to weaker students. A similar pattern can reasonably be expected with regard to faculty and staff. These effects are hardly surprising. If a liberal NBA team hired Jewish and Asian players despite their lowered abilities, it would hardly surprise anyone if these players were on average weak and if they hurt the team.
The proponents of affirmative action usually cite a list of benefits that they think warrant the presence of otherwise weaker students and faculty. Specifically, they claim that the programs produce role models, introduce new ideas, dispel stereotypes, promote integration, and equalize opportunity and wealth. The opponents claim that such programs increase resentment in more qualified individuals, reinforce stereotypes, balkanize the population, and cost money. It’s worth considering the last factor. Last year the combined salaries of the offices of affirmative action, multicultural affairs, and educational development program at SUNY Fredonia exceeded $260,000, although to be fair it’s not clear that all of this spending was related to diversity-related concerns. It’s hard to believe that this money couldn’t have been better spent on hiring more faculty or attracting talented students. The proponents need evidence that diversity will produce the promised benefits. Other than a bunch of anecdotes, they don’t have any. Let us, however, imagine that they did. What evidence do they have that the benefits outweigh the merit-related losses such as efficiency? None. When we choose a surgeon or lawyer we want the best we can get. We should choose faculty and students in the same way.
***
The Constructivist
WHY DIVERSITY IS GOOD FOR FREDONIA
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
2/1/06
My colleague the Objectivist would have us believe that diversifying SUNY Fredonia entails sacrificing merit, lowering standards, and incurring other costs that outweigh its benefits. For support, he cherry-picks data from The Shape of the River, an analysis of affirmative action policies in higher education that emphasizes their benefits for American society, to make it seem as if the evidence is on his side. It isn’t. In fact, diversity and merit are not competing values; to the extent that they conflict at elite schools, this actually benefits Fredonia. We have been hiring top-notch faculty and seeking out excellent students; over the past decade, the size, academic quality, and diversity of our entering classes have been growing.
The Objectivist’s mistake is assuming that national debates and data on elite colleges and universities provide the best evidence to make his case against affirmative action here stick. But has he done research comparing Fredonia faculty with finalists in their search pools or comparing Fredonia student and alumni achievements with those who didn’t get into Fredonia or got in but chose to go to other schools? Without this evidence, he has to rely on parallels, probabilities, and expectations. Of course, studies like The Shape of the River and Karabel’s The Chosen provide valuable insights into admissions practices in the Ivy League and its closest competitors. But what about the vast majority of the 3000-plus accredited U.S. colleges and universities, where the vast majority of American students work and learn? What does diversity mean for them?
SUNY Fredonia, like other public regional universities, draws the majority of its students from its own and neighboring counties. Fredonia is among the best of its kind in the northeast, but only the top quarter of a typical entering class here would have a chance to get into a Stanford or Williams-like school—and a slim one at that. Certainly, the very best of my students here would excel anywhere, but the quality of the ‘average Fredonia student’ is closely tied to the quality of learning that takes place in the schools of Chautauqua and nearby counties. To help improve that quality, Fredonia is demanding more of its students seeking certification to teach in NY schools, but this project will take decades to produce results. To broaden our talent pool, we have been recruiting in new places within and outside western NY. By encouraging good students in the reservations, small towns, suburbs, and cities of New York to apply to Fredonia, we are improving the odds that more such students will choose to attend here. This is a form of diversification that increases competition and raises standards, but it usually goes unrecognized in debates over diversifying higher education.
But getting the best students we can from all over New York is only a first step. Diversity at Fredonia also means ensuring that all students develop skills at scrutinizing diverse sources and arguments and interacting with diverse people. Too often students’ life experience is limited to family, friends, a street, a neighborhood, a school, a clique. College should be a time for students to go beyond these familiar boundaries and find out who they want to become and how they can best contribute to society; providing them with a diverse group of peers and mentors to help them while finding their way is central to the mission of any university. With changing state and national demographics, along with increased transnational movement, exchange, and competition, it’s particularly important for a school like Fredonia to prepare all its students for participation and leadership in today’s and tomorrow’s world. For now and the foreseeable future, affirmative action is a useful and valuable tool to help fulfill this crucial aspect of SUNY Fredonia’s mission.
AGAINST AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AT FREDONIA
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
2/1/06
Members of the Fredonia community should be opposed to current attempts to diversify the SUNY Fredonia campus. Those who want to promote diversity usually want two things. First, they want a greater number of racial and ethnic minorities (usually blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans) and, in some cases, women. Second, this is to be done by lowering the standards for hiring and admission.
The reason these policies are a bad idea is that they sacrifice merit. Consider preferential treatment at competitive schools. When it comes to student performance at the competitive schools, the average black student ranks in the 23d percentile of the class and the average Hispanic ranked in the 35th percentile. Hence, replacing a black or Hispanic student admitted under these admission practices with one admitted without regard to race or ethnicity would likely produce a considerably better student. It gets worse. Further evidence that at elite schools black students perform less well than their likely replacement is that they drop out at twice and sometimes three times the rate of white students. This effect is also present in a broader array of colleges and universities. This is in part due to the lowering of standards for these groups.
Nor is there any clear benefit for white and Asian students from the lowered standards. From what I understand about the data, the studies do not indicate that majority students learn more academically when the beneficiaries of preferential treatment are put in their classroom.
Hence, preferential treatment likely leads to weaker students. A similar pattern can reasonably be expected with regard to faculty and staff. These effects are hardly surprising. If a liberal NBA team hired Jewish and Asian players despite their lowered abilities, it would hardly surprise anyone if these players were on average weak and if they hurt the team.
The proponents of affirmative action usually cite a list of benefits that they think warrant the presence of otherwise weaker students and faculty. Specifically, they claim that the programs produce role models, introduce new ideas, dispel stereotypes, promote integration, and equalize opportunity and wealth. The opponents claim that such programs increase resentment in more qualified individuals, reinforce stereotypes, balkanize the population, and cost money. It’s worth considering the last factor. Last year the combined salaries of the offices of affirmative action, multicultural affairs, and educational development program at SUNY Fredonia exceeded $260,000, although to be fair it’s not clear that all of this spending was related to diversity-related concerns. It’s hard to believe that this money couldn’t have been better spent on hiring more faculty or attracting talented students. The proponents need evidence that diversity will produce the promised benefits. Other than a bunch of anecdotes, they don’t have any. Let us, however, imagine that they did. What evidence do they have that the benefits outweigh the merit-related losses such as efficiency? None. When we choose a surgeon or lawyer we want the best we can get. We should choose faculty and students in the same way.
***
The Constructivist
WHY DIVERSITY IS GOOD FOR FREDONIA
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
2/1/06
My colleague the Objectivist would have us believe that diversifying SUNY Fredonia entails sacrificing merit, lowering standards, and incurring other costs that outweigh its benefits. For support, he cherry-picks data from The Shape of the River, an analysis of affirmative action policies in higher education that emphasizes their benefits for American society, to make it seem as if the evidence is on his side. It isn’t. In fact, diversity and merit are not competing values; to the extent that they conflict at elite schools, this actually benefits Fredonia. We have been hiring top-notch faculty and seeking out excellent students; over the past decade, the size, academic quality, and diversity of our entering classes have been growing.
The Objectivist’s mistake is assuming that national debates and data on elite colleges and universities provide the best evidence to make his case against affirmative action here stick. But has he done research comparing Fredonia faculty with finalists in their search pools or comparing Fredonia student and alumni achievements with those who didn’t get into Fredonia or got in but chose to go to other schools? Without this evidence, he has to rely on parallels, probabilities, and expectations. Of course, studies like The Shape of the River and Karabel’s The Chosen provide valuable insights into admissions practices in the Ivy League and its closest competitors. But what about the vast majority of the 3000-plus accredited U.S. colleges and universities, where the vast majority of American students work and learn? What does diversity mean for them?
SUNY Fredonia, like other public regional universities, draws the majority of its students from its own and neighboring counties. Fredonia is among the best of its kind in the northeast, but only the top quarter of a typical entering class here would have a chance to get into a Stanford or Williams-like school—and a slim one at that. Certainly, the very best of my students here would excel anywhere, but the quality of the ‘average Fredonia student’ is closely tied to the quality of learning that takes place in the schools of Chautauqua and nearby counties. To help improve that quality, Fredonia is demanding more of its students seeking certification to teach in NY schools, but this project will take decades to produce results. To broaden our talent pool, we have been recruiting in new places within and outside western NY. By encouraging good students in the reservations, small towns, suburbs, and cities of New York to apply to Fredonia, we are improving the odds that more such students will choose to attend here. This is a form of diversification that increases competition and raises standards, but it usually goes unrecognized in debates over diversifying higher education.
But getting the best students we can from all over New York is only a first step. Diversity at Fredonia also means ensuring that all students develop skills at scrutinizing diverse sources and arguments and interacting with diverse people. Too often students’ life experience is limited to family, friends, a street, a neighborhood, a school, a clique. College should be a time for students to go beyond these familiar boundaries and find out who they want to become and how they can best contribute to society; providing them with a diverse group of peers and mentors to help them while finding their way is central to the mission of any university. With changing state and national demographics, along with increased transnational movement, exchange, and competition, it’s particularly important for a school like Fredonia to prepare all its students for participation and leadership in today’s and tomorrow’s world. For now and the foreseeable future, affirmative action is a useful and valuable tool to help fulfill this crucial aspect of SUNY Fredonia’s mission.
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