We have been discussing the virtual elimination of Republican and conservative scholars from many faculties despite the fact that roughly half of the country regularly votes for Republicans or conservative causes. Now a new survey by The College Fix of 65 departments in various states found that 33 do not have a single registered Republican. For these departments, the systemic elimination of Republican faculty has finally reached zero, but there is still little recognition of the crushing bias reflected in these numbers. Others, as discussed below, have defended the elimination of conservative or Republican faculty as entirely justified and commendable. Overall, registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans by a margin of over 10-1.
The survey found 61 Republican professors across 65 departments at seven universities while it also found 667 professors identified as Democrats based on their political party registration or voting history.
The survey covered The Ohio State University, University of Nebraska-Omaha, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Georgia, Cornell University, University of Oklahoma and the University of Alaska-Anchorage.
While there may be a couple professors missed on either side of this ideological divide, most faculty will privately admit that it is rare to find self-identified Republicans or conservatives on many faculties. Most faculties are overwhelmingly Democratic and liberal. Diversity generally runs from the left to the far left.
Another survey found that only nine percent of law professors identified as conservative.
The virtual absence of Republican or conservative members on many faculties are just shrugged off by many academics. It is the subject of my recent publication in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. The article entitled “Harm and Hegemony: The Decline of Free Speech in the United States.”
Notably, a 2017 study found 15 percent of faculties were conservative. This is the result of years of faculty replicating their own ideological preferences and eradicating the diversity that once existed on faculties. When I began teaching in the 1980s, faculties were undeniably liberal but contained a significant number of conservative and libertarian professors. It made for a healthy and balanced intellectual environment. Today such voices are relatively rare and faculties have become political echo chambers, leaving conservatives and Republican students increasingly afraid to speak openly in class.
The trend is the result of hiring systems where conservative or libertarian scholars are often rejected as simply “insufficiently intellectually rigorous” or “not interesting” in their scholarship. This can clearly be true with individual candidates but the wholesale reduction of such scholars shows a more systemic problem. Faculty insist that there is no bias against conservatives, but the obviously falling number of conservative faculty speaks for itself.
The editors of the legal site Above the Law have repeatedly swatted down objections to the loss of free speech and viewpoint diversity in the media and academia. In a recent column, they mocked those of us who objected to the virtual absence of conservative or libertarian faculty members at law schools.
Senior editor Joe Patrice defended “predominantly liberal faculties” based on the fact that liberal views reflect real law as opposed to junk law. (Patrice regularly calls those with opposing views “racists,” including Chief Justice John Roberts because of his objection to race-based criteria in admissions as racial discrimination). He explained that hiring a conservative academic was akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism (or that the sun orbits the earth) to teach at a university.
It is that easy. You simply declare that conservative views shared by a majority of the Supreme Court and roughly half of the population are not acceptable to be taught.
I frankly do not understand why professors want to maintain this one-sided environment in hiring. I was drawn to academia by the diversity of viewpoints and intellectual challenges on campuses. School publications and conferences today often run from the left to the far left. We have discussed a long line of incidents on this blog of conservative faculties being targeted by cancel campaigns with tepid support from their colleagues or administrations. We have become the face of intellectual orthodoxy and it is reflected in these numbers.
In one sense, Joe Patrice is right: one shouldn’t hire people who teach creationism in a biology course, nor someone who believes in geocentrism (or that the sun orbits the earth) to teach astrophysics. The problem, though, is that the entirety of post-modernism – and all the variations on critical theory and Marxism – are simply the creationism and geocentricism of the social sciences. This also includes the legal positivism that he seemingly embraces. In fact, the real problem with the Joe Patrices of this world is that, far from being Galileo standing up to the Inquisition, they are the Inquisition crushing Galileo. Of course, they don’t see it that way. The proof, though, lies in the utter illogic of their arguments, complete lack of proof, and repeated argument from authority and use of ad hominem. What is required, is to take them at their word and note that their theory of law (and indeed of everything else) is simply wrong.
Honestly, I’m shocked that 32 departments in the study would have >=1 Republican professor. That professor would probably be frightened to say a word about his or her beliefs on campus.
Please publish this in the MSM.
“Republicans deny Climate Change,”
The climate has been changing for 4B years.
In the past 250 years the rate of warming has been about 1.2C/century.
That is about the same rate we have seen from 1979-2022.
There has been almost no warming since 1998.
Today Every single one of 100+ IPCC Climate model is running much hotter than reality and has been for years.
It is highly unlikely the planet will be 1C warmer in 2100 than it is today.
It has warmed about .5C in my lifetime – and the only thing I have noticed is that the world is much greener.
” deny elections,”
Those on the left still deny Trump won in 2016.
“deny the need for gun control”
Correct – there is no need. The most dangerous places in the country have the most significant gun control.
“deny the need for healthcare”
I have no idea what you are talking about – Humans NEED food, water, shelter. Pretty much everything else is a WANT.
We want healthcare – and we are entitled to as much healthcare are each of us is prepared to afford.
Further any other way assures that the healthcare will cost more.
“deny that tax cuts lead to bigger deficits”
Will a 100% tax rate bring in more revenue than a 50% tax rate ?
Asuming you are smart enough to know that it will not, then you already know that the revenue from taxes is not linear it is a curve, and somewhere it MUST slope down. Christine Romer Obama’s CEA found that the revenue optimizing maximum tax rate is about 33% of income.
Higher than that and tax revenues start to decline.
I would note that US tax revenue’s increased after Tax cuts.
Deficits increase because spending increases.
“and deny that abortion pills are safe.”
????
Take whatever pill you want – I do not give a schiff. I do not care if you mainline arsenic – so long as you do not force YOUR choices on me.
“The point is that Republicans are not just anti-science, but ANTI-INTELLECTUAL.”
Republicans are absolutely anti-intellectual – but they are very PRO Science.
They understand things like – the IPCC does not support the insane claims of warmists – and the IPCC has been 100% wrong (too hot).
That in REAL SCIENCE – when you have been wrong all the time in everything for 20 years – you revise your hypothesis – not double down.
That a 2.5 std dev deviation between reality and climate models means the Models are BADLY WRONG – and a REAL scientist would go back to the drawing board.
They understand that you can not tax and spend forever – that eventually the chickens come home to roost.
That if you reduce the production of gas, the price will rise – it is called the law of supply and demand.
They understand that people can spend their own wealth more wisely than government can.
They understand that a mask with a laborator effectiveness of 77% is not going to work against a disease with a transmission rate of 2.4-3.8.
They understand that no nation has EVER defeated a respirtatory virus once it has a foothold.
They understand that if you kill the economy – you kill people just as dead as if they were infected by a virus.
They understand that if you finance 5T in spending by printing more money – you will get inflation.
They understand that 2+2=4 – and lots of other math.
They “intellectuals” do not understand these and many many other things.
“Therefore Republicans have little to offer as academics.”
That is correct – Republicans have nothing to offer a world where people live disconnected from the real world, where things that are false or do not work can be called science.
College? Universities? Those are relics of the past. Today, those institutions from time long gone have been replaced by Leftist Indocrtrination Entities (or “LIE”s). Intellectual discourse is dead.
So, there should be no surprise that LIEs only hire previously indoctrinated products from LIE assembly line. And any student that doesn’t fall into line with the LIE’s programs will be targeted and converted. If not, they will be destroyed.
Typical products from the LIE assembly lines. They will be “teaching” your grandchildren one day.
JFeldman, that was so painful to watch. Our public education system was a failure.
All of them can vote.