We previously discussed how surveys at universities show a virtual purging of conservative and Republican faculty members. Last year, the Harvard Crimson noted that the university had virtually eliminated Republicans from most departments but that the lack of diversity was not a problem. Now, a new survey conducted by the Harvard Crimson shows that more than three-quarters of Harvard Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty respondents identify as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Only 2.5% identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.”
A recent Gallup poll stated, “Roughly equal proportions of U.S. adults identified as conservative (36%) and moderate (35%) in Gallup polling throughout 2022, while about a quarter identified as liberal (26%).”
Compare that to this survey, which is consistent with many other schools. Nationally, less than a third of Americans identify as “liberal” but Harvard and other schools show over twice that percentage on the faculty. That does not happen randomly. It takes a consistent culture of intolerance for opposing viewpoints. Indeed, there is a greater percentage of faculty who identify as “very liberal” than citizens overall identify as “liberal.” Less than three percent identify as “conservative’ rather than 35% nationally.
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.
No wonder Turley is trying to take on Joe Patrice from “Above the Law”. Here’s Joe’s post, dated yesterday:
“Remember when Jonathan Turley argued that Martin Luther King Jr. was never arrested for his civil rights protests? We all had a good laugh at the time, but perhaps it’s prudent to consider the possibility that the Turley we see on TV these days is actually an evil Turley from the Mirror Universe dropped into our timeline. It would explain the MLK gaffe. It would explain why his impeachment testimony directly contradicts the testimony he gave in 1998. And it would explain why he thinks Joe Biden served as vice president in 2018.
Yesterday, the pride of George Washington University Law School committed over 1,000 words to paper explicating his latest legal theory to nail Hunter Biden. It’s a very serious piece and not at all surgically designed to hit buzzwords that might pique the interest of milk toast Fox News hosts looking to give five minutes to the attention-starved law professor.
His airtight legal case begins…
In 2018, Hunter Biden’s world was collapsing.
The New York Times had run a story on one of his shady deals with the Chinese and his father, then vice president, was pulled into the vortex.
“Then vice president.” This is an article that the New York Post published on Monday at 10:47 p.m. The paper would not correct this historical error to “the former” until Tuesday at 10:15 p.m. It took almost 24 hours for a major news publication to fact-check that Joe Biden was not Donald Trump’s vice president. Do they have any editors at all over there? This is the same paper that metastasized the claim that homeless vets were being kicked out of housing to make way for illegal immigrants in what ultimately turned out to be an easily verifiable lie. Get it together over there.
Turley’s website has not yet corrected the claim.
That might be because Turley realizes correcting the blatant error doesn’t resolve the underlying rot in the article. Turley’s central thesis is that uncovered messages among the Biden family suggest that Hunter Biden engaged in illegal influence peddling in 2018. Changing the second sentence of the article to acknowledge that Joe Biden was a private citizen in 2018 might avoid botching a historical fact, but it also dooms the remaining 1,000-some-odd words.
If Biden’s son leaned on his dad’s reputation to close business deals in 2018, it’s a reminder that the revolving door of D.C. political power reeks, but it’s not illegal. That’s why most Hunter Biden truthers fixate on allegations firmly anchored before January 2017.
Turley must have thought he was a very special boy for being the first one to craft a legal theory based on these new 2018 messages! In his haste, he breezed over the inconvenient reality of linear time that apparently held back the rest of his fellow travelers.
To be entirely clear, someone who fancies themself a legal scholar sat down at a keyboard and banged out a theory of criminal liability predicated on a false assumption of fact and then broadcast that to the world. At least the ChatGPT hallucination lawyer thought he’d conducted cursory research.
Or Turley is, in fact, from that universe where Stouffer’s actually makes stuffing. Has anyone checked to see if he’s ever sported a goatee?
Bidens offer ‘safe harbor’ to Hunter as he flails over scandalous reports, new messages show [NY Post]”
Nearly 10,000 photos from Hunter Biden’s laptop published online
The photos, spanning from 2008 to 2019, are available on BidenLaptopMedia.com.
Nearly 10,000 photos from first son Hunter Biden’s laptop are available to the public through a website that launched Thursday.
BidenLaptopMedia.com.
Jonathan: You are again crying crocodile tears because libertarians and conservatives are under represented at Harvard’s Arts and Sciences, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences departments. You think that’s because there is a “consistent culture of intolerance for opposing viewpoints”. I think there is another reason. Studies show libertarians and conservatives have a difficult relationship with science. You admit that conservative candidates are rejected because they are “insufficiently intellectually rigorous”. What does that mean? If a candidate believes the earth is only 6 thousand years old, that human life begins at conception, that Covid-19 vaccines are ineffective, that questions human evolution, or that fossil fuels are not causing climate change–then you can understand why peers on candidate selection committees might view a conservative credentials with skepticism. Do you really think candidates with these “opposing views” should be given serious consideration? The problem is that libertarians and conservatives are generally anti-science. That’s probably why they are rejected. You can’t get a teaching job if you reject the consensus of the scientific community.
That said, what happened to Tara Reade– the former Senate staffer who claimed Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993? House Republicans wanted her to testify as part of their witch hunt against the Biden family. Guess what? Reade has just defected to Russia! James Comer is obviously disappointed. Reade was interviewed on “Sputnik”, the Russian news outlet that supports Putin. With Reade at the interview was Marina Butina–a convicted Russian who served time in a US jail but is now a member of the Russian parliament. Reade says she defected because she “didn’t want to walk home and walk into a cage or be killed”.
The Q is why Putin would allow Reade to defect to Russia? I have my own theory. Putin still supports Trump, a fellow “authoritarian”, and would like Trump to regain the US presidency next year. Putin would like to use Reade as a propaganda tool to attack Biden. Shades of 2016 when Putin operatives flooded the US presidential campaign with disinformation. So from Russia Reade will make all sorts of wild claims–that if she remained in the US and testified against Biden she might find herself in a “cage or be killed”. Bizarre! But that is apparently what we are going see a lot of if Trump gets the GOP nomination!
“If a candidate believes the earth is only 6 thousand years old, that human life begins at conception, that Covid-19 vaccines are ineffective, that questions human evolution, or that fossil fuels are not causing climate change–then you can understand why peers on candidate selection committees might view a conservative credentials with skepticism. ”
And yet the left can’t tell you what a woman or man is. Thanks for the laugh.
The earth is much more than 6 thousand years old. And, human life DOES begin at conception. By following a patently absurdly erroneous statement with one of scientific truth, logic flies out the window.
What does that mean? If a candidate believes the earth is only 6 thousand years old, that human life begins at conception, that Covid-19 vaccines are ineffective, that questions human evolution, or that fossil fuels are not causing climate change
Which candidate believes the earth is 6 thousand years old
mammalian life does begin at conception.
The covid vaccine NEVER immunized the population from viral infection.
Are you debating evolution, or natural selection?
iowan2, life precedes conception since both the egg and the sperm must be viable, i.e., alive at conception or fertilization cannot occur. I recommend reading some 8th grade biology.
Benson, I recommend you read a medical dictionary
Good God – it took a lot of work to throw so many straw men into a single paragraph. Is thinking that the earth is 6000 years old and questioning the Covid vaccine’s effectiveness the primary characteristics of conservative thought? Just to slay your straw men – there are no real scientific debates about the age of the earth on either the left or the right. Covid vaccines are fairly ineffective, an inevitable consequence of the inability of the human immune system to develop durable antibodies against coronaviruses. And when protectable human life begins is an ethical and legal question, not a scientific one.
As Turley points out liberals sometimes claim intellectual superiority as a reason for shutting out conservatives. However, has anyone else noticed how liberals almost always only make their case simply by labeling conservative with broad nonspecific names like racist, white supremacist or some sort of x-phobe? Rarely, if ever, do they state facts to prove their points and when they do it is usually based on some sort of gross, out-context, distortion or exaggeration of the truth. And yet these people expect us to regard them as intellectually superior. In truth, they tend to be overly emotional, short sighted, shallow minded, virtue signaling narcissists.
Harvard graduate, Senator Elizabeth Warren, aka “Pocahontas” picks a fight with Senator Chuck Schumer and President Uncle Joe Biden over the government default Senate vote.
White eyes scalp worth many wampums.
Chief, are there any American Indians in Scandinavia?
Conservative Academic Jonathan Turley Baffled By Young Women
Since the Dobbs decision, Professor Turley has written numerous columns expressing dismay that female college students are hostile to ‘pro-life’ information booths on university campuses.
Turley believes that young women should respect the views of those seeking to take away their reproductive rights. As though religious extremism is something we should tolerate!
Would Turley expect Blacks to respect the views of red state legislators seeking to restrict voting rights? Well, Turley kind of does.
Republicans have devoted considerable efforts to restricting voting rights in red states all over the country and Turley has scarcely complained.
Yet Turley is bitterly baffled that universities feel no obligation to empower red state views at Ivy League level schools.
Hans, Turley’s silence on many subjects that his Trump base does not want to read or see speaks volumes.
Waaaaaahhhmbulance!!!!!!
Many women are already pro-life because they believe the fetus is a human being. That is not an illogical view, especially given what science has learned about fetal development.
Polls show that a majority of blacks already support voter ID, thus already respecting the view of many red state legislators.
And the real reason universities don’t engage in debate with conservatives is that they know they can’t win a real debate.
Turley believes that young women should respect the views of those seeking to take away their reproductive rights.
That is not the reasoning behind our hosts position.
As I am a conservative, I am amazed that leftist so hate the constitution, the reject governance by self rule. Meaning the people create and enforce the laws the People agree to.
All that Hobbs did is re-enforce this Nations Foundational system of Federalism. Where the federal govt is weak and confined to those power enumerated in the Constitution.
I am amazed that people who celebrate 5 men stripping away the power of local control, can than be upset with 6 men and women re-establish constitutional norms, by returning power to the people. NOT 5 un-elected oracles in black robes.
That Harvard’s faculty is predominately liberal need not be a concern unless it collectively and positively asserts doctrines or opinions unsupported by argument or evidence. Unless it also predominates in facilitating the spread of misinformation to a student public that overwhelmingly comprises people who don’t think much about politics and policy. Because university student bodies are a microcosm of society as a whole where most are ill-informed about politics and policy, they are ripe for a dogmatist’s harvesting.
Matthew Yglesias is a prominent liberal political commentator who deserves credit for recognizing that prestigious liberals in positions of authority are far from immune to that which they are often quick to accuse their less liberal counterparts of doing. As he shares in a recent article posted to his blog, Yglesias gives readers pause on what the real concerns are in having dogmatists disseminate misinformation to unsophisticated persons.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/misinformation-isnt-just-on-the-right-214
Which world is Harvard preparing students for?
Is it the world of the Communist Manifesto or the Constitution of the United States?
Is it “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs?”
Or is it freedom and self reliance, free-enterprise and free markets, in conjunction with the severely limited and restricted government of Article 1, Section 8?
The U.S. Supreme Court has abandoned the Constitution, why not Harvard?
The reason? Keep it simple. Transparently obvious. Education, closely allied with intelligence, is the dividing line in America today…
Meh.
They want to live in an echo chamber, have at it.
Just ignore their whining, crying, hysterical outbursts as one would a spoiled child.
Just scroll past.
Or, as one commenter mentions, just laugh at the clowns.
I am shocked, shocked I say, the number was so high at Harvard!
When someone says they have a degree from a Ivy league university, I say, “Meh.”
Does not mean what it used to. Just means you paid a lot to get indoctrinated.
Farmer, in your neck of the woods, no one’s impressed with Harvard.
Hans,
Yep.
Pretty sure more than a few of my livestock are smarter than some recent Harvard grads.
At least the hogs knows what a “woman” is.
“Reality has a liberal bias.”
The Communist Manifesto has a liberal bias.
The U.S. Constitution is distinctly conservative.
One would guess that intellectually superior individuals would know that.
Why do liberal communists require dictatorship?
Why do liberal communists fear freedom and infinitesimal government?
With this survey and others where media self-identify as 90%+ Party-D membership, how do these people have the gall to call themselves ‘victims’ and blame the ‘other side’ for this country’s problems?
Since the MAGA cult is un-moored from reality, and turned themselves into anti-democratic, pro-autocratic, seditionist wing, the old school republicans have suffered. When the term republican is used these days, it’s not your daddy’s republican party anymore. MAGA world have also perverted the words conservative and republican to such extremes that people have come to see what they really are.
” anti-democratic, pro-autocratic, seditionist wing,”
===================
Back up one of those allegations.
January 6th 2021. 1.They tried to stop a constitutional duty of congress. 2. Trump loves dictators. 3. See number 1
Nancy Pelosi and her cabal of criminal conspirators are responsible for the Fedsurrection.
Only dupes like FishWings believe the J6 lies.
I want to thank you for taking the time to write us all the way from Moscow Russia, Putin must be so proud.
That comment was for Anonymousich.
Stalin must be so proud of you.
Why demonstrate ignorance, anonymous?
Thank you, Fish Wings.
Turley fails to acknowledge that even Ronald Reagan is a moderate by today’s Republican standards. Bob Dole and John McCain lived long enough to be labeled Rhinos.
Yet Turley pretends conservatives are still in the Gerald Ford era when Republicans were generally quite reasonable.
Reagan is a moderate in today’s terms ? Really ?
Reagan’s policies and actions were:
major tax cuts
large-scale deregulation
weakening labor unions
Pro-life,
anti-lgbtq
anti-busing.
pro school prayer.
anti-drug.
supply side economics
laissez-faire
federal income tax rates were lowered from 70% to 28%
free trade
Reagan proposed a “North American accord”, in which goods could move freely throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico
Reagan understood free trade as including the use of tariffs to protect American jobs and industry against foreign competition. He imposed a temporary 100% tariff on Japanese electronics as well as other tariffs on a variety of industrial products,
Reagan was opposed to socialized healthcare, universal health care, or publicly funded health care.
Reagan was in favor of making Social Security benefits voluntary
Reagan was for a limited government and against the idea of a welfare state
Reagan dismissed acid rain and proposals to halt it as burdensome to industry.
Reagan was a supporter of capital punishment
He opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964[82] on the grounds that specific provisions of the law infringed upon the individual’s right to private property and to do business with whomever they chose, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on constitutional grounds,
In 1988, he vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act,
Reagan’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as well as his Justice Department, prosecuted fewer civil rights cases per year than they had under his predecessor
Reagan engaged in a policy of Constructive engagement with South Africa despite apartheid due to the nation being a valuable anti-communist ally. He opposed pressure from Congress and his party for tougher sanctions until his veto was overridden.[97] South African Archbishop and anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu called Reagan’s policy as “immoral, evil, and un-Christian” as Nazism and lamented that the president’s administration was overall “an unmitigated disaster” for black people
“Sometimes I can’t help but feel the first amendment is being turned on its head. Because ask yourselves: Can it be true that the first amendment can permit Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen to march on public property, advocate the extermination of people of the Jewish faith, and the subjugation of blacks, while the same amendment forbids our children from saying a prayer in school?”
As President, Reagan removed controls on oil prices, resulting in lower prices and an oil glut.
Are you not paying attention to the Democrat party of today?
Today’s Democrats are the extremists.
Biden’s policies are extremist policies.
National socialists (Nazis) are far-left, on the same end of the spectrum as Communists and Democrats today.
Democrats today are the domestic terrorists. They are the fascists.
Do not give up the ship to the tyrannical left.
The left has no standing thinking they are for “democracy”.. Among other things, you literally advocate for your idiot president to put in jail his competition.
“I frankly do not understand why professors want to maintain this one-sided environment in hiring.”
Professor, they are not authentic. They have a faith-based religion known as leftism, and at heart, they are cowards who are afraid not to follow the pack.
In years past, there were more classical liberals on college campuses, so they put up with the faith-based leftist ideology rising on campus. They didn’t care about numbers, only ideas. When the leftist’s numbers rose, the leftists squeezed out the classical liberals and threatened the rest.
Progressives are authoritarian, and in due time, if they maintain their present control, you too will be forced to convert to their faith-based religion or cease to exist on the college campus.
S. Meyer
I think in order to figure out of the import of this survey I would have to ask some Professor like Jonathan Turley how he would answer the question. I would categorize him as “very conservative” based on 98 percent of his blog posts attacking Biden and liberals. I doubt he would answer a survey that way though. So the survey probably is not valid in identifying many Professors’ actual political beliefs, as opposed to what they tell themselves.
I would categorize him as “very conservative” based on 98 percent of his blog posts attacking Biden and liberals.
That would make you 100% wrong.
Our good host is always guided by the Constitution, and rule of law.
He is not attacking Biden and liberals, he is attacking their actions. Their actions are in constant conflict with the Constitution, or the rule of law.
If you find some outliers Please bring them to the forum for examination.
A great example is the lefts favorite hobby horse, ‘gun control’. Prof Turley has chronicled the lefts ceaseless assault on civil rights, and the Courts swatting them down as an UN-constitutional stripping of citizens enumerated powers. What you see is our host, toeing the conservative agenda, when the clear facts show a Law Professor, guided by his education and experience, supporting the rights of man, and the rule of law.
The question I keep asking. How can a person like you not see the TRUTH?
Professor Turley Writes:
Patrice regularly calls those with opposing views “racists,” including Chief Justice John Roberts because of his objection to race-based criteria in admissions
……………………………………….
Here Professor Turley defends Justice Roberts’ objection to race-based criteria in admissions. Yet Turley most certainly believes that Universities should strive for political diversity with regards to faculty members. How ironic!
Hans – there is no irony. Diversity based on ideas is desirable in an institution dedicated to thought. Diversity in color and other physical features is irrelevant in that environment.
Turley most certainly believes that Universities should strive for political diversity with regards to faculty members. How ironic!
University used to cultivate a diversity of thought.
Now they DEMAND group think, and diversity of skin color. NOT cultures, or ethnicities. We see this with limits on the number of Jews and Asians admitted to the top colleges.
Since when is irony agreeing with someone on some things and not others ?
Regardless, the answer is to get government out of college education.
Colleges can discriminate or not against blacks or for them as they choose so long as they are not collecting money from government.
Government may not discriminate on the basis of race – neither favor or oppose.
So professor Turley, are you willing to say whether you are conservative or very conservative?
We have many problems in this country with many causes, but is there one root cause?
When you think you have the answer, test it. If that cause goes away, do all our problems go away? If not, then it isn’t at the root.
Olly,
The judicial branch is our only defense against the other two branches which, due to human nature, will forever try to gain power and remove our inalienable rights. Without proper education, the judicial branch will fall and so with it, our Bill of Rights.
Without proper education,
Jim, I agree with the setup, how do you define “proper” education?
Olly,
In this particular instance, civics and individualism. Driving the importance of the Bill of Rights and self reliance into kids heads.
Excellent Jim! You’ve nailed two of the three I had in mind. I country of citizens that are civics literate and self-reliant would give us an effective 3rd leg of this stool: Actively engaged in how are government functions.
There’s a simple explanation – academia was taken over by acknowledged communists in the 1970s when SDS and black power radicals were hired as professors instead of being prosecuted for treason during the Vietnam War. When I say “communists,” I mean that literally. They stated that they were communist and, at least in some cases, were being supported by North Vietnam, Cuba and the USSR.