Below is my column in The Hill on the recent poll of university professors in this election. It speaks volumes about the composition of higher education today.Here is the column:The 2024 presidential election is shaping up to be the single most divisive election in our history. The public is split right down the middle with almost every group splintering between former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. There is, however, one group that seems almost unanimous: professors.
A new survey of more than 1,000 professors shows that seventy-eight percent will vote for Harris and only eight percent will vote for Trump. Other than a poll of the Democratic National Committee, there are few groups that are more reliably Democratic or liberal.
For anyone in higher education, the result is hardly surprising. The poll tracks what we already know about the gradual purging of departments around the country of conservative, libertarian, and dissenting professors.
Indeed, the lack of political and intellectual diversity may be turning some donors and even applicants from higher education. With failing revenue and applications, universities are starting to re-embrace commitments to neutrality on political issues.
Some, however, are doubling down on advocacy and orthodoxy.
In an op-ed this week, Wesleyan University President Michael Roth called on universities to reject “institutional neutrality” and officially support Kamala Harris. Calling neutrality “a retreat,” Roth compared Trump’s election to the rise of the Nazis and insisted that schools should “give up the popular pastime of criticizing the woke and call out instead the overt racism.”
He added, without a hint of self-awareness or irony, that “we should not be silenced because of fears of appearing partisan.”
In my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss the intolerance in higher education and surveys showing that many departments no longer have a single Republican as faculties replicate their own views and values.
So not only are professors voting en mass for Harris, Roth would have the schools themselves work openly for her election.
That ideological echo chamber is hardly an enticement for many who are facing rising high tuition costs with relatively little hope of being taught by faculty with opposing views.
There are obviously many reasons why faculty may reject Trump specifically, but this poll also tracks more generally the self-identification and contributions of faculty.
A Georgetown study recently found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools — almost identical to the percentage of Trump voters found in the new poll.
Notably, Roth acknowledged that the current lack of intellectual diversity in higher education had become so extreme that there might be a need for “an affirmative action program for conservatives.”
However, he and others continue to saw feverishly on the branch upon which we all sit in higher education in calling for even greater political advocacy.
There is little evidence that faculty members have any interest in changing this culture or creating greater diversity at schools. In places like North Carolina State University a study found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 20 to 1.
Recently, I had a debate at Harvard Law School with Professor Randall Kennedy on whether Harvard protects free speech and intellectual diversity.
This year, Harvard found itself in a familiar spot on the annual ranking of Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE): dead last among 251 universities and colleges.
Harvard has long dismissed calls for greater free speech protections or intellectual diversity. It shows.
The Harvard Crimson has documented how the school’s departments have virtually eliminated Republicans. In one study of multiple departments last year, they found that more than 75 percent of the faculty self-identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.”
Only 5 percent identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.”
Consider that, according to Gallup, the U.S. population is roughly equally divided among conservatives (36%), moderates (35%), and liberals (26%).
So Harvard has three times the number of liberals as the nation at large and less than three percent identify as “conservative’ rather than 35% nationally.
Among law school faculty who have donated more than $200 to a political party, a breathtaking 91 percent of the Harvard faculty gave to democrats.
The student body shows the same bias of selection. Harvard Crimson previously found that only 7 percent of incoming students identified as conservative. For the vast majority of liberal faculty and students, Harvard amplifies rather than stifles their viewpoints.
This does not happen randomly. Indeed, if a business reduced the number of women or minorities to less than 5 percent, a court would likely find de facto discrimination.
Yet, Kennedy rejected the notion that the elite school should strive to “look more like America.”
It is not just that schools like Harvard “do not look like America,” it does not even look like liberal Massachusetts, which is almost 30 percent Republican.
Our students are being educated by faculty taken from the same liberal elite of just 26 percent of our nation.
Some sites like Above the Law have supported the exclusion of conservative faculty. Senior Editor Joe Patrice defended “predominantly liberal faculties” by arguing that hiring a conservative law professor is akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism to teach at a university.
The result is that law students at schools like Harvard have relatively few faculty to reflect the views of half of the judiciary and the majority of the Supreme Court.
Likewise, having a faculty that ranges from the left to the far left further marginalizes the small number of conservative students.
The impact of this academic echo chamber is evident in surveys showing that 28 percent of Harvard students engaged in self-censorship — a figure doubling since just 2021.
Given my respect for Professor Kennedy, I was surprised that he dismissed the sharp rise in students saying that they did not feel comfortable speaking in classes. Referring to them as “conservative snowflakes,” he insisted that they simply had to have the courage of their convictions.
This ignores that they depend upon professors for recommendations and their challenging the orthodoxy at the school can threaten their standing.
Moreover, Kennedy defended cancel campaigns or “disinvitations” of speakers as a form of free speech. As students see faculty supporting the cancelling of conservative or libertarian or dissenting speakers, it is hardly an invitation to speak freely yourself in class.
There was a hopeful aspect, however, to the debate. Before the debate the large audience voted heavily in favor of Harvard’s position. However, after the debate, they overwhelming voted against Harvard’s position on free speech.
It is an example of how exposure to opposing views can change the bias or assumptions in higher education.
There is little likelihood that Harvard or higher education will change. It is like the old joke about how many psychiatrists it takes to change a light bulb. The answer is just one but the bulb really has to want to change.
Academics like Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school, have denounced conservative justices as mere “partisan hacks.” Other faculty have joined in claims that Trump and his supporters are “fascists” out to destroy democracy. It is only likely to get worse after the election.
The political polling of professors reflects the near complete cleansing of colleges of conservative faculty. The question is whether donors or applicants will continue to support an echo chamber that has become ideologically deafening.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Well ya. Academics is about facts, logic, reason, and analysis. All concepts the Republican Party have rejected. Thus even the few conservative academics who have those traits will be turned off by the Republicans.
It is even less likely an academic will support Trump because one can’t conduct a rational search for facts in their professional life and be a reality denier bigot in their personal life.
Typical libtard attitude proving his point.
Typical Trumptard response.
Typical drunktard response ^^^^
Did you think your diarrhea of the mouth would garner the “academic” applause? Say something that makes sense and back it up with a citation if you don’t want to be ridiculed.
Otherwise, hand your mommy her phone back and go clean your room.
My wife and I listened to the entire three hours of The Joe Rogan Experience with Trump. We found him to be much more engaging, personal and likable than the MSM would have us believe. We also think a format like the JRE would be better than the staged MSM so called debates. The JRE could have put yet another nail into the MSM coffin.
Upstate, I agree. Trump provided a double whammy: Joe Rogan and Madison Square Garden. Positive energy and hope streamed from both. America is a powerhouse of innovation and production that is limited by the woke left that needs permission to tie their shoes.
S. Meyer,
As we have noted before, the leftist Democrats are fill with hate and rage. We see it every day when they come to attack the good professor. They cannot build. They can only tear down.
Positive energy and hope? You must not have been watching the same rally as the rest of us.
You may have had the TV on, but you were lying on the ground in a drunken stupor.
We found him to be much more engaging, personal and likable than the MSM would have us believe.
Upstate, it was Rogan being Rogan. Great interview.
+100
Here’s a democrat fact – every single place in the US that they gained power in over multiple elections has collapsed. Democrat facts explain baltimore, detroit, philly, St.L, Memphis, etc. Democrat facts explain public education, public health, and community safety in those areas. Unless you are a politico or politico pimp, you will be crushed in a democrat environment. That is a fact. Other democrat facts include men can have babies and climate destruction is man made and will destroy the earth.
Go hustle some teachers or midwives or hippies or some other addled morons, no one here is buying your BS
“Democrat facts explain baltimore, detroit, philly, St.L, Memphis, etc.”
Yep, and Kamala Harris is campaigning on “MALD” – Make America Like Detroit”. Who could decline to vote for a spastic moron candidate who wants to make the entire country to replicate a totally crime-ridden shithole of a city?
“Democrat facts explain baltimore, detroit, philly, St.L, Memphis, etc. ”
And Harris is running on the “MALD” platform – Make America Like Detroit. Who could decline to vote for a spastic idiot of a candidate who wants to make the entire nation into the replica of a totally ruined, crime-ridden, ch1th0le of a city?
* Yep, and they can’t suck the brain out of an unborn fetus like libtards either.
Well ya. Academics is about facts, logic, reason, and analysis. All concepts the Republican Party have rejected.
Like the Academics determining that men can have periods and thus need tampon dispensers in men’s bathrooms and changerooms.
The smart Academics/Democrats laugh at the Republican Party that rejects their brilliant discovery.
This old gripe is full of inaccuracies and dishonest inferences about University professors and their political inclinations. Turley doesn’t understand that the reason there are few Conservative professors or ideas in Colleges and Universities is precisely because the ideas and views are not attractive to the majority of students.
I have asked the conservatives in this blog what new ideas or views have conservatives offered to students to consider. Nobody has been able to answer that question without resorting to insults and strawman arguments. Nobody and that is the problem. Conservatives do not have ideas or views that students don’t already know from those outside of academia. Younger people don’t want old stale ideas they have already learned outside school. They want to see what is new, fresh, or more importantly, interesting. Schools know this and they offer classes or courses in things that students have shown interest in or are in high demand. It’s basic supply and demand, a free market in action. But conservatives can’t seem to handle the fact that they are not doing enough to attract students or even convince students to consider their ideas and views as interesting as those of professors who propose interesting and progressive ideas or views.
Turley’s claim that Republican or conservative professors are being “purged” from academia is pure BS. It’s a matter of not having ideas and views that students find appealing. To put it bluntly, their ideas suck. To fix the problem Turley proposes or at least insinuates some form of affirmative action on conservative professorships and forces schools to include these ‘opposing views’. It’s ironic because rather than argue the merits of conservative ideas and use free speech to convince students that their ideas are worth considering Turley demands schools be forced somehow to include these points of view despite the clear problem that students are just not interested. Schools are not purging conservative or republican professors. Students are just not that interested and schools are not going to spend money on courses and salaries when there is no real interest or demand.
Conservative ideas and points of view are everywhere in case Turley hasn’t noticed. They are being expressed all the time outside of academia and students already hear and read about those views and ideas. The truth is conservative problems are created by the expression of ideas and points of view outside Universities and Colleges all the time. There are a few exceptions like Charlie Kirk’s “debates” at college campuses and Walsh’s “talks” at college campuses. Yes, they do get to freely express those ideas and views and that unfortunately seems to turn off a lot of students to conservative ideas and views because some are just awful or nonsensical. Because of that students already have a good idea of what they entail and why they don’t demand more at Colleges and universities. There is just no demand for it, but Turley seems to want to force it upon them because it provides a balance to their education. Forcing a point of view to have balance runs contrary to the free market philosophy that seems to dominate the idea and point of view ‘market’ in Colleges and Universities.
Turley doesn’t understand that the reason there are few Conservative professors or ideas in Colleges and Universities is precisely because the ideas and views are not attractive to the majority of students.
🤣 Yeah, what does JT know about college life anyway. /sarc off
Of course let’s go with the Svelaz/George opinion because no one can be wrong forever, can they?
“the ideas and views are not attractive to the majority of students”
If universities designed curricula according to what prospective students found “attractive”, most would be offering concentrations in how to most efficiently pick up a bed partner at the local pub and get laid. Half the purpose of college is to broaden a student’s knowledge base and experience beyond what he or she had coming out of High School. The other half is preparation for a satisfying and remunerative professional career of some kind. The woke imbeciles currently holding down professorial and administrative positions at colleges have failed abysmally at both.
“Nobody has been able to answer that question . . .”
That’s a lie. And you know it’s a lie.
As is your oft-repeated lie that conservative ideas “are not attractive to the majority of students.”
“I have asked the conservatives in this blog what new ideas or views have conservatives offered to students to consider. “
Competence.
S. Meyer,
Dont forget things like common sense, logic, reason, a good work ethic.
Here, Svelaz the bot claims once again that conservative ideas are not popular, and that polling showing the opposite is a “straw man” argument.
The KING of straw men and red herrings has spoken.
+100
Yeah, working hard and taking personal responsibility are not always attractive, particularly to those that would become professors/teachers or are marginal students.
I don’t know what’s worse, a far left idiot trying to force wokeness and political correctness on everybody or a far right moron claiming things are fake news and a lie because they don’t like it. Both need to go to hell.
I guess 70% of the country is far right. Because thats the percentage that dont have a high degree of faith in the media.
Get a grip, dunce.
The destructive anti-intellectual disease spawned and spread by our educational system and its bought and paid for politicians is so embedded it may never be dislodged. We now are paying the price for major metropolitan areas having highly paid teachers who, according to test scores, are unable or unwilling to teach. We now have several generations of students who have little or no critical thinking skills, and many of them apparently have become teachers themselves. Even worse, these teachers and even professors have promoted (demanded) an entire spectrum of destructive policies from minimizing the role of parents in deciding whether to protect their children from “gender affirming care” to the information about local, national and international issues as framed by “advocacy journalism.” Now, even law schools are graduating students taught by professors who do not believe in the fundamental rights enshrined in our Constitution. This anti-intellectual disease has infected nearly every aspect of our lives. As one illustration, this morning I looked at the headline story on Yahoo News and the only item the reporter and editor considered newsworthy from last night’s “massive” rally in Madison Square Garden was a joke made by a comedian that was in bad taste and that drew a rebuke from a GOP congressman. Obviously, out of an incredible evening, that was the only anti-Trump moment they could find, and to them, that is what journalism is all about. If it was just so-called “news,” it would not be so concerning, after all there are many alternative sources. But the disease also has infected medicine (Covid) and sports (men competing against with women) and even the “hard sciences” (math is “racist”). The thinking of Democrats Biden and Harris is so muddled that they were incapable of reacting to a spy balloon traversing our country, a squadron of drones surveilling sensitive military bases for seventeen days, or the murder of more than a thousand Jews by Hamas and Iran. If the Democrats are not dislodged from power in this election, the United States may well never recover.
Highly paid teachers? Why comment on something you know nothing about?
“Highly paid teachers? Why comment on something you know nothing about?”
The compensation for public school teachers is easily found by anyone, as it is publicly available information. Imbecile.
“Highly paid teachers? Why comment on something you know nothing about?”
The average STARTING salary for a teacher in Cook County (Chicago) is $77,000
The average salary for Cook County is $33,340
More reading, less typing is recommended for you
Honestlawyermostly,
Well said! Great comment!
“The destructive anti-intellectual disease spawned and spread by our educational system and its bought and paid for politicians is so embedded it may never be dislodged. ”
The most promising way to dislodge it is to confirm that the Federal government has no constitutional authority, let alone legitimate mandate, to undertake any initiative, funding, or any other task, concerning education. That would almost certainly ultimately require a SCOTUS ruling, and it would not be easy to obtain. However, once accomplished, the failings of public education could be tackled at the state level. It wouldn’t be necessary to prevail in every state, if the K – 12 educational process in just a few was drastically improved on a long-term basis, others would have no choice but to follow. And any that failed to do so would lose a huge fraction of their productive population, and be left with nothing but losers, a just outcome.
Two comments: 1) Ilya Somin, a libertarian law professor, published an article, explaining that he would vote for Harris because she is the least of two dangers. He believes DJT incited an insurrection and that he is an authoritarian and danger to democracy. So, not only liberals/progressives vote for Harris but also libertarian professors; 2) the liberal dominance also influences work product. Read academic publications and attend an academic conference and you’ll notice that there is no diversity of opinion, and thus no real critical evaluation of research. All agree at the aggregate, so the critical discussion I focused on the margins, never on the principles. Turley calls it the echo chamber, and he is right. But it results in less and less valuable research.
Interesting take. But I don’t know if you are aware, but Turley’s view of this comes from an archaic understanding of how universities work. Even though he’s as professor, Turley misunderstands what’s happening. Universities have been evolving into non-profit profit centers. They legally function as publicly funded entities but they operate like for profit businesses. Notice the building cranes on campuses across the country. Most large schools are in constant building mode, a significant portion funded not by tax payers but by technology oriented companies. Universities are the R&D layer for any large manufacturing or tech company you can name… from Bayer, to Microsoft to John Deere, they shell out billions as investments. Then look at scholarly publishing. A professor at a public university writes a big paper on latest research and it ends up locked in a journal vault, where you can pay $40-$100 to access it. You might ask, why isn’t it freely available since “we” paid for the resources to bring about the knowledge? It’s a money maker.
This issue of wokeness on campus is such a nothing burger. The real issue is why aren’t we getting what we expect out of education? There’s no excuse. Ever since the industrial revolution, people who know math and truly understand science on average make more money than everyone else by a wide margin. So, why aren’t our high schools oriented toward math and science? Cuz it’s hard?
I don’t think this was done on purpose but it has happened that the value of education has been put behind a paywall of sorts. If you really want your kid to succeed you need to move to an expensive zip code where the high school teaches math as advanced as calculus.
One other note, you don’t go to academic conferences. I was at a photonics engineering conference in Monterey this year and witnessed a debate about silicon photonics engineering that got pretty heated. My guess is, though, you’re not talking about the 99% of what academics debate about and only focusing on race. But that’s MAGA for you, blow out of proportion what they hate and then claim the sky is falling.
Yawn
” Ilya Somin, a libertarian law professor, published an article, explaining that he would vote for Harris because she is the least of two dangers.”
Anyone can label themselves as anything he or she pleases; talk is cheap. If Somin was truly libertarian, he would never endorse Harris. If he wished to stick to libertarian principles, he would refrain from endorsing any 2024 Presidential candidate. I would also be interested in how he squares his alleged libertarianism with teaching at a school that received $214MM (or more) in government funding for 2024. If Ron Paul comes out and endorses Harris, I might have to pay attention, but this puerile porcine pretender can and should be ignored.
+1000
+1000? That’s ten times as meaningless as +100, isn’t it?
Good point DD re research, in academic settings at least. However, there is a tremendous amount of valuable research going on…in corporations. Funny how capitalism spurs it on, eh?
The colleges/unis are a complete scam today in the same way that Disneyland is a scam. There is something there you want, but you know that you are going to get absolutely screwed while you are there to get it to the point there is no way whatever it was you wanted was justified – but you still go through with it to please someone else.
Sounds like you’d rather learn how to build better liquid helium cryostat for superconductive magnetic fields by watching Youtube videos rather than going to some stupid woke university engineering school. Good for you.
“. . . build better liquid helium cryostat for superconductive magnetic fields . . .”
Yet again, nice deflection.
Academia’s ideological corruption does not come primarily from science and engineering. It comes from the liberal arts and social sciences. Two fields about which you apparently know nothing. Or worse.
I wasn’t expecting such an idiotic reply.
So what you’re saying is universities are becoming irrelevant because of what you don’t like: English, Economics, History, Psychology, Sociology, Music, Art, Theater and Philosophy.
Not because of their Biology, Mathematics, Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nuclear Engineering, Radiological Sciences, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Public Health/Biostatistics, Environmental Health Sciences, Epidemiology, Nutritional Sciences, Accounting, Finance, Business, Internal Medicine, Neurology, Pediatrics, Architecture, Urban Planning, Pharmacy, Nursing, Kinesiology, or Law departments.
So you believe this is making universities irrelevant? I got an idea, why don’t you provide more than anecdotes and buth rather some actual evidence of you cockamamy idea?
.
LOL. Yeah, nothing but geniuses rolling out of colleges and unis today.
No one said they were irrelevant. I (who is not Sam) simply stated that they are largely a massive rip-off that people suffer through simply to say they did so. However, they do become more and more irrelevant every day.
The fact that this lot was so heavily represented at the Wannsee Conference regarding thr Judenfrage speaks to how prescient George Santayana was in his observations about not learning from history.
In his op-ed, Michael Roth accepts the charges that a Trump administration would be a racist incarnation of the Nazis and use the military against its political enemies. This shows a lack of critical thinking and calls his judgment into question.
Even though Trump actually said that Democrats are the enemy within and they need to be dealt with using the military.
“We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think. And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military, because they can’t let that happen. Like Adam Schiff, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, I think of this guy’s going to be a senator. He’s running against a guy that doesn’t understand politics at all. Garvey. But, he was a good baseball player, but he doesn’t understand politics at all. Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff who is a total sleazebag is going to become a senator. But I call him the enemy from within.” Donald Trump, October 13, 2024
My wife and I listened to the entire three hours of The Joe Rogan Experience with Trump. We found him to be much more engaging, personal and likable than the MSM would have us believe. We also think a format like the JRE would be better than the staged MSM so called debates. The JRE could have put yet another nail into the MSM coffin.
If you have reading comprehension issues, don’t blame it on Trump
Oh my, you would think Trump was calling it the BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF NATION.
Fvck off, you imbecile.
With Marines behind him, no less.
This was a response to a specific question by Maria Bartamiro (sp?) relating to the possibility, highlighted by Biden, of an outbreak of violence on election day. Why don’t you post the whole segment? Because you are a propagandist.
In my opinion, Randall Kennedy did a very poor job representing his point of view on free speech. That may have been his plan. Clearly Jonathan Turley won the debate on free speech.
I send the fundraising mailings from my universities back to them without a check, but with a note that when they significantly improve their FIRE score, I’ll consider sending money.
What outcome measures a college graduation? A balanced ability to think critically? Should the student emerge as a Morlock, an Eloi, or the Time Traveler?
Not sure where you were attempting to go with that question. Our contemporary wokists seem to incorporate many of the worst traits of both Morlok and Eloi. You do realize that Wells was an avowed socialist and internationalist, correct?
The Good News here is that an ideologue professor has very limited means to spread her hyperbole and students, as a class of cohorts, generally ignore their professors’ views in favor of what their friends and fellow social media wonks hear or want to hear and, therefore, follow. Thus, college professors and their views are deeply discounted before they get beyond the faculty lounge. Moreover, like the fake media we have come to know and despise, the views of these left-leaning professors intent on throwing away reasonable principles of freedom and democracy to defend terrorism and anti-Americanism are irrelevant in the scheme of things. They are known for what they are and they are radical and held by a tiny minority of people of minimal import whose voice is not worth hearing.
“[T]he views of these left-leaning professors . . . are irrelevant in the scheme of things.”
That notion is dangerously mistaken.
Ultimately, a culture is shaped by its basic ideas — the very ideas promoted by academia (especially in the liberal arts and social sciences).
Today’s professors may influence only a few. But it is those few who go on to become cultural leaders in education, politics, art, journalism, business.
Also time to end public unions which donation 100% to BRIBE Democrats
either ban public unions or ban them being in politics!
IT IS PURE BRIBERY!
Time to END Federal Aid and loan backing
to cities, states, colleges and non-profits
Democrats get RICH from FAILURE
Interesting hillbilly viewpoint. Tell us more.
It’s ironic that Randall Kennedy thought that the lack the intellectual diversity was Harvard’s secret sauce but he would never accept lack of skin-color diversity.
Liberals had a good run, but they sealed their fate the moment they embraced wokeism as their lodestar. It could only take them so far until it ran into the brick wall of conservative reality. Ironically, wokeism will be the worldview that was needed to bring on an age of conservatism. And that will include colleges and universities.
OLLY,
I dont think they realize with their men in women’s sports is causing many women to question wokeism and leftist Democrats. More and more women in sports are boycotting or refusing games against teams with men on them. They will be silent no more.
Upstate, this is just one of many “fresh” and “exciting” ideas meeting up with reality like a spiked volleyball to the face. When you think about it, conservatism is to liberalism like parents are to children.
“conservatism is to liberalism like parents are to children.”
I’m thinking of disowning all of the liberals I know ;->
Important it is to realize that American politics are undergoing a tectonic shift or reversal of polarity. Academics, often locked in past thinking, sometimes don’t and possibly can’t realize the politics of their “firebrand” days has disappeared. They drift farther and farther into political regions even they may once have rejected. So, the academic enterprise seems past the point of no return. The result will be their irrelevance. This is a key characteristic of cults.
You’re like a housefly which landed on a newspaper and pretends to understand words. You have zero idea of what you’re talking about.
I saw your ugly comment, read gdonaldallen and gave him a like. He nailed it.
BTW, I always look for trolling like yours in the comments. Trolls often swirl around the best comments.
In this dementia patients world, a housefly on a newspaper is pretending to read. Did it speak to you as well? Yikes!
Cookoo for Cocoa Puffs!
“University Professors Are Approaching Near Unanimity as a Democratic Lock”.
This is a ‘last stand’ entrenchment defense that is not at all a surprising, especially in any system/institution where biased selection (whether it be from picking faculty/students or breeding puppies) is practiced. As long as the entity is able to tolerate the consequences of such biased selection (i.e increased fragility of the institution/institution’s ‘product’) then so be it. However, that fragility typically manifests in the ‘product’ failure long before it does in the producer of that ‘product’. And when that happens, there will be nowhere for the producer to hide.
Perhaps what we are witnessing now in the doubling down response on the part of faculty at biased institutions is nothing more than an expression of fragility; they are locked into their positions, highly vulnerable because of their bias and have little choice other than becoming vocal and disparaging towards any perceived opponents. Are they becoming desperate? Maybe, maybe not. However, they are entering the arena of conflict called politics and that is quite outside their area of training.
So who would you bet on to win this dispute in the long run? A biased, fragile professor/institution that has entered into an area outside their expertise or a citizenry becoming exasperated with the professor/institution’s products while at the same time paying for those products?
I am a retired college instructor and the survey tracks with I was experiencing when I was teaching. I could almost understand this coming from the arts, humanities, history, social sciences. However, I could never understand this coming from more rational thinking people in the math and sciences; the so called hard sciences. Apparently their training in these fields didn’t translate when it came to political beliefs. Why would any scientist or mathematician acquiesce to the dogma of the extreme left? The answer is money, it is the source of that money that makes all the difference. A great example is our extant environmental scam. If your research is used to bolster or support this specious argument of man made climate change, then the money will flow. From where does it flow? From Washington DC of course which has become the final step in that long process that occurred in 2009 when the Obama administration nationalized education to include its financing. And this was done right under the republicans nose. So, as complex as we wish to make this catastrophe of authoritarian anti-Constitutional indoctrination sentiment, it really comes down to this.
I have been experiencing this indoctrination to the emotion filled liberal mind set since my high school days. This leftist and liberal doctrine has now been codified by the bureaucrats in the beltway or the more apt depiction, the swamp.
Another fine piece. The question remains as to how it is addressed. Somehow it has to come down to funding for public universities