We recently discussed how Yale faculty reached academic nirvana after years of purging departments of conservatives and Republicans. The university finally showed zero political donations to Republicans. Now Princeton can claim that it has succeeded in a similar cleansing, according to a new study by Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS). The study shows that 98% of political donations went to Democrats or Democrat-affiliated groups and 0% went to Republicans or affiliated groups.
Political contributions are one measure that helps gauge the degree of ideological orthodoxy and intolerance in higher education. While some academics simply do not make contributions and may still hold conservatives views, the study still offers another insight into the political preferences of those who do make such contributions. The study does not mean that we can assume that the number of academics with conservative or libertarian values is zero. (There are obvious outliers such as Robby George). However, few would dispute that it reaffirms the extreme imbalance of ideological views at this and other universities.
Professors often express shock at the thought that there would be any political or ideological litmus test for hiring. I have also opposed such measures. However, the hypocrisy is crushing. Today’s faculty are responsible for a near-complete ideological purging of their ranks. They have created a hostile environment for anyone with conservative or libertarian viewpoints, including students who rarely have the opportunity to hear from a professor from a center-right perspective at most schools.
Most recently, forty percent of college faculty admitted that they would vote against any Trump supporter seeking an academic position regardless of their scholarship or teaching ability. Keep in mind that this is only the professors willing to admit to such bias.
Some are more open than others.
I had dinner with a Harvard Law Professor, who expressed disbelief that I expected him to vote for any faculty applicants who held views he considered wrong. When I noted that I regularly vote for faculty candidates who hold opposing views, he just shrugged and said that, if he rejects their views, he cannot vote for those views to be taught to students.
There are few remaining conservatives or libertarians on law school faculties, which have been purged of dissenting voices through a biased hiring and promotion system. Despite years of complaints and declining public trust in higher education, faculty members continue to reinforce bias and orthodoxy in our schools.
I wrote about the rise of this new McCarthyism on the left seven years ago.
Recently, I discussed the example of Fordham University School of Law professor John Pfaff, who called for “repercussions” for professors who do not “recant” their view that the 14th Amendment does not protect birthright citizenship.
Not long ago, I debated Professor Randall Kennedy at Harvard Law School about the school’s lack of ideological diversity. I respect Kennedy, and I do not view him as anti-free speech or intolerant. Yet when I noted the statistics on the vanishing number of conservative students and faculty in comparison to the nation, Kennedy responded that Harvard “is an elite university” and does not have to “look like America.”
Of course, the problem is that Harvard does not even look like Massachusetts, which is nearly 30 percent Republican.
At schools like Yale and Princeton, they have achieved near 100% for Democrats (with only a couple of percent going for independent or socialist causes). Yet, if you ask faculty about the purging of their ranks, they will often shrug and say that they just cannot find a conservative or libertarian who is intellectually worthy of an appointment to their schools. It was the same absurd rationalization that was once used to justify not hiring minorities or women.
I just had a debate with a William & Mary law professor who admitted there is no other rational explanation for the virtual absence of conservatives and libertarians than systemic bias. Indeed, if a company were to go to court to say that there was nothing intentional in a virtual absence of minority employees, it would be laughed out of court.
Of course, nothing is laughable about the state of higher education. This generation of administrators and faculty are destroying our educational institutions because they cannot set aside their political bias and intolerance for the benefit of their schools. Higher education has reached record lows in public trust. Yet, these professors and deans are insulated from such public opinion. They are often financially insulated from the economic impact of such isolation. In higher education, the echo chamber works to their personal benefit, increasing their opportunities for writing and conferences. They also do not face opposing views of their scholarship or viewpoints.
Recently, I participated in a debate with the President of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). He doubled down on his call for universities to pursue more political agendas and activism. AAUP later broke its long-standing apolitical tradition and endorsed Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
This is why I have advised university presidents who want to restore intellectual diversity that they cannot rely on faculty members. With enough donor and faculty pressure, deans may add a single conservative, but they have shown they are unwilling to make real changes to the academic echo chamber they have created.
In the same way, I have encouraged state legislatures to tie further public subsidies to real and substantial changes in creating intellectual diversity among faculty.
If we are to protect these bastions of free speech, legislatures will need to play a more active role in addressing the exclusion of both faculty candidates and speakers on public campuses. Too many faculty members still take the view that citizens are a captive audience expected to keep funding their departments, while excluding conservative or dissenting views held by many, if not most, citizens in a given state.
If faculty members want to maintain echo chambers for their own viewpoints, they should seek private donors to sustain such intolerance and orthodoxy.
Legislatures can demand evidence that schools maintain intellectually diverse faculty when determining the level of continued support from citizens. Otherwise, it is ridiculous to expect the public to subsidize their ideological echo chambers of faculty.
For schools like Princeton, donors clearly do not want or expect intellectual diversity. They keep donating to a school that has systematically purged its ranks and now runs from the left to the far left.
As these surveys confirm what we already know about the intellectual intolerance of today’s faculty and administrators, they can at least spare us the performative denials. They should embrace their bias and dogmatism. Own it. This is what they have built through years of ideological agendas and intolerance.
After all, how many academic institutions can claim true perfection? Princeton is effectively a closed shop for Republicans. “Rah rah rah Tiger, tiger, tiger / Sis, sis, sis / Boom, boom, boom, ah! / Princeton! Princeton! Princeton!”
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Aren’t these the voices who cry out and support diversity, equity and inclusion? Oh, but not here, not in our workplace.
Ano
Wanna bet the commenter has never been to NK?
__________________________
Have you?
Bet not, but thanks to some of the people who were able to escape that nightmare of a country.
They have told the world what that place is like.
Keep crying.
Well Dustoff… have you been to NK? And have you ever met a North Koren?
Who is they? Got names and sources?
No to all of the above.
PS. Ever kill Vietnamese civilians? maybe children? Answer: You bragged about here.
You really have some mental problems. You can’t express yourself without hate. I understand you have been terribly hurt in life. You don’t have to live in hate, there is help available. See a mental health professional. Also seek Jesus Christ. He can give you healing and peace. I will pray for you, for your finding Christ, your healing and for you to shed your hate and find some peace in your chaotic hate filled current life. God loves you, and forgives everything.
I meant to add (before my comment was accidently submitted) that Professor George’s Madison program at Princeton has inspired the creation of similar programs at many other universities across the country.
You’re not wrong, but just because someone doesn’t contribute to a political party or candidate in ways that show up in disclosure forms doesn’t mean they’re not conservative. Princeton professor Robert “Robby” George is arguably the most prominent conservative professor teaching undergraduates founded the James Madison program there
Princeton’s motto — Dei Sub Numine Viget (“Under God’s Power She Flourishes”) — should be amended to read “Rational Thinkers Need Not Apply.” The refined hypocrisy and academic rot is on full display.
Are you suggesting that only MAGAots are “rational thinkers? Please read the comments as they come in this morning. Better still, read the previous day’s comments. Rational? Hardly. Idiotic more like it.
I hope they’re not receiving any federal aid because that would be illegal. They are supposed to be non-partisan.
Well ya, no shit. Universities are about academics, education, and study. Truth. Republicans are fact denying fascists. They have no place in universities.
The woke university implosion — and what comes next
Over the last 30 years, enrollments in the humanities and history crashed. So did tenure-track faculty positions. Some $1.7 trillion in federally backed student loans have only greenlighted inflated tuition — and masked the contagion of political indoctrination and watered-down courses.
But “gradually” imploding has now become “suddenly.” Zoom courses, a declining pool of students and soaring costs all prompt the public to question the college experience altogether.
See Also
Stanford logo
editorial
‘Living hell’ and the destruction of academic freedom
Nationwide undergraduate enrollment has dropped by more than 650,000 students in a single year — or over 4% alone from spring 2021 to 2022, and some 14% in the last decade. Yet the US population still increases by about 2 million people a year.
Men account for about 71% of the current shortfall of students. Women number almost 60% of all college students — an all-time high.
Monotonous professors hector students about “toxic masculinity,” as “gender” studies proliferate. If the plan was to drive males off campus, universities have succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.
The number of history majors has collapsed by 50% in just the last 20 years. Tenured history positions have declined by one-third to half at major state universities.
Skeptical American employers, to remain globally competitive, will likely soon administer their own hiring tests. They already suspect that prestigious university degrees are hollow and certify very little.
Private and online venues will also fill a national need to teach Western civilization and humanities courses — by non-woke faculty who do not institutionalize bias.
Wokeness is dying, good riddance and real science is taking it’s proper place in college studies again.you
Everyday you prove yourself the fool.
These universities should be immediately cut off from any government funding. Immediately subject to taxes. Immediately be shunned by anyone who is in opposition to the Leftards running and teaching in these abominable institutions. And perhaps investigated by the DOJ for discrimination, on many different accounts!
Another MAGA idiot with zero knowledge of how the federal government funds education. Kill universities says the MAGAots!
Only the rotten ones. Not all. You seem unable to read and comprehend, Not unusual in low IQ people.
So says a low IQ rotten one.
Congratulations to Princeton for reaching North Korean Parliament-level conformity. All opposing viewpoints have been eliminated. The faculty is now free to impose their uniform views on students, who will be punished for challenging the opinions of professors, just like all Fascists have done in the past. Leftwing Fascists carry on the ideological tradition.
I wonder what kind of warrior this commenter thinks it is?
Wanna bet the commenter has never been to NK?
So why is it that ignorant MAGAots have a fixation with NK?
Just like the NK’s, MAGA wants to impose its views on students.