Faculty Bias

Some great reading, if you don’t know of it: Academic Questions, out of Rutgers. Always thought-provoking.

This issue, studies showing humanities and social sciences faculty at leading US universities tilt Democrat over Republican ten to one. So much for diversity on campus. Faculty in every single department, not just the humanities and social sciences, tilt heavily Democratic: not just a little, but always better than two to one. One of the places with least bias, interestingly, seems be Religious Studies.

Remember that the figures for the general population are one to one.

In other words, the political bias in universities could hardly be more extreme. And there is no way to arrive at these kinds of results without active political discrimination. Supposed to be a haven of free thought, universities are really prisons of conformity; they are perhaps the one place where innovative thought is least welcome. You must agree on almost everything with the folks already there, or it’s going to cost you.

We have a serious problem, and I do not have a solution. Currently, those already holding posts at universities get to choose who is hired. This is a perfect recipe for a self-perpetuating clique, and that is clearly what we have.

We need somehow to introduce either a freer market, or a blind hiring process. Hiring, for example, by standardized exam; or the ability for students to shop around for courses and profs campus to campus or on the Internet, but have them all credited to the same degree.

Indeed, why not? That is the way it worked at the beginning of the academy, in ancient Greece. A good teacher attracted students around him by reputation.