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Contributors
Daniel Pipes- Contributor
Daniel
Pipes is director of the Middle
East Forum, a member of the
presidentially-appointed board of the U.S.
Institute of Peace,
and a prize-winning columnist for the New York Sun and The
Jerusalem Post. His most recent book, Miniatures:
Views of Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics (Transaction
Publishers) appeared in late 2003. His website, DanielPipes.org,
the single most accessed source of information specifically
on
the Middle East and Islam, offers an archive and a chance
to sign-up to receive his new materials as they appear. [go
to Pipes index]
 Conservative
Professors, an Endangered Species
Try finding one...
[Daniel Pipes] 4/19/05
In a surprisingly
fine editorial
last week about the crisis at Columbia University, the New
York Times wrote that a university
report investigating student complaints about Middle East
studies "is deeply unsatisfactory" because it was "so limited." The "Ad
Hoc Grievance Committee Report," the paper observed, focused
on faculty intimidation of students, ignoring that the students
primarily resented "stridently pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli
bias on the part of several professors."
That the
Columbia administration preferred to deal with bad classroom
habits rather than on the deeper question of faculty bias was
an obvious self-protective gambit. The former can be dealt
with by rapping some knuckles. The latter requires a systemic
review of university practices, taking up such delicate issues
as the exclusion of diverse points of view and possible political
bias in hiring.
These larger
issues arise because, as surveys consistently
find, the Arab-Israeli conflict is but one facet of the larger
left-right debate. Simply put, the
left consistently bristles with hostility to Israel and the
right sympathizes with it.
The Columbia
report should have dealt instead with the rapid and wholesale
shift of its faculty including Middle East specialists to
the left.
By coincidence,
this leftward surge is the topic of a just-published investigation, "Politics
and Professional Advancement Among College Faculty." Ponderous
title aside, this rigorous and important study contains much
of interest.
Using such
methodologies as cross-tabulating political self-descriptions
and multiple regression analysis, the co-authors - an emeritus
professor of government at Smith College, Stanley Rothman;
a professor of communication at George Mason University, S.
Robert Lichter, and a professor of political science at the
University of Toronto, Neil Nevitte - answer two questions:
-
How
do American faculty see politics? When professors
are asked about their political outlook, they call themselves
liberal about four times more often than the general
public. In some departments (English literature most
of all, followed by philosophy, political science, and
religious studies), more than 80% of the faculty calls
itself liberal and less than 5% calls itself conservative.
This disparity has prompted "a substantial shift to the
left" since the mid-1980s, and is still increasing.
-
Why
are faculties so liberal? Conservatives complain
of endemic political bias. Liberals retort that conservatives
are dumb. In the words
of Robert Brandon, chairman of Duke University's
philosophy department, "We try to hire the best, smartest
people available. If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid
people are generally conservative, then there are lots
of conservatives we will never hire."
Which side
is correct? The conservatives are.
Mr. Rothman,
et al., find that, even when professional accomplishments are
equal, a more liberal outlook predicts "a significantly higher
quality of institutional affiliation." They even assign a number
to this liberal edge: "The ideological orientations of professors
are about one-fifth as important as their professional achievements
in determining the quality of the school" for which they work.
This means, Robert
Lichter said, "Republicans get worse jobs than Democrats."
Conservative
complaints about "liberal homogeneity in academia deserve to
be taken seriously," the authors conclude. They also state
that their findings "suggest strongly that a leftward shift
has occurred on college campuses in recent years, to the extent
that political conservatives have become an endangered species
in some departments."
Endangered
species? In the more pungent observation
by David Horowitz, "Universities are a left wing monolith
these days. A conservative professor, or a Republican or evangelical
Christian professor, is as rare as a unicorn." A Harvard
Crimson article acknowledges that the Rothman study
implies that "Kremlin on the Charles [River]" might in fact
be accurate when applied to Harvard.
The Rothman
team's work is not likely to receive much of a hearing on campus. The
executive director of the Modern Language Association, Rosemary
G. Feal, responded to its findings with predictable outrage: "It
boggles my mind the degree to which this is rubbish."
Assuming
that Ms. Feal's reaction will be the predominant one, the job
of creating political balance at Columbia and other universities
will require more than nicely asking professors to hire conservatives.
It will take a concentrated and protracted effort by stakeholders alumni,
students, parents of students, legislators - to reclaim an
institution that has become a fortress for the left tRO
This
piece first appeared in New York Sun
copyright
2005 Daniel Pipes
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