Viewpoint Diversity in Academia

[The Lost One]

http://www.lawcrossing.com/article/index.php?id=1586

Interesting article. My initial thoughts are that when I was at BYU, viewpoint diversity was heavily discussed in many of my classes (an encourage but not easily observed). When I was at the University of Wisconsin, viewpoint diversity was generally dismissed by most of the facilty and students that I knew (of course, very few students or facilty at the University of Wisconsin would every admit to having conservative views).

[Skar]

Interesting.  In my time at BYU (English Major) I found an overwhelming slant towards leftism.  I was once in a class where a student made vocal the wish (we were talking about Jazz and its influence on black female literature (which was almost the exclusive subject of a class purporting to be about 1960's novels)) that he was black so that he could sing and dance better.  He wasn't kidding.  He was an aspiring jazz artist and performer.  He was taken seriously and the teacher used his comment as a jumping off point to, once again, gush about black artists of all types and, as far as I could tell from the material we were reading, of all skill levels.  Things came to a screeching halt when I pointed out that wishing you were black so you could sing and dance better was about as racist as you could get and fell into a very old racist stereotype. There was an icey silence and the females nearest the black wannabe all leaned over and comforted him  They then spent the rest of the class period attacking my position, trying to prove that the kids comment had not really been racist.  To no avail.  I continued to heap scorn on their inexcusably silly position and they devolved into veiled insults.  Fortunately, insults have to be very pointed to make any kind of impression on me and I escaped unscathed.

Even BYU, private school of a very "conservative" religious institution, was painfully one-sided in the ideological viewpoints presented in their classrooms.

[The Lost One]

My experience at BYU was little different because I was in a few different departments (Political Science, Economics, Philosophy, and Korean). Different departments seem to adapt to different viewpoints. The political science department was more liberal and the economics department was extremely conservative. However, because of BYU's generally conservative base, viewpoint diversity was widely discussed.

I remember lectures on can a Mormon also be a democrat, that were more focused on having diverse viewpoints and not really advocating a liberal or conservative position. I also remember a similar discussion in a philosophy class of budhism that also encouraged diverse opinions.

At the University of Wisconsin, I had a polical science profession that mentioned (and shared) the same viewpoint mentioned by the Duke facilty (that conservatives are dumb and therefore cannot be hired by a University). I was also pulled up in front of a class religous freedom and was widely criticized for saying that people should be allowed to express their religous views in a community forum (even at public school). Also, when I was teaching, I had students complain to me and the department for my teaching  of conservative viewpoints and/or suggesting critisms of liberal viewpoints.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

That article claims Lindgren is "notorious in the academic community for his disastrous defense of gun rights propagandist John Lott"...I don't understand this claim. If by "disastrous" it means that he discovered that Lott's claims were indefensible, then... Anyway, the statement casts doubts on Lindgren's character, completely without reason.

[FirstMateJack]

Kudos to you, Skar.

Sorry I wasnt' there in that class to back you up, I took a philosphy class at Weber, My favorite part was being the vocal minority in a sea of leftism.

[Firemeboy]

The 'Right' tends to spend tax dollars on corporations.  The Left tends to spend money on government programs (this is not always true, but generally true).

Who pays the bill for higher education?  And who pays for a good deal of the research  that professors do?  The government.  So preaching a conservative line in academia is tantamount to begging your boss to fire you, because you're just not that vital to the company.

[The Lost One]

For a long time, I had the same opinion as Firemeboy. But after spending years in academia, I think it has more to do with academic inbreeding then anything else. Department chairs perfer to hire people that think like the do. Because politics and political policy is part of many academic displines, Department tends to hire facilty that agrees with their political views/culture. Facilty and students that think differently (like having moderate or conservative views) have a hard time fitting in.

I can say that, at least in the field of political science, conservatives are general not welcomed in most departments (although they would do just find in the economics department).

I should also mention that academia is not just liberal, it tends to harbor extreme liberals like Prof. Churchill at CU (who openly compared the victims of 911 to Nazis).

[FirstMateJack]

My own personal observation is that when leftists graduate they realize their ideas have no practical application in the real world and thus forced to run and hide back in the realm of imagination and theory (philosophy, sociology, political science, economics, etc... ).

[stacer]

This was one of my biggest frustrations going to Simmons. Teachers and students both assumed that everyone in the class agreed with their liberal viewpoint even when it had nothing to do with the class subject. Bush-bashing in class--in certain classes--was common.

I really appreciated one particular teacher who never gave out her political opinion or personal details on her life. I think she was more liberal than most of my teachers, but she welcomed my middle-of-the-road LDS perspective as much as the liberal bisexual sitting next to me. (I found it ironic that this particular girl, the bisexual, was the one of all my classmates who was most open to discussions about church-type subjects. She was Universalist-Unitarian and enjoyed discovering others' religions with an open attitude, while still holding firm on her own opinions. She's a classmate I highly respect.)

I think it helped that the class was Victorian literature, though, and that my LDS perspective helped the rest of the class to understand the Victorian mindset, which is so different from modern-day liberal thinking, but not that far from LDS culture. What a great class.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

It's not academia, but at my office in LA, there are several people who tend to assume everyone around them is as liberal as they are. The aggregation of one side of a polarized viewpoint is a phenomenon not unique to academia but evident in geographic areas as well.

[stacer]

That tends to happen here in Seattle, too, and sometimes I see it happen in my office. I love during diversity training (which is required) bringing up the fact that political viewpoints and conservative religious views need to be as respected as the views of other races/cultures, women, and liberal viewpoints. It's the kind of thing that usually gets forgotten.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

It's not academia, but at my office in LA, there are several people who tend to assume everyone around them is as liberal as they are. The aggregation of one side of a polarized viewpoint is a phenomenon not unique to academia but evident in geographic areas as well.

Tell me about it, I live in Northern VA, everyone just assumes your a conservative here.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

wait... you're not conservative?....



actually, I find a *lot* of liberal thinking. Which is odd, because I work in small businesses, and you'd think they'd be gung ho republicans.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

well Im in the military.. so nuff said.

[FirstMateJack]

That is like my old work, most of the people there were liberal, and it was a small (30) business. I thought that was kind of weird as well.

Yes, I can see how being in the military would be tough for a liberal.