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So you support FIRE?

Professor Ayers: "In the 1600s, Galileo was arrested for teaching that the earth wasn't t the center of the universe..."

A more apt 17th century analogy might be to compare the actual Inquisition that Galileo faced to the PC Inquistion [untenured] scholars face who might be tempted to veer from the party line in humanities and social sciences.

George Will had a good piece on this --- excerpted below:

Academia, Stuck To the Left
GEORGE WILL, Washington Post Writers Group

WHY ACADEMICS ALWAYS ASSUME THEY ARE IN THE COMPANY OF LIBERALS AT ACADEMIC GATHERINGS: LIBERALISM IS EMBEDDED IN “RELEVANT” SCHOLARSHIP:

“...the ‘first protocol’ of academic society is the ‘common assumption’ -- that, at professional gatherings, all the strangers in the room are liberals. It is a reasonable assumption, given that in order to enter the profession, your work must be deemed, by the criteria of the prevailing culture, ‘relevant.’ [Mark, professor of English at Emory] Bauerlein says various academic fields now have premises that embed political orientations in their very definitions of scholarship.”

HOW POLITICAL ORIENTATION IS INGRAINED IN “SCHOLARSHIP”:

Bauerlein: “Schools of education, for instance, take constructivist theories of learning as definitive, excluding realists (in matters of knowledge) on principle, while the quasi-Marxist outlook of cultural studies rules out those who espouse capitalism. If you disapprove of affirmative action, forget pursuing a degree in African American studies. If you think that the nuclear family proves the best unit of social well-being, stay away from women's studies."

“INSTITUTIONAL PROVINCIALISM” PRODUCES THE “FALSE CONSENSUS EFFECT,” A BELIEF THAT ONE’S VIEWS MATCH THAT OF THE LARGER SOCIETY:

Bauerline: “‘....people think that the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population.’ There also is what Cass Sunstein, professor of political science and jurisprudence at the University of Chicago, calls ‘the law of group polarization.’ Bauerlein explains: ‘When like-minded people deliberate as an organized group, the general opinion shifts toward extreme versions of their common beliefs.’ They become tone-deaf to the way they sound to others outside their closed circle.”

MARGINALIZED ACADEMIA – WHILE PROFESSING A COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY – ARE ACTUALLY THE INTELLECTUAL EQUIVALENT OF ONE-PARTY NATIONS:

Academia “is less listened to than it was. It has marginalized itself, partly by political shrillness and silliness that have something to do with the parochialism produced by what George Orwell called ‘smelly little orthodoxies.’ Many campuses are intellectual versions of one-party nations -- except such nations usually have the merit, such as it is, of candor about their ideological monopolies. In contrast, American campuses have more insistently proclaimed their commitment to diversity as they have become more intellectually monochrome. They do indeed cultivate diversity -- in race, skin color, ethnicity, sexual preference. In everything but thought.”

*Academia, Stuck To the Left
GEORGE WILL
Washington Post Writers Group

WASHINGTON - Republicans Outnumbered In Academia, Studies Find
-- New York Times, Nov. 18, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15606-2004Nov26?language=printer

Tom, you and George speak my mind!

I would guess this is what accounts for liberals always knowing whats best for everyone.

Intellectually Monochrome? I too am a university professor and tend to be a little on the Left and do other professors in the social sciences. To be intellectually honest and to inculcate critical thinking, a professor needs to bring all facts, opinions, theories etc. to the table. I don't have a vested interest in whether students agree with me or not. I am interested in how they look at the issue and how they critique it and how well they can support their position.

The statement referenced above: "if you disapprove of Affrimative Action, forget pursuing a degree in African American studies." The author makes some big jumps and assumptions in that statement. Not all African Americans want to see
Affirmative Action as the sole or critical variable in areas of employment, education, etc. Professors who teach courses in African American studies are well aware of the "prejudicies out there", but want their students to develop the intellectual and social skills so that for them, AA becomes irrelevant. I hear this echoed as well from African American students who want to be accepted on their won merits. They want to be hired, etc., on their own merits and promoted on their own merits and not just because they are Minority people.

I can see what Tom is saying, but I don't think that it is as "If this---than that". I see many of us, although leaning toward one side of the continuum, as having both perspectives even if they are weighted differently. I have learned alot from the Right and both sides have great perspectives. And I don't buy the argument that prevailing climates primarily choose candidates or promote candidates, I see capable people being selected for ..... Why are there not more Right professors on Campuses, I have no idea, but I do "not think" that it is because they have been discriminated against. If the climate were that heavily influenceing who gets hired and if the prevailing climate is Left, then we should not see any Right professors on board in the humanities and social sciences and that is not the case.

In conclusion, I teach at a University where the administration is fairly conservative(almost overwhelming conservative) and the mix in the humanities and social sciences is what is stated above.

As much as I respect George Will, I'm gonna go with JoeJoe on this one .. there's too much generalization going on .. I mean are we talking Elite schools? Will certainly is.

If it's "true" - and I'm sure like most claims there is some truth .. I also wonder .. WHY. Now maybe there is some hand-picking going on, but I assume there is also some research and book reading too ..

.. so for what it's worth - too simplistic for my convoluted mind.