I agree higher education has more than a perception problem. What I find endlessly frustrating about these discussions is they tend to be framed as a left versus right issue instead of an authoritarian versus libertarian issue. I'm far less concerned about whether a faculty member leans to the left or the right than I am about whether that faculty member supports intellectual freedom and freedom of speech in practice. Emphasis on in practice.
"Liberal faculty" severely misrepresents the problem.
"Faculty who viscerally hate the very concept of integrity" is closer to being an accurate capture of why people who notice have plummeting regard for the academy. The very mechanism of truth-seeking is gone.
Yes, “The very mechanism of truth-seeking is gone” and been replaced by a theory-infused progressive orthodoxy that presents as truth-seeking but is power-seeking. Such orthodoxy parades around in the appearance of academic objectivity and truth-seeking (journals, conferences, fellowships, grants, etc) but rejects the substance, principles, and practices of RAD scholarship. It has largely repurposed the higher-ed truth-seeking mechanism.
The first step for universities would be to eliminate the "woke 1" style DEI statements from job applications and academic fellowships specifically tailored for DEI (I ran into one of these personally while trying to apply for a position at the University of California). These required DEI statements weed out not only conservatives and moderates but also leftists who hold older socialist or social democratic ideologies instead of idenitarian woke ideology.
You all need to change the fucking record. "Everything I don't like is DEI and everything that is wrong in the world is the fault of DEI." Before that it was affirmative action, before that it was desegregationists, before that it was abolitionists. You all won! Trump is attacking higher Ed in YOUR name. Take the win and shut your mouth. Grow the fuck up
You’re not a serious critic, Ryan. You’re obsessed, with FIRE and especially with me. You seem deeply unwell, and I think you know it. No evidence can convince you, but you keep on talking like you can be convinced on a rational basis of anything. I think we both know you can’t so why do you devote so much of your life to misrepresenting me, FIRE, higher education? And why are you so comfortable being so dishonest? I have mostly attributed to your being deeply unwell, but I’m sure in your overheated mind that’s not the way it looks at all. So I would actually like to hear it from you. Is there any evidence in the world that you you are wrong? Because it doesn’t seem like it.
While I have you here and we're talking about being wrong, have you apologized to Karen Attiah for celebrating her being fired from The Washington Post? When I'm wrong I can admit it. I am not wrong about FIRE. I am not wrong about free speech. If you want to convince me that in a robust free speech culture its just that journalists are being fired for criticizing St. Charlie Kirk go ahead! But the answer will be 'Jeff Bezos has speech rights too!" Which only proves that free speech is a right wing ideology! If Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos can dictate what is said and not said simply because they're rich and able to afford to throw their muscle around, that is the definition of a right wing ideology! That you side with the ruling class in these cases prove that FIRE is a right wing organization! Look you say I'm obsessed but my main beef with FIRE is that you're acting immorally and unethically by claiming to be a nonideological and nonpartisan organization. If you were to just admit that you are, at the very least, a right leaning/libertarian organization and that your work should be viewed through that lense you'd never hear from me again. But that's not conducive to your political project so you'd never admit to the truth
It was serendipitous that you commented when you did, Greg, because two things happened yesterday that proves my point about both FIRE and free speech in general being right wing;
1) FIRE crowed about winning a case against land acknowledgements (yes FIRE is still fighting last decade's right wing culture war over land acknowledgements lol)
meanwhile;
2) The House of Representatives passed a bill that makes criticizing the State of Israel without facing punishment extremely difficult on college campuses. Even Reason magazine, not exactly a bastion of leftism, calls it an assault on First Amendment rights.
So two things point to the right wing nature of free speech. Of course land acknowledgments are a right wing bugaboo. As silly and cringey as they are land acknowledgements are meaningless. They're worthless to even discuss. There are bigger fish to fry. That FIRE dedicated so much time and so many resources to a petty right wing grievance is telling. Instead of wasting their time on culture war bullshit they could have been rallying their members to oppose the bill outlawing criticism and boycotts of Israel. Is the speech targeted in the bill (anti Israel, anti genocide, pro boycott) speech that the majority of FIRE employees also oppose and therefore not worthy of protecting? Or was FIRE simply unaware of the bill despite it being talked about in the media and its two co sponsors being forthright about what they hoped to achieve by passing it? Either way FIRE is viewing the world from a fundamental right wing lens. That's not a judgement statement. FIRE and its employees are free to believe and support anything they wish. My only point is that it is unethical and extremely immoral to lie about one's politics in order to launder them through a "nonpartisan" framework. We all have our biases. FIRE should be honest about theirs
Though your reply borders on the non-responsive I'll speak to the single short tweet thread you reference. Credit where credit is due. FIRE has mentioned the bill. Whether or not FIRE will ever mention the bill again let alone do anything to oppose the bill is another matter. The tweet is, in fact, indicative of the "nonpartisan" nature of FIRE. Right wingers get petty lawsuits against land acknowledgments. MAGA gets frivolous lawsuits over Let's Go Brandon sweatshirts taken all the way to the Supreme Court. GA-44 is still in effect in Texas, making it almost impossible for students to criticize Israel without getting punished for it but at least they can write parodies of land acknowledgements and wear Let's Go Brandon gear to school.
Again, kudos for the tweet but its clear that at least in one respect the tweet is very cynical. You throwing it up as the sole response to a long list of reasons why I see FIRE as right wing shows that tweets and politely worded letters like it are nothing more than ass covering. "See! We tweeted about it. We're nonpartisan" while you go to SCOTUS on behalf of MAGA and treat land acknowledgments like some existential threat to speech rights everywhere. You cynically used the tweet to distract from all the examples I posted showing why I say FIRE is a right wing organization and you'll use this tweet or others to distract from these examples as well:
*Jeffrey Rosen's new FIRE podcast is a vehicle for promoting right wing voices from MAGA Justice Neil Gorsuch as well as right wing scholars Robert P. George and Sarah Isgur
*FIRE's Soapbox event features not a single leftist speaker but you are giving your platform to Ilya Shapiro who argues that broad swaths of leftist speech, particularly pro Palestinian speech, should be declared unprotected with arrests, firings, deportations etc to follow. Does FIRE stand with Shapiro in making those calls? (I won't get into the Jeffrey Epstein associate you've invited because that would be "cancel culture." See below)
*FIRE is now embracing what used to be called cancel culture. Greg you wrote a whole ass book on cancel culture when you could blame leftist undergraduates but when Karen Attiah was fired for saying mean things about Charlie Kirk you supported Jeff Bezos. FIRE continues to work hand in glove with Marc Randazza despite the latter being part of a network that seeks, and has been successful doing so, to get people fired from their private sector jobs for criticizing Israel, war and genocide
But, yet again, well done and congratulations on the tweet. I hope it pays dividends for your trojan horse political project
People mention problems with faculty, and it’s real. Faculty on hiring committees have been open about blackballing conservative candidates, for decades.
Administrators are the bigger problem . Administrators now outnumber faculty in most schools. Most schools spend more money on administrator salaries than on faculty pay.
A decent sized chunk of the so called “Liberals” are not that at all, they’re postmodern Maoists. I have a Master of Social Work degree and am a JFK Democrat. That made me the phallic oppressor to these tenured Red Guards.
One ought to wonder to what extent there is preference falsification. Admitting to having 'conservative' leanings is an invitation to social death -- and that started long before the last decade.
EXCERPT | Richard Pipes, Ph.D. '50, Baird research professor of history, a registered Democrat, remembers in 1972 the Crimson calling him incredulously to ask him if it was true he planned to vote for Nixon. "When I said yes, they asked if I knew any other professor who might also be doing that. I mentioned two or three others who had told me so. But when the Crimson called them, they wouldn't talk. So the Crimson wrote that Professor Pipes was the only one at Harvard voting for Nixon. My wife was told by her ladies' tennis group that they came very close to dropping her from the group."
While I would agree that higher education has more than a perception problem, I don't think that simply looking at the percentages of who is more "liberal" or "conservative" is a good metric for that. It doesn't help that "liberal" has an ambiguous meaning, sometimes being a synonym for "left-leaning" and other times being used for those who favor robust civil liberties. A lot of critiques of higher education come from those who see many faculty as being illiberal even though those faculty are far from conservative.
The so-called "crank realignment" (https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-crank-realignment-is-bad-for) doesn't help either, since it makes it easier for one to argue that universities are less conservative because they are less friendly to cranks -- even if the real situation is way more complicated than that.
I suspect the problem is worse when respondents are alums of elite colleges. Not only are many of those grads remembering the long-gone long ago of the Reagan and Bush years but my experience is that they fundamentally misunderstand how much campuses have declined in the interim. Reunions certainly don’t emphasize it—they play on the sentimentality of our friendships and experiences there and the rah-rah loyalty we owe our alma maters in return. Alumni publications, for those who read them closely, often soft-sell the radicalism and downplay the impact of administrative policies. It is a pyramid scheme of sorts—a lifetime guarantee of membership and influence if we follow along and keep the checks flowing. I recently had the experience of observing an entire reunion class (a few conservatives among them) and college honor a man who is clearly, blatantly, and proudly not who he presents himself as—and not a peep from inside the gates. Mind-boggling capture and obedience. The notion that our academic institutions are massive investment funds with small educational fronts attached is not far wrong.
Sort of a silly article given that so much has been done to poison party labels and affiliations in public discourse. It is why "owning the libs" and whatever corresponding expression Ds use (Is there one? Probably something involving pedophiles or fascists or a combination of the two) are common currency.
After admittedly superficial search, I haven't seen a poll where people were asked to estimate the relative sizes of D and R party membership or independent as an identity. I wouldn't be surprised if estimates were just as far off with most people estimating a similar sort of balance. (Though there is a substantially larger number of registered Ds.)
The uselessness of party labels for research in our contemporary America is reinforced when you consider the several studies wherein "liberal" policy descriptions given in neutral language without party labels (like universal healthcare access and the need for action on climate change) consistently receive majority support.
I would not be surprised to find that were general respondents asked which policies they thought university faculties supported they would be more accurate (than the party label stuff) and that those numbers would be close to the results found in the neutral language/no party identification policy polling.
Which returns us to, ...er..., a perception problem.
You have to assume that the lack of faculty diversity contributes to an increasing lack of diversity both among faculty and students. If you’re conservative or moderate surrounded by liberals — particularly if their ideology leads to unfairness and a stifling of views they disagree with, which often leads to self-censorship — then why would anyone who isn’t left-leaning attend these institutions? Especially when they cost a fortune and all they produce is more left-leaning individuals who lack the ability to think critically and engage with people they disagree with. All around, it’s a lose-lose.
Higher ed, I believe, is too far gone ... unless, of course, it actually commits to teaching the very skills that enable people with a range of perspectives to be among each other — to engage with and debate each other and amicably work together.
The long 2016 continues. You all won! Trump is leading the charge on behalf of you anti-woke warriors! Places like Texas are beginning to do away with all that leftist trans garbage like Plato etc. Soon schools will be mandated to institute to affirmative action for conservative professors. You won! You all are some sore winners for sure
What does this have to do with the article? Regardless of who "won" the public has lost confidence in higher education during both Republican and Democratic administrations. Perhaps the problem lies within the schools?
A big problem is that the reality is a large portion of the Republican Party is made up of religious fundamentalists and general anti-intellectual nutcases. I KNOW, that's impolitic to say. But, given that the _Secretary of Health_ is an anti-vaccine lunatic, it's just true. I simply will not accept finger-wagging at liberals from any conservative who tolerates this shameful campaign against public health.
One implication here, is I see no empirical evidence that liberals being nicer to pseudo-scientific racists, supporters of colonialism, etc - which is what's generally meant by the special-pleading of "diversity of thought" - is going to make a difference when the terms of debate are driven by relentless right-wing lying of an extent which one result is to Make Measles Great Again.
Now, I'm aware I'm being harsh here. But I'm challenging academic-bashers to argue beyond bashing academics. Here is the basic argument:
There is an absolute flood of a right-wing lie-machine. This is simply a fact, per anti-vaccine lunacy.
This lie-machine cannot be countered by trying to be so perfect that the right-wing lie-machine is somehow stymied. They're professional liars. That's what they do.
The result is then a kind of blaming-the-victim, via discounting the effects of the lie-machine, and endlessly attacking its targets for their supposed failings.
Unless we start appointing "Professors of Biblical Biology" and "Fellowship Of Vaccination Dangers", the beatings are going to continue until university MAGAism improves.
'One implication here, is I see no empirical evidence that liberals being nicer to pseudo-scientific racists, supporters of colonialism, etc - which is what's generally meant by the special-pleading of "diversity of thought" ...'
Citation needed, especially when you're talking about FIRE.
To be clear, I'm NOT at all talking about FIRE in specific. I'm asking, what does "balanced" mean? What's the reference base? At least the progressive "diversity" has a simple reference - population gender, race, etc - even if, even if, even if, I know, that has problems. But if you're talking views of the overall population, then that has to encompass major amounts of e.g. anti-vaccine lies, Creationism, and similar ilk. The moment you say, no, not *that* - you must explain why this doesn't then lose the "trust" of the public, since a substantial amount of the public believes these things to be true. Especially Republicans (this is just a fact).
What I mean by pseudo-scientific racists, supporters of colonialism, etc, is that conservatives who write these sorts of articles (again, nothing to do with FIRE itself) are generally willing to support those ideas (in polite forms) and consider them intellectually respectable. But they typically aren't willing to advocate for anti-vaccine, Creationism, etc. However, what's the evidence that the public in general draws those sorts of lines? If anything, the opposite seems to be empirically true - a major proof being that the *Secretary of Health* is an anti-vaccine lunatic.
You claimed that what "diversity of thought" generally means is "liberals being nicer to pseudo-scientific racists, supporters of colonialism, etc.", and you still haven't provided evidence for that claim. Show me what backs up that claim and then we can talk.
Counter-offer: What does it mean to *you*? What's your reply to my question above, does it mean anti-vaccine, Creationism, etc? If not:
... why this doesn't then lose the "trust" of the public, since a substantial amount of the public believes these things to be true. Especially Republicans (this is just a fact).
Will you accept the man of the hour (or at least the last 15 minutes)? I'll say this for Cofnas, he's very clear. He does not obscure what he believes, but states it plainly and directly. To wit: hxstem.substack.com / p / how-to-take-back-academia
"How to Take Back Academia"
"Action 1: Promote Knowledge of the Cause of Race Differences"
"Action 2: Change the Population of Decision Makers on Campus"
"Action 3: Leverage Political Power"
Thus, do you think for "diversity of thought" he should, as he joked, be "head of the department of Eugenics and Race Science at Harvard"? And this isn't nearly the boundary case of my question, how much further should it go, anti-vaccine lunacy, Creationism, etc? Again, there's such an unwillingness to deal with the issue of what's the reference base, and the implications of whatever choice is made.
A substantial number of people believe there have been a number of anti-vaccine TRUTHS published after the COVID debacle. This has led to a generalized mistrust of “settled” vaccine safety and efficacy. The reasonable reaction would seem to be to publish the evidence and refute the false claims.
Instead we see defenders of the status quo attacking the doubters as if blackening their name answers their questions. After 2020-2025 that won’t work. Bring out the studies, show us the stats. Prove what we’ve been told is true.
Same with DEI. Demonstrate that DEI is not merely anti-white racism in a clean bedsheet. The public deserves truth, after all.
I agree with you about "A substantial number of people believe ...". However, I believe myself that they have been misled by a right-wing lie-machine, which has shamelessly exploited their fears and vulnerabilities for profit and power.
However, the issue I keep raising, is:
If *everything* "[a] substantial number of people believe" must be given academic respect and representation, THEN that opens the floodgates to the most absurd nonsense that the right-wing lie-machine can generate (and I pound the table here against anti-vaccine lunacy, yes, I feel very strongly about it).
If *something* "[a] substantial number of people believe" can be deemed utter nonsense and not worthy of any academic respect and representation, THEN, oh woe is us, the right-wing lie-machine will bemoan how the trust of the public has been lost.
Let me be clear: some populations which were vaccinated had much worse outcomes than others who were not and suffered from apparent adverse effects that the non-vaccinated did not. Moreover some populations who contracted COVID but were never vaccinated have similar COVID related outcomes to the vaccinated, but without the adverse effects. Those variances need explanation and cannot be hidden by name calling.
Sigh ... Look, I know I'm harsh in comments sometimes, especially nowadays. I know activism training tells you not to unload on people, to be endlessly patient with the other side, because most of them are not intrinsically bad people, just conned by professional liars who play on their fears and anxieties. BUT ... but ... I don't know if anyone else is reading this stuff - this is what you're dealing with. Not predominantly e.g. polite fellow intellectuals who simply want to explore if pseudo-scientific racism might in fact be true. As I said at the start, the reality is a large portion of the Republican Party is made up of religious fundamentalists and general anti-intellectual nutcases. It won't work to try to accommodate them, because it's just not possible without turning academia into MAGA craziness.
"Let me be clear: some populations which were vaccinated had much worse outcomes than others who were not and suffered from apparent adverse effects that the non-vaccinated did not."
As I said to Seth Finkelstein: Citation needed.
Just from sheer randomness and dumb luck, I would expect that if you replaced "populations" with "individuals", your statement would be correct. But if you're talking populations, groups of people with something in common, then I become very skeptical. Furthermore, there's a lot of antivax "science" that's just shoddy and doesn't hold up under examination.
We're talking about university professors here, with PhDs in liberal arts, not just STEM fields. It begs belief that they're all infected with your perception of conservative bias. These kind of inflammatory statements are why people can't have civil conversations.
I've elaborated my reasoning at length in these threads. There's a saying, "a liberal is someone who won't take their own side in an argument". These days, I'm going to take a side, that Republicans have agency, and cannot fairly blame liberals for the MAGA crazy. I have zero respect for the sophistry which tries to escape responsibility for the Republican Party anti-vaccine lunacy by somehow making it the fault of university professors or similar evasions. This just by itself, a single example, is an solid reason for highly educated people not to identify as Republicans.
The problem remains: How do we vet controversial claims without a robust examination of the evidence? Labeling unpopular opinions. as "pseudoscience" when the original claim has not been adequately proven benefits the status quo, but not necessarily the public.
Of course some dodgy assertions will surface, but denigrating all controversial assertions without testing incentivizes hasty research. How about we spend some time replicating inquiry where critics allege flaws? Yes, it will cost. What is rigor worth, especially in healthcare?
Buried in this already too long thread is a reference to a retracted article relying too heavily on scanty VAERS data. OK, but that doesn't actually refute the hypothesis in question. What could be done to increase the value of VAERS, or what complimentary evidence strengthen or refute the hypothesis? Trashing the author does nothing whatsoever to disprove (or demonstrate) the article. It merely provides an excuse to disregard possible flaws in the original findings. Science, real science, isn't being done here.
I agree higher education has more than a perception problem. What I find endlessly frustrating about these discussions is they tend to be framed as a left versus right issue instead of an authoritarian versus libertarian issue. I'm far less concerned about whether a faculty member leans to the left or the right than I am about whether that faculty member supports intellectual freedom and freedom of speech in practice. Emphasis on in practice.
"Liberal faculty" severely misrepresents the problem.
"Faculty who viscerally hate the very concept of integrity" is closer to being an accurate capture of why people who notice have plummeting regard for the academy. The very mechanism of truth-seeking is gone.
Yes, “The very mechanism of truth-seeking is gone” and been replaced by a theory-infused progressive orthodoxy that presents as truth-seeking but is power-seeking. Such orthodoxy parades around in the appearance of academic objectivity and truth-seeking (journals, conferences, fellowships, grants, etc) but rejects the substance, principles, and practices of RAD scholarship. It has largely repurposed the higher-ed truth-seeking mechanism.
The first step for universities would be to eliminate the "woke 1" style DEI statements from job applications and academic fellowships specifically tailored for DEI (I ran into one of these personally while trying to apply for a position at the University of California). These required DEI statements weed out not only conservatives and moderates but also leftists who hold older socialist or social democratic ideologies instead of idenitarian woke ideology.
DEI is racism in sheep's' clothing.
You all need to change the fucking record. "Everything I don't like is DEI and everything that is wrong in the world is the fault of DEI." Before that it was affirmative action, before that it was desegregationists, before that it was abolitionists. You all won! Trump is attacking higher Ed in YOUR name. Take the win and shut your mouth. Grow the fuck up
You’re not a serious critic, Ryan. You’re obsessed, with FIRE and especially with me. You seem deeply unwell, and I think you know it. No evidence can convince you, but you keep on talking like you can be convinced on a rational basis of anything. I think we both know you can’t so why do you devote so much of your life to misrepresenting me, FIRE, higher education? And why are you so comfortable being so dishonest? I have mostly attributed to your being deeply unwell, but I’m sure in your overheated mind that’s not the way it looks at all. So I would actually like to hear it from you. Is there any evidence in the world that you you are wrong? Because it doesn’t seem like it.
While I have you here and we're talking about being wrong, have you apologized to Karen Attiah for celebrating her being fired from The Washington Post? When I'm wrong I can admit it. I am not wrong about FIRE. I am not wrong about free speech. If you want to convince me that in a robust free speech culture its just that journalists are being fired for criticizing St. Charlie Kirk go ahead! But the answer will be 'Jeff Bezos has speech rights too!" Which only proves that free speech is a right wing ideology! If Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos can dictate what is said and not said simply because they're rich and able to afford to throw their muscle around, that is the definition of a right wing ideology! That you side with the ruling class in these cases prove that FIRE is a right wing organization! Look you say I'm obsessed but my main beef with FIRE is that you're acting immorally and unethically by claiming to be a nonideological and nonpartisan organization. If you were to just admit that you are, at the very least, a right leaning/libertarian organization and that your work should be viewed through that lense you'd never hear from me again. But that's not conducive to your political project so you'd never admit to the truth
It was serendipitous that you commented when you did, Greg, because two things happened yesterday that proves my point about both FIRE and free speech in general being right wing;
1) FIRE crowed about winning a case against land acknowledgements (yes FIRE is still fighting last decade's right wing culture war over land acknowledgements lol)
meanwhile;
2) The House of Representatives passed a bill that makes criticizing the State of Israel without facing punishment extremely difficult on college campuses. Even Reason magazine, not exactly a bastion of leftism, calls it an assault on First Amendment rights.
So two things point to the right wing nature of free speech. Of course land acknowledgments are a right wing bugaboo. As silly and cringey as they are land acknowledgements are meaningless. They're worthless to even discuss. There are bigger fish to fry. That FIRE dedicated so much time and so many resources to a petty right wing grievance is telling. Instead of wasting their time on culture war bullshit they could have been rallying their members to oppose the bill outlawing criticism and boycotts of Israel. Is the speech targeted in the bill (anti Israel, anti genocide, pro boycott) speech that the majority of FIRE employees also oppose and therefore not worthy of protecting? Or was FIRE simply unaware of the bill despite it being talked about in the media and its two co sponsors being forthright about what they hoped to achieve by passing it? Either way FIRE is viewing the world from a fundamental right wing lens. That's not a judgement statement. FIRE and its employees are free to believe and support anything they wish. My only point is that it is unethical and extremely immoral to lie about one's politics in order to launder them through a "nonpartisan" framework. We all have our biases. FIRE should be honest about theirs
https://x.com/thefireorg/status/2095889038292971615?s=46&t=qzjGK2hvGE3WB6C8voqsPQ
But it won’t make a difference because you cannot change your mind no matter the evidence
Though your reply borders on the non-responsive I'll speak to the single short tweet thread you reference. Credit where credit is due. FIRE has mentioned the bill. Whether or not FIRE will ever mention the bill again let alone do anything to oppose the bill is another matter. The tweet is, in fact, indicative of the "nonpartisan" nature of FIRE. Right wingers get petty lawsuits against land acknowledgments. MAGA gets frivolous lawsuits over Let's Go Brandon sweatshirts taken all the way to the Supreme Court. GA-44 is still in effect in Texas, making it almost impossible for students to criticize Israel without getting punished for it but at least they can write parodies of land acknowledgements and wear Let's Go Brandon gear to school.
Again, kudos for the tweet but its clear that at least in one respect the tweet is very cynical. You throwing it up as the sole response to a long list of reasons why I see FIRE as right wing shows that tweets and politely worded letters like it are nothing more than ass covering. "See! We tweeted about it. We're nonpartisan" while you go to SCOTUS on behalf of MAGA and treat land acknowledgments like some existential threat to speech rights everywhere. You cynically used the tweet to distract from all the examples I posted showing why I say FIRE is a right wing organization and you'll use this tweet or others to distract from these examples as well:
*Jeffrey Rosen's new FIRE podcast is a vehicle for promoting right wing voices from MAGA Justice Neil Gorsuch as well as right wing scholars Robert P. George and Sarah Isgur
*FIRE's Soapbox event features not a single leftist speaker but you are giving your platform to Ilya Shapiro who argues that broad swaths of leftist speech, particularly pro Palestinian speech, should be declared unprotected with arrests, firings, deportations etc to follow. Does FIRE stand with Shapiro in making those calls? (I won't get into the Jeffrey Epstein associate you've invited because that would be "cancel culture." See below)
*FIRE is now embracing what used to be called cancel culture. Greg you wrote a whole ass book on cancel culture when you could blame leftist undergraduates but when Karen Attiah was fired for saying mean things about Charlie Kirk you supported Jeff Bezos. FIRE continues to work hand in glove with Marc Randazza despite the latter being part of a network that seeks, and has been successful doing so, to get people fired from their private sector jobs for criticizing Israel, war and genocide
But, yet again, well done and congratulations on the tweet. I hope it pays dividends for your trojan horse political project
People mention problems with faculty, and it’s real. Faculty on hiring committees have been open about blackballing conservative candidates, for decades.
Administrators are the bigger problem . Administrators now outnumber faculty in most schools. Most schools spend more money on administrator salaries than on faculty pay.
A decent sized chunk of the so called “Liberals” are not that at all, they’re postmodern Maoists. I have a Master of Social Work degree and am a JFK Democrat. That made me the phallic oppressor to these tenured Red Guards.
One ought to wonder to what extent there is preference falsification. Admitting to having 'conservative' leanings is an invitation to social death -- and that started long before the last decade.
EXCERPT | Richard Pipes, Ph.D. '50, Baird research professor of history, a registered Democrat, remembers in 1972 the Crimson calling him incredulously to ask him if it was true he planned to vote for Nixon. "When I said yes, they asked if I knew any other professor who might also be doing that. I mentioned two or three others who had told me so. But when the Crimson called them, they wouldn't talk. So the Crimson wrote that Professor Pipes was the only one at Harvard voting for Nixon. My wife was told by her ladies' tennis group that they came very close to dropping her from the group."
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/sites/default/files/html/1999/09/conserv.html
While I would agree that higher education has more than a perception problem, I don't think that simply looking at the percentages of who is more "liberal" or "conservative" is a good metric for that. It doesn't help that "liberal" has an ambiguous meaning, sometimes being a synonym for "left-leaning" and other times being used for those who favor robust civil liberties. A lot of critiques of higher education come from those who see many faculty as being illiberal even though those faculty are far from conservative.
The so-called "crank realignment" (https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-crank-realignment-is-bad-for) doesn't help either, since it makes it easier for one to argue that universities are less conservative because they are less friendly to cranks -- even if the real situation is way more complicated than that.
Believing that higher education should reflect ideological diversity is like asking why fire departments don't hire arsonists.
I suspect the problem is worse when respondents are alums of elite colleges. Not only are many of those grads remembering the long-gone long ago of the Reagan and Bush years but my experience is that they fundamentally misunderstand how much campuses have declined in the interim. Reunions certainly don’t emphasize it—they play on the sentimentality of our friendships and experiences there and the rah-rah loyalty we owe our alma maters in return. Alumni publications, for those who read them closely, often soft-sell the radicalism and downplay the impact of administrative policies. It is a pyramid scheme of sorts—a lifetime guarantee of membership and influence if we follow along and keep the checks flowing. I recently had the experience of observing an entire reunion class (a few conservatives among them) and college honor a man who is clearly, blatantly, and proudly not who he presents himself as—and not a peep from inside the gates. Mind-boggling capture and obedience. The notion that our academic institutions are massive investment funds with small educational fronts attached is not far wrong.
Sort of a silly article given that so much has been done to poison party labels and affiliations in public discourse. It is why "owning the libs" and whatever corresponding expression Ds use (Is there one? Probably something involving pedophiles or fascists or a combination of the two) are common currency.
After admittedly superficial search, I haven't seen a poll where people were asked to estimate the relative sizes of D and R party membership or independent as an identity. I wouldn't be surprised if estimates were just as far off with most people estimating a similar sort of balance. (Though there is a substantially larger number of registered Ds.)
The uselessness of party labels for research in our contemporary America is reinforced when you consider the several studies wherein "liberal" policy descriptions given in neutral language without party labels (like universal healthcare access and the need for action on climate change) consistently receive majority support.
I would not be surprised to find that were general respondents asked which policies they thought university faculties supported they would be more accurate (than the party label stuff) and that those numbers would be close to the results found in the neutral language/no party identification policy polling.
Which returns us to, ...er..., a perception problem.
You have to assume that the lack of faculty diversity contributes to an increasing lack of diversity both among faculty and students. If you’re conservative or moderate surrounded by liberals — particularly if their ideology leads to unfairness and a stifling of views they disagree with, which often leads to self-censorship — then why would anyone who isn’t left-leaning attend these institutions? Especially when they cost a fortune and all they produce is more left-leaning individuals who lack the ability to think critically and engage with people they disagree with. All around, it’s a lose-lose.
Higher ed, I believe, is too far gone ... unless, of course, it actually commits to teaching the very skills that enable people with a range of perspectives to be among each other — to engage with and debate each other and amicably work together.
The long 2016 continues. You all won! Trump is leading the charge on behalf of you anti-woke warriors! Places like Texas are beginning to do away with all that leftist trans garbage like Plato etc. Soon schools will be mandated to institute to affirmative action for conservative professors. You won! You all are some sore winners for sure
What does this have to do with the article? Regardless of who "won" the public has lost confidence in higher education during both Republican and Democratic administrations. Perhaps the problem lies within the schools?
A big problem is that the reality is a large portion of the Republican Party is made up of religious fundamentalists and general anti-intellectual nutcases. I KNOW, that's impolitic to say. But, given that the _Secretary of Health_ is an anti-vaccine lunatic, it's just true. I simply will not accept finger-wagging at liberals from any conservative who tolerates this shameful campaign against public health.
One implication here, is I see no empirical evidence that liberals being nicer to pseudo-scientific racists, supporters of colonialism, etc - which is what's generally meant by the special-pleading of "diversity of thought" - is going to make a difference when the terms of debate are driven by relentless right-wing lying of an extent which one result is to Make Measles Great Again.
Now, I'm aware I'm being harsh here. But I'm challenging academic-bashers to argue beyond bashing academics. Here is the basic argument:
There is an absolute flood of a right-wing lie-machine. This is simply a fact, per anti-vaccine lunacy.
This lie-machine cannot be countered by trying to be so perfect that the right-wing lie-machine is somehow stymied. They're professional liars. That's what they do.
The result is then a kind of blaming-the-victim, via discounting the effects of the lie-machine, and endlessly attacking its targets for their supposed failings.
Unless we start appointing "Professors of Biblical Biology" and "Fellowship Of Vaccination Dangers", the beatings are going to continue until university MAGAism improves.
'One implication here, is I see no empirical evidence that liberals being nicer to pseudo-scientific racists, supporters of colonialism, etc - which is what's generally meant by the special-pleading of "diversity of thought" ...'
Citation needed, especially when you're talking about FIRE.
To be clear, I'm NOT at all talking about FIRE in specific. I'm asking, what does "balanced" mean? What's the reference base? At least the progressive "diversity" has a simple reference - population gender, race, etc - even if, even if, even if, I know, that has problems. But if you're talking views of the overall population, then that has to encompass major amounts of e.g. anti-vaccine lies, Creationism, and similar ilk. The moment you say, no, not *that* - you must explain why this doesn't then lose the "trust" of the public, since a substantial amount of the public believes these things to be true. Especially Republicans (this is just a fact).
What I mean by pseudo-scientific racists, supporters of colonialism, etc, is that conservatives who write these sorts of articles (again, nothing to do with FIRE itself) are generally willing to support those ideas (in polite forms) and consider them intellectually respectable. But they typically aren't willing to advocate for anti-vaccine, Creationism, etc. However, what's the evidence that the public in general draws those sorts of lines? If anything, the opposite seems to be empirically true - a major proof being that the *Secretary of Health* is an anti-vaccine lunatic.
You claimed that what "diversity of thought" generally means is "liberals being nicer to pseudo-scientific racists, supporters of colonialism, etc.", and you still haven't provided evidence for that claim. Show me what backs up that claim and then we can talk.
Counter-offer: What does it mean to *you*? What's your reply to my question above, does it mean anti-vaccine, Creationism, etc? If not:
... why this doesn't then lose the "trust" of the public, since a substantial amount of the public believes these things to be true. Especially Republicans (this is just a fact).
Counter-offer not accepted. You made the claim, so you should be able to back it up. Period.
Will you accept the man of the hour (or at least the last 15 minutes)? I'll say this for Cofnas, he's very clear. He does not obscure what he believes, but states it plainly and directly. To wit: hxstem.substack.com / p / how-to-take-back-academia
"How to Take Back Academia"
"Action 1: Promote Knowledge of the Cause of Race Differences"
"Action 2: Change the Population of Decision Makers on Campus"
"Action 3: Leverage Political Power"
Thus, do you think for "diversity of thought" he should, as he joked, be "head of the department of Eugenics and Race Science at Harvard"? And this isn't nearly the boundary case of my question, how much further should it go, anti-vaccine lunacy, Creationism, etc? Again, there's such an unwillingness to deal with the issue of what's the reference base, and the implications of whatever choice is made.
A substantial number of people believe there have been a number of anti-vaccine TRUTHS published after the COVID debacle. This has led to a generalized mistrust of “settled” vaccine safety and efficacy. The reasonable reaction would seem to be to publish the evidence and refute the false claims.
Instead we see defenders of the status quo attacking the doubters as if blackening their name answers their questions. After 2020-2025 that won’t work. Bring out the studies, show us the stats. Prove what we’ve been told is true.
Same with DEI. Demonstrate that DEI is not merely anti-white racism in a clean bedsheet. The public deserves truth, after all.
I agree with you about "A substantial number of people believe ...". However, I believe myself that they have been misled by a right-wing lie-machine, which has shamelessly exploited their fears and vulnerabilities for profit and power.
However, the issue I keep raising, is:
If *everything* "[a] substantial number of people believe" must be given academic respect and representation, THEN that opens the floodgates to the most absurd nonsense that the right-wing lie-machine can generate (and I pound the table here against anti-vaccine lunacy, yes, I feel very strongly about it).
If *something* "[a] substantial number of people believe" can be deemed utter nonsense and not worthy of any academic respect and representation, THEN, oh woe is us, the right-wing lie-machine will bemoan how the trust of the public has been lost.
There is a problem here.
Let me be clear: some populations which were vaccinated had much worse outcomes than others who were not and suffered from apparent adverse effects that the non-vaccinated did not. Moreover some populations who contracted COVID but were never vaccinated have similar COVID related outcomes to the vaccinated, but without the adverse effects. Those variances need explanation and cannot be hidden by name calling.
Sigh ... Look, I know I'm harsh in comments sometimes, especially nowadays. I know activism training tells you not to unload on people, to be endlessly patient with the other side, because most of them are not intrinsically bad people, just conned by professional liars who play on their fears and anxieties. BUT ... but ... I don't know if anyone else is reading this stuff - this is what you're dealing with. Not predominantly e.g. polite fellow intellectuals who simply want to explore if pseudo-scientific racism might in fact be true. As I said at the start, the reality is a large portion of the Republican Party is made up of religious fundamentalists and general anti-intellectual nutcases. It won't work to try to accommodate them, because it's just not possible without turning academia into MAGA craziness.
"Let me be clear: some populations which were vaccinated had much worse outcomes than others who were not and suffered from apparent adverse effects that the non-vaccinated did not."
As I said to Seth Finkelstein: Citation needed.
Just from sheer randomness and dumb luck, I would expect that if you replaced "populations" with "individuals", your statement would be correct. But if you're talking populations, groups of people with something in common, then I become very skeptical. Furthermore, there's a lot of antivax "science" that's just shoddy and doesn't hold up under examination.
So again, citation needed.
Check your emotions.
We're talking about university professors here, with PhDs in liberal arts, not just STEM fields. It begs belief that they're all infected with your perception of conservative bias. These kind of inflammatory statements are why people can't have civil conversations.
I've elaborated my reasoning at length in these threads. There's a saying, "a liberal is someone who won't take their own side in an argument". These days, I'm going to take a side, that Republicans have agency, and cannot fairly blame liberals for the MAGA crazy. I have zero respect for the sophistry which tries to escape responsibility for the Republican Party anti-vaccine lunacy by somehow making it the fault of university professors or similar evasions. This just by itself, a single example, is an solid reason for highly educated people not to identify as Republicans.
What happens if this political leaning is because someone is choosing to be more in line with reality and the facts?
Why would conservatives, who constantly deny what is very obviously happening when and where it comes to climate change?
Or is the problem something else? And it is a power grab and the question of the vision of the anointed?
The problem remains: How do we vet controversial claims without a robust examination of the evidence? Labeling unpopular opinions. as "pseudoscience" when the original claim has not been adequately proven benefits the status quo, but not necessarily the public.
Of course some dodgy assertions will surface, but denigrating all controversial assertions without testing incentivizes hasty research. How about we spend some time replicating inquiry where critics allege flaws? Yes, it will cost. What is rigor worth, especially in healthcare?
Buried in this already too long thread is a reference to a retracted article relying too heavily on scanty VAERS data. OK, but that doesn't actually refute the hypothesis in question. What could be done to increase the value of VAERS, or what complimentary evidence strengthen or refute the hypothesis? Trashing the author does nothing whatsoever to disprove (or demonstrate) the article. It merely provides an excuse to disregard possible flaws in the original findings. Science, real science, isn't being done here.
Believing that higher education should reflect ideological diversity is like asking why fire departments don't hire arsonists.