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View Full Version : Study Confirms College Profs Are Left-Wing-------DUH



janelle
03-29-2005, 09:23 PM
Tuesday, March 29, 2005 12:11 a.m. EST


A new study confirms everything conservatives have been saying for years about liberal college professors – and more.

Seventy-two percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and just 15 percent are conservative – by their own description – says a study appearing in the March issue of the Forum, an online political science journal.


The study, funded by the Randolph Foundation, a conservative group, found that 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identify themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans, according to a report in the Washington Post.



The gap is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative.



Other findings about the professors and instructors surveyed – 1,643 full-time faculty at 183 four-year schools – include:




They describe themselves as strongly or somewhat in favor of abortion rights (84 percent).



They believe homosexuality is acceptable (67 percent).



They want more environmental protection "even if it raises prices or costs jobs" (88 percent).



Sixty-five percent want the government to ensure full employment (a position to the left of the Democratic Party).



The most liberal faculties are those devoted to the humanities (81 percent) and social sciences (75 percent).


Liberals outnumbered conservatives even among engineering faculty (51 percent to 19 percent) and business faculty (49 percent to 39 percent).


The most left-leaning departments were found to be English literature, philosophy, political science and religious studies, where at least 80 percent of the faculty say they are liberal and no more than 5 percent call themselves conservative.



Fifty-one percent of those surveyed say they rarely or never attend church or synagogue and 31 percent identify themselves regular churchgoers.



Seventy-two percent of the full-time faculty are male and 28 percent female.


"What’s most striking is how few conservatives there are in any field,” said Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University and a co-author of the study.



Political science professor Stanley Rothman of Smith College, another co-author of the study, sees the findings as evidence of "possible discrimination” against conservatives in hiring and promotion. The study, however, describes this finding as "preliminary."



Meanwhile, Jonathan Knight, director of academic freedom and tenure for the American Association of University Professors, opined: "It’s hard to see that these liberal views cut very deeply into the education of students. In fact, a number of studies show the core values that students bring into the university are not very much altered by being in college."



Be that as it may, the authors of the study concluded that there has been a leftward shift on campus over the past two decades.



Case in point: In the last major survey of college faculty, by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1984, 39 percent identified themselves as liberal.

Jolie Rouge
03-29-2005, 09:52 PM
Political science professor Stanley Rothman of Smith College, another co-author of the study, sees the findings as evidence of "possible discrimination” against conservatives in hiring and promotion. The study, however, describes this finding as "preliminary."





I wonder if we could get the ACLU to act on this ???


























BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ...

stresseater
03-29-2005, 09:53 PM
No suprise here. I'd be willing to bet that many of those who identified themselves as Republican were really closer to Democrats on social issues. RINO's :D

I wonder if we could get the ACLU to act on this ??? HAHAHA I thnk they would shrivel up and blow away before they would EVER take on a case like that. :eek: :D

excuseme
03-30-2005, 04:47 AM
This explains why we have posters comparing Terri to now killing Alzheimers patients because "they can't think." If an education makes you more liberal, a lot of people need an education then.

janelle
03-30-2005, 06:30 AM
If Alzeheimers patients will be starved in the future then those people will be right and they will be the ones who are educated. We shall see if we have the slippery slope. We saw it with abortion and it just sems likely it will be at the end of life as well. The culture of death with the consent of the liberal colleges.

JKATHERINE
03-30-2005, 06:34 AM
Other findings about the professors and instructors surveyed – 1,643 full-time faculty at 183 four-year schools – include:


They describe themselves as strongly or somewhat in favor of abortion rights (84 percent).


They believe homosexuality is acceptable (67 percent).


They want more environmental protection "even if it raises prices or costs jobs" (88 percent).


Sixty-five percent want the government to ensure full employment (a position to the left of the Democratic Party).


The most liberal faculties are those devoted to the humanities (81 percent) and social sciences (75 percent).


Liberals outnumbered conservatives even among engineering faculty (51 percent to 19 percent) and business faculty (49 percent to 39 percent).


The most left-leaning departments were found to be English literature, philosophy, political science and religious studies, where at least 80 percent of the faculty say they are liberal and no more than 5 percent call themselves conservative.


Fifty-one percent of those surveyed say they rarely or never attend church or synagogue and 31 percent identify themselves regular churchgoers.


Seventy-two percent of the full-time faculty are male and 28 percent female.


Be that as it may, the authors of the study concluded that there has been a leftward shift on campus over the past two decades.




:D :D :D

schsa
03-30-2005, 07:20 AM
Just think of the culture they are in. Almost everyone is perpetually 18-23. They teach people who have never been in the work force, most have not held a full time job or had major responsibilities. Most college professors have never held a full time job. They work in a world where writing and publishing research is lauded. They don't have to deal with the threat of being fired once they are tenured.

They can afford to be liberal.

janelle
03-30-2005, 10:04 AM
Just think of the culture they are in. Almost everyone is perpetually 18-23. They teach people who have never been in the work force, most have not held a full time job or had major responsibilities. Most college professors have never held a full time job. They work in a world where writing and publishing research is lauded. They don't have to deal with the threat of being fired once they are tenured.

They can afford to be liberal.

Are you saying they are college age mentality their whole lives? Makes sense to me. LOL Wish they would have to be more libel for their work. They could be fired if they fall down on the job. But what student is going to say they did not get anything out of a class? Who will listen.

My hubby once told a teacher in college that all she did was give busy work. She laughed and said he was too smart. They don't care, they can't be fired.

adorkablex
03-30-2005, 11:46 AM
Just think of the culture they are in. Almost everyone is perpetually 18-23. They teach people who have never been in the work force, most have not held a full time job or had major responsibilities. Most college professors have never held a full time job. They work in a world where writing and publishing research is lauded. They don't have to deal with the threat of being fired once they are tenured.

They can afford to be liberal.
I love how people think that age has to do with stance. A lot of the kids in college HAVE been in the work force. So once someone is a weathered 40 and has been in the work force for 20 years and they have 3 bratty children.. are they then capable of being able to decide what their political stance is? How do you explain my Mother, my Father, my Grandfather my ex-boyfriend's Mother... All of them are middle aged or older... have been in the workforce for 20+ years and all of them are liberals.

And it's JMO but educating thousands of people sounds like a full time job to me.

Age has nothing to do with politics. Because there are just as many conservative teenagers as there are liberal.

Jaidness
03-30-2005, 02:20 PM
again I'd like to see the link for this
by saying DUH are you implying that everyone knows this to be a fact? And are *you* implying as the title of this article does that every college professor is left wing? I know at least three professors( two from liberal arts colleges no less!) that would disagree heartily.




Jolie Rouge Quote:
Political science professor Stanley Rothman of Smith College, another co-author of the study, sees the findings as evidence of "possible discrimination” against conservatives in hiring and promotion. The study, however, describes this finding as "preliminary."

Meanwhile, Jonathan Knight, director of academic freedom and tenure for the American Association of University Professors, opined: "It’s hard to see that these liberal views cut very deeply into the education of students. In fact, a number of studies show the core values that students bring into the university are not very much altered by being in college."

ya forgot to add that part ....let's see. "possible evidence" V. "a number of studies" hmmmmm.....

janelle
03-30-2005, 03:28 PM
I said DUH cause I knew that. Some college profs are not liberal but the article says that. They are the minority though. The students most affected are the ones fresh out of high school without life experience yet.

Linus1223
03-30-2005, 03:41 PM
I said DUH cause I knew that. Some college profs are not liberal but the article says that. They are the minority though. The students most affected are the ones fresh out of high school without life experience yet.
Believe me, by the time I left junior high school, I already knew who I was "politically."

I go to a Catholic institution and none of the conservatives "affected" me.

janelle
03-30-2005, 03:56 PM
I use to be that way myself but I have changed over the years. I stopped listening to the network news for one thing.

Jaidness
03-30-2005, 04:17 PM
Media repeat unsubstantiated Horowitz tale of anti-conservative bias on campus

As part of a campaign to promote an "Academic Bill of Rights" on college and university campuses, conservative pundit David Horowitz has repeatedly cited an incident in which he claims that a criminology professor at the University of Northern Colorado asked students to explain "why President Bush was a war criminal" for a mid-term exam essay, then failed a student who chose instead to explain why Saddam Hussein is a war criminal. Horowitz claimed that this student testified about her experience at a special hearing before the Colorado state legislature in December 2003. But Horowitz has never provided the names of the professor or the student, and transcripts of the hearing to which Horowitz himself linked do not mention the incident. Nonetheless, accounts of the alleged incident have been repeated in several national media outlets.

Horowitz is the founder of Students for Academic Freedom (SAF), an organization that describes itself as "a clearing house and communications center for a national coalition of student organizations whose goal is to end the political abuse of the university and to restore integrity to the academic mission as a disinterested pursuit of knowledge." SAF promotes Horowitz's "Academic Bill of Rights" and lists instances of alleged anti-conservative bias on campuses across the country, including the alleged episode at the University of Northern Colorado. The SAF website itself does not identify the University of Northern Colorado as the site of the alleged "war criminal" incident occurred -- it refers instead to "a Colorado university" and is the only one of the 12 such incidents on the SAF list for which no specific institution is identified -- but Horowitz has identified the University of Northern Colorado as the site of the incident in other forums.

In a September 13, 2004, article on FrontPageMag.com, of which Horowitz is co-founder and editor-in-chief, he wrote about the December 2003 hearing before the Colorado state legislature: "Among the evidence presented at this December hearing was testimony from a student at the University of Northern Colorado who told legislators that a required essay topic on her criminology mid-term exam was: 'Explain why George Bush is a war criminal.' When she submitted an essay explaining why Saddam Hussein was a war criminal instead, she was given an 'F.'" The article contained a link to a transcript of the December 18, 2003, hearing, hosted on the SAF website (page 1 and page 2). But the transcript itself contains no mention of the "University of Northern Colorado," "Saddam Hussein," "war criminal," "war crimes," "criminology," or anything else to indicate that any such incident was discussed at the hearing. A search for "Bush" turns up unrelated references.

Notwithstanding his failure to document the alleged incident, Horowitz has repeatedly pushed this story as an example of what he considers anti-conservative bias in America's universities. In a December 5, 2003, FrontPageMag.com column, Horowitz referenced the story, though he attributed it to "a Colorado university," not to the University of Northern Colorado. Other publications have cited the alleged incident, including The Christian Science Monitor; The New York Sun (registration required); and an op-ed on OpinionJournal.com, the website of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, by Brian C. Anderson, senior editor of City Journal, a quarterly magazine published by the conservative Manhattan Institute.

Horowitz also referenced this story twice during an online chat session on "Colloquy Live," hosted by the Chronicle of Higher Education's website. In the course of the chat session, a person who identified himself as a teacher from the University of Northern Colorado questioned the need for Horowitz's "Academic Bill of Rights," to which Horowitz responded, in part: "Isn't your school the one where a criminology professor assigned a paper 'Why George Bush is a war criminal'? I think you have problems." None of these references to the alleged incident cites specific details, such as a date or the names of the student, the professor or the course.

Mano Singham, the director of Case Western Reserve University's Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education, described his own fruitless efforts to locate the professor in question in a March 4 op-ed in The Cleveland Plain Dealer:

So I called the acting head of the political science department, the dean's office and the provost's office at the University of Northern Colorado and asked them if they knew anything more. They had never heard of this story and were all surprised to hear that they were supposedly harboring this fiend. You would think they would have known since any student grievance against the professor would surely have been a high-profile case, at least reported in the local newspapers.

I was baffled. But then on April 6 [2004], Horowitz sent me in a different direction when he gave an interview on NPR; he said that this story was part of testimony given by students at a special hearing of the state legislature in Colorado, called to look into alleged abuses of this kind.

So I obtained transcripts of the Colorado legislative hearings. But mysteriously, no such testimony appeared there.

As a last resort, I tried a Google search of this story, but none of the hits identified Professor X.

This incident is not the first time that Horowitz has trumpeted dubious anecdotes in the service of his ideological agenda. Media Matters for America has documented Horowitz's embrace of Kuwaiti student Ahmad al-Qloushi, who claimed he received a failing grade on a term paper because it expressed a "pro-American" viewpoint. In fact, al-Qloushi's professor and a number of conservative bloggers who have seen the paper maintain that it deserved a failing grade.

— S.S.M.

http://mediamatters.org/items/printable/200503080001

Linus1223
03-30-2005, 04:36 PM
I use to be that way myself but I have changed over the years. I stopped listening to the network news for one thing.
So it wasn't the fault of college faculty, then?

Jolie Rouge
03-30-2005, 08:08 PM
Hey Jaidness -- where's my quote ??

janelle
03-30-2005, 09:38 PM
So it wasn't the fault of college faculty, then?

Oh God no I escaped them all together.LOL

We really don't need a David Horowitz to tell us that college and the media are liberal and biased. Anyone who watched TV or the media can see it a mile away. The college grads who go on the media jobs show us that everyday. This doesn't take a rocket scientist.

adorkablex
03-31-2005, 08:01 AM
Just curious but did this study visit ALL colleges? Because depending on where you live in this country I don't really think the findings COULD be true. I live in the south. Grew up in the buckle of the bible belt. Some of my professors are conservative. Does that mean I can say they try to brainwash me? No because by 18 you should be able to think for yourself.


Another thing, what about Christian colleges? Did they take their professors into account while doing that? Because if such a pure conservative mind doesn't want to be spoiled by the impurities of us dirty liberals, they should go to such an institution for schooling. That or grow a thicker skin like we liberals eventually cultivate after having one religious holy roller after another try to convert us over to the light side. :rolleyes:

Jaidness
04-06-2005, 09:28 AM
Wash. Times news, opinion pieces peddled flawed survey on liberal professors

Over the past week, The Washington Times ran one news report and columns by Suzanne Fields and Cal Thomas about a recent study indicating that more self-identified liberals than conservatives are serving as professors at U.S. colleges and universities, a conclusion reached by comparing data from faculty surveys taken in 1984 and 1999. Two of the articles repeat the claim that the study demonstrates a profound "ideological shift to the left among college faculty" and a pervasive anti-conservative bias in hiring and tenure decisions. In fact, neither conclusion is warranted based on the study itself.

The study, released March 29, is titled Politics and Professional Advancement Among College Faculty. Its authors are Stanley Rothman, director of the Center for the Study of Social and Political Change and Smith College professor emeritus of government; S. Robert Lichter, George Mason University professor and director of GMU's Center of Media and Public Affairs; and University of Toronto professor Neil Nevitte. The study was sponsored by the Randolph Foundation, a private philanthropy that funds many conservative organizations, such as Americans for Tax Reform, the Independent Women's Forum, and right-wing pundit David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture.

The Washington Times reported in a March 30 news article that the study found that "nearly three-quarters" of faculty members describe themselves as liberals, according to 1999 data from the North American Academic Study Survey (NAASS), up from 39 percent in a 1984 survey by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Relying on this comparison, the Times described a "shift to the left among college faculty [that] has become much more pronounced in the past 20 years." In fact, the two surveys examined such dissimilar samples that one cannot draw valid conclusions about a trend.

According to the study, the NAASS "American sample" included 1,643 faculty members from 183 universities and colleges. The responses came from "81 doctoral, 59 comprehensive and 43 liberal arts institutions." The 1984 Carnegie survey, however, contained "data obtained from over 5,000 faculty employed at a variety of institutions from Two-Year Community Colleges to Research Institutions." * Remarking on these two contrasting samples, the weblog Critical Montages observed that "the NAASS's exclusion of two-year colleges and overrepresentation of doctoral institutions is a recipe for accentuating the proportion of liberals":

Research has shown that faculty and students at research institutions are more liberal than those at primarily teaching institutions (see, for instance, Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd, "War and Dissent: The Political Values of the American Professoriate," The Journal of Higher Education 65.5 [September/October 1994], especially p. 586; and Richard F. Hamilton and Lowell L. Hargens, "The Politics of the Professors: Self-Identifications, 1969-1984," Social Forces 71.3 [March 1993], especially pp. 608-609, 613-614, 616), so the NAASS's exclusion of two-year colleges and overrepresentation of doctoral institutions is a recipe for accentuating the proportion of liberals.

On the question of ideological orientation, the study's comparison of the 1984 and 1999 surveys violates a fundamental principle of survey research. As decades of research have shown, altering questions in even subtle ways can produce dramatically different results. Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte base their conclusion that "a sharp shift to the left has taken place among college faculty in recent years" on questions asked in two entirely different ways in the two studies, one asking respondents to place themselves on a ten-point scale, and one asking them to select from a list of descriptions.

Does this mean that there has been no shift to the left among faculties? Not necessarily -- but with the available data we have no idea whether such a shift has occurred, and neither do Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte.

The study attempted to depict an epidemic of "liberal bias" on campus by contrasting the alleged "sharp shift to the left" among college faculty to the "relatively stable" ideological makeup of the general public over time. This comparison has little illustrative value, however, since the vast majority of the general public lack the necessary credentials for a professorship at the surveyed schools. Moreover, available data suggest that highly educated Americans may be more left-leaning than the general population. Exit polls from the November 2004 presidential election indicate that 55 percent of voters who have postgraduate study experience voted for Democrat John Kerry, compared to 44 percent for Republican George W. Bush. (Interestingly, when New Yorker staff writer Nicholas Lemann asked Bush adviser Karl Rove how to identify "who's a Democrat" as opposed to a Republican for a 2003 profile, Rove answered: "Somebody with a doctorate.")

Jaidness
04-06-2005, 09:30 AM
Both the news report and an April 4 Times column by Fields quoted Lichter -- whose Center for Media and Public Affairs states on its website that it conducts "scientific studies of the news and entertainment media" but receives funding from numerous conservative organizations -- saying that "this is the first study that statistically proves bias [against conservatives] in the hiring and promotion of faculty members." But Lichter's own study undermines this claim. The study specifically notes: "The results do not definitively prove that ideology accounts for differences in professional standing" [emphasis added]. Rather, the study concluded more modestly that the findings are merely "consistent with the hypothesis" of bias [emphasis added]. According to Lichter's study:

The results do not definitively prove that ideology accounts for differences in professional standing. It is entirely possible that other unmeasured factors may account for those variations. That said, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that political conservatism confers a disadvantage in the competition for professional advancement. ...

Our findings on the more controversial issue of discrimination against conservative faculty should be regarded as more preliminary. [PDF p. 15]

Considering that, according to Lichter's bio on the Center for Media and Public Affairs website, "Dr. Lichter also directs the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), a nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the quality of news involving statistical or scientific information," his statement is little short of shocking. Cross-sectional studies like those cited in Lichter's study seldom "prove" anything; at best they can demonstrate associations and relationships.

Furthermore, the study does not even show, much less "prove," that conservatives have been discriminated against in hiring and promotion. Few would doubt that liberals outnumber conservatives among university faculty. But justifying claims about hiring and promotion would require data on the number of conservatives and liberals who applied for various positions or came up for tenure review. Despite Lichter's comments, the study's authors present no data addressing the issue. (Academic promotion is extraordinarily complex; in such a study, researchers would have to determine, for instance, which respondents were denied tenure at a first-tier institution, then received tenure at a second-tier institution, then decide how such a person should be classified.)

The conservative claim of bias (as opposed to mere underrepresentation) rests on the idea that there are significant numbers of conservative Ph.D.s who have been denied faculty positions or tenure because of their political views. Lichter, Rothman, and Nevitte provide no evidence to support this assumption.

Fields similarly claimed that "a left-wing conspiracy -- or something close to it -- flourishes on the campus." But this conclusion assumes, implausibly, that hiring bias is the only conceivable overrepresentation of liberals on campuses relative to the general public.

Nationally syndicated columnist Thomas also referenced the flawed study in his March 30 column (reprinted in the April 4 Washington Times). He used the study as a springboard to inveigh against "liberalism on college campuses," which he criticized as fostering curricula that is "anti-American, anti-religious, anti-Israel, pro-homosexual rights and pro-abortion, often to the exclusion and ridicule of opposing views."

* Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte reference the 1984 Carnegie survey in their bibliography as "Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 1989. The Condition of the Professoriate: Attitudes and Trends. Princeton, NJ: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1989." Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte do not provide information on the sample used in the 1984 survey. A Media Matters internet search did not produce the 1984 Carnegie survey, but it did produce references to the same survey (based on the bibliographic information) -- including the one linked above -- that contained information about the 1984 survey sample.

— N.C., S.S.M., & P.W.

http://mediamatters.org/items/printable/200504050002