The Politically Correct University

Description

The Politically Correct University shows how the universities' quest for 'diversity' has produced in too many departments a stifling uniformity of thought. Required reading for those who want American universities to eschew political correctness

Sujets

• Reference

Informations

• Publié par: AEI Press
• Date de parution: 16 octobre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781461660477
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Politically Correct University
The Politically Correct University
Problems, Scope, and Reforms
Editors Robert Maranto Richard E. Redding Frederick M. Hess
Distributed to the Trade by National Book Network, 15200 NBN Way, Blue Ridge Summit, PA 17214. To order call toll free 1-800-462-6420 or 1-717-794-3800. For all other inquiries please contact the AEI Press, 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 or call 1-800-862-5801.

This publication is a project of the National Research Initiative, a program of the American Enterprise Institute that is designed to support, publish, and disseminate research by university-based scholars and other independent researchers who are engaged in the exploration of important public policy issues.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The politically correct university : problems, scope, and reforms / editors Robert Maranto, Richard E. Redding, Frederick M. Hess.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8447-4317-2
1. Education, Higher-Aims and objectives-United States. 2. Education, Higher-Political aspects-United States. 3. Political correctness-United States. I. Maranto, Robert, 1958- II. Redding, Richard E. III. Hess, Frederick M.
LA227.4.P66 2009
378 .01-dc22
2009025229
13 12 11 10 09
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2009 by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the American Enterprise Institute except in the case of brief quotations embodied in news articles, critical articles, or reviews. The views expressed in the publications of the American Enterprise Institute are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff, advisory panels, officers, or trustees of AEI.
Printed in the United States of America
To the O Brien family and to Kristin O Brien, whose untimely death puts these Ivory Tower issues in perspective
Contents
L IST OF I LLUSTRATIONS
PART I: D IAGNOSING THE P ROBLEM
1. T HE PC A CADEMY D EBATE: Q UESTIONS N OT A SKED , Robert Maranto, Richard E. Redding, and Frederick M. Hess
Notes
2. B Y THE N UMBERS: T HE I DEOLOGICAL P ROFILE OF P ROFESSORS , Daniel B. Klein and Charlotta Stern
Voter Registration Studies
Democrat versus Republican by Self-Reporting
Liberal versus Conservative
Surveys of Political Views: Laissez-Faire versus Intervention
Conclusion
Notes
3. L EFT P IPELINE: W HY C ONSERVATIVES D ON T G ET D OCTORATES , Matthew Woessner and April Kelly-Woessner
Overall College Experience
Academic Performance
Faculty Mentoring
Money, Creativity, and Family Values
Conclusion
Notes
4. T HE V ANISHING C ONSERVATIVE - I S T HERE A G LASS C EILING ? Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter
North American Academic Study Survey (NAASS)
Politics and Professional Status
Summary and Conclusion
Notes
PART II: D IVERSITY IN H IGHER E DUCATION
5. G ROUPTHINK IN A CADEMIA: M AJORITARIAN D EPARTMENTAL P OLITICS AND THE P ROFESSIONAL P YRAMID, Daniel B. Klein and Charlotta Stern
Adapting Groupthink to the Academic Setting
Departmental Majoritarianism
The Professional Pyramid
Academic Groupthink
Some Examples
Conclusion
Notes
6. T HE P SYCHOLOGY OF P OLITICAL C ORRECTNESS IN H IGHER E DUCATION , William O Donohue and Richard E. Redding
Diversity in Today s Academy
The Rationale for Diversity
The Personal Identity Assumption
The Discrimination Assumption
The Educational Benefits Assumption
The Importance of Sociopolitical Diversity
The PC University s Assumptions about Psychological Harm
Evidence of Harm
Problems with Self-Reports of Harm
Other Psychological Needs Served by PC
PC Helps Some by Hurting Others
Notes
7. C OLLEGE C ONFORMITY 101: W HERE THE D IVERSITY OF I DEAS M EETS THE I DEA OF D IVERSITY , Peter Wood
Notes
8. T HE A MERICAN U NIVERSITY: Y ESTERDAY, T ODAY, AND T OMORROW , James Piereson
Notes
PART III: D IFFERENT D ISCIPLINES , S AME P ROBLEM
9. W HEN I S D IVERSITY N OT D IVERSITY: A B RIEF H ISTORY OF THE E NGLISH D EPARTMENT , Paul A. Cantor
Notes
10. L INGUISTICS FROM THE L EFT: T HE T RUTH ABOUT B LACK E NGLISH T HAT THE A CADEMY D OESN T W ANT Y OU TO K NOW , John McWhorter
Notes
11. H ISTORY U PSIDE D OWN , Victor Davis Hanson
Notes
12. W HY P OLITICAL S CIENCE I S L EFT B UT N OT Q UITE PC: C AUSES OF D ISUNION AND D IVERSITY , James W. Ceaser and Robert Maranto
Perceptions
Realities: History and Data
Sources of Diversity
Conclusion: Reforming Political Science
Notes
PART IV: N EEDED R EFORMS
13. T HE R OUTE TO A CADEMIC P LURALISM , Stephen H. Balch
Governance in the Humanities and Social Sciences: The Need for Countervailing Power
Strategies for Unseating PC
Notes
14. T HE R OLE OF A LUMNI AND T RUSTEES , Anne D. Neal
Why Should Alumni and Trustees Help?
Alumni as Donors
Alumni as Trustees
Trustees as Reformers
Conclusion
Notes
15. O PENNESS, T RANSPARENCY, AND A CCOUNTABILITY: F OSTERING P UBLIC T RUST IN H IGHER E DUCATION , Hank Brown, John B. Cooney, and Michael B. Poliakoff
Fiscal Management in Higher Education
Imbalance of Political Views in Higher Education
Tenure-Related Processes
Student Achievement
Conclusion
Notes
16. T O R EFORM THE P OLITICALLY C ORRECT U NIVERSITY , R EFORM THE L IBERAL A RTS , John Agresto
Notes
I NDEX
A BOUT THE A UTHORS
List of Illustrations
F IGURES
3-1
College Seniors Interested in Pursing a PhD
3-2
Assessments of the College Experience
3-3
College Grades by Ideological Orientation
3-4
Assessments of the Student-Faculty Relationship
3-5
Distribution of Students within Major Fields of Study
3-6
Satisfaction with Classes
3-7
Personal Priorities and Ideology
3-8
Plans to Seek a Doctorate
4-1
Proportion of Liberal and Conservative Faculty
4-2
Self-Identification by Pew Values Scale Scores
5-1
History Resides in Settlements throughout Academe
5-2
The Profession Pyramid of History: Status Rankings of Departments, Journals, etc.
15-1
Grade Point Averages by Cohort and Selectivity of Institution
15-2
A Simplified Taxonomy of Cognitive Abilities
T ABLES
2-1
Democrat:Republican Ratios Found in Voter Registration Studies
2-2
Democrat:Republican Ratios in Eleven California Universities, 2004 to 2005
2-3
Democrat:Republican Ratios Found in Surveys of Entire Faculty, 1960 to 1972
2-4
Democrat:Republican Ratios Found in Surveys of Certain Disciplines in Social Sciences and Humanities, 1959 to 1964
2-5
Democrat:Republican Voting in Presidential Elections, 1964, 1968, 1972
2-6
Democrat:Republican Ratios Found in Surveys of Faculty in Social Sciences and Humanities, 1999 to 2003
2-7
Percentages of Liberals and Conservatives, All Faculty
2-8
Percentages of Liberals and Conservatives, All Faculty
3-1
Main Regression Model Predicting College Senoirs Seeking a PhD
4-1
Party Identification (D or R) by Field: NAASS vs. PAP
4-2
Political Identification of College Professors by Field on NAASS
4-3
Regressions Predicting Quality of Academic Affiliation
PART I
Diagnosing the Problem
1
The PC Academy Debate: Questions Not Asked
Robert Maranto, Richard E. Redding, and Frederick M. Hess
After we launched this project exploring intellectual diversity in American higher education, a colleague of the lead editor playfully accused him of wasting time on that stab-us-in-the-back book rather than producing ever greater quantities of conventional social science. The remark was a joke, but it hints at the academic culture that led us to undertake this project, a culture in which any departure from the politically correct norm is viewed with suspicion. Our goal in this book is to explore and finally offer remedies to this culture of political correctness, the bugaboo that has most bedeviled American higher education in recent years. We focus on the problem of liberal political orthodoxy in teaching and scholarship and seek to understand how diversity -of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, but not of ideas-has become the dominant ideology in higher education.
Charges of a leftist, politically correct environment in academia are nothing new. The famous Bennington College study of the 1930s presented evidence that even in that era, conservative students felt isolated from the larger campus atmosphere. 1 The father of modern American conservatism, William F. Buckley Jr., complained in 1951 that university professors had contempt for religion and capitalism, combined with reverence for central planning. More recent heirs to Buckley include Charles J. Sykes, Dinesh D Souza, and Martin Anderson. 2 Each has savaged colleges and universities for lowering academic standards and fostering political correctness. Nor have all the critics come from the right. Centrist thinkers including Jonathan Rauch and Richard Bernstein have made essentially the same complaints. 3
More recently, however, political entrepreneurs have turned a generalized complaint into a very specific political movement. The critics of academia, most notably conservative activist David Horowitz, have organized for reform. Horowitz has outed the 101 most dangerous professors who proselytize for their political views in the classroom and has founded the activist group Students for Academic Freedom, which seeks to guarantee equal rights for conservative students and faculty. Proposals outlawing discrimination against conservative faculty and students have been under consideration in at least eighteen states. 4
Mainstream academics have reacted to the Horowitz critique with denial and condescension: if conservatives are underrepresented in the academy, it is because they lack sufficient motivation or intelligence to survive professional peer review Many academics seem even to deny that colleges and universi