This study assumes the Democratic Party is a leftist party. This is a false assumption. However, I do agree there are a shortage of conservative faculty on campuses. A better job of recruitment needs to be done.
I say keep ************ing conservatives out of acadamia. I mean, unless you're a fan of pederasty, they are no damn fun at all...
I had a prof in college that was a former military guy, totally conservative and completely insane. He was one of the funniest people I've ever met in my life. I will never forget his WWII class intro. "If you've got a weak stomach, get out of here, because we are going to talk about blood and gore and killing." It scared some folks into dropping the class. It was great.
I call at least a bit of bs on the one-sidedness of it. Somewhere around 8th grade, all of the people I knew developed a sense of suspicion that everything they were told wasn't necessarily true. One goal of the academy is to teach people to think independently. When I went to a west coast school, I was generally pretty conservative - far more conservative than the undergrads of the faculty of the school. At the same time, the local right-wing think tank held great sway over the university. I was a bit left of them. But the bottom line is that nothing I learned there or in grad school really dictated the way I look at the world now. I am to the left of all of the folks in my community, and to the right of most of the politicians and philosophers I admire. If indeed the liberal academy was so biased, why in the hell do people like Tom DeLay and people like George Bush get supported by those who are the products of the academy. Mainly, because the academy can teach you how to think, but it cannot really teach you what to think. I mean, if all of us were forced to be on the swim team and cross country teams from ages 4-10, we would be a far more active and healthy society. But that doesn't mean people would only want to be swimmers and runners.
Let's be honest. Those of us out there that can formulate our own opinion on somethings are relatively few and far between. Most people just swallow whatever mom & dad say or what they see on TV or what they are told at their local place of worship. Having one type of philosophy taught to you all the time is nothing more than intellectual totalitarianism. The more viewpoints folks can absorb, the better informed they will be in all things.
Then why not make the argument that we need more leftist radicals to round out the diversity, rather than more conservatives? I merely make the point that because we live in an extremely moderate world, where social conservatives appear to be in relative power at this stage, it just is not a big deal.
I'll give you one example: While I was in the critical/cultural studies program for television and cinema at UT, I never had the opportunity to take a class in textual or formal analysis. The faculty in the College of Communications thought that whole field was essentially reactionary. I know this is a very specific example at one school, but it WAS my major.
I thought that's what most college professors were I think the average university campus isn't even flirting with being conservative.
Re: Re: Diversity on College Campuses I should clarify my remarks: I didn't necessarily mean "conservative" in a social or political sense - more in an academic sense. That's why I pointed out that the study breaking down conservative and radical faculty along a Republican/Democrat dichotomy was ridiculous.
A good conservative scholar wouldn't let you go for such a boneheaded major. Department of Communications. Pshaw!