Finally, Conservatives Call For Affirmative Action

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Once upon a time, during the great debates regarding liberal bias in university faculties, and the meaning of the numerical disparities between professors who were registered Democrat or Republican, someone advised me that my insinuation that conservatives were essentially pushing for affirmative action for conservative though meant I was "thinking about this too much."

Apparently, some conservatives have decided to come out of the closet on this:

Democrats tend to say that they don’t always follow the party line and that their party itself is diverse, but Klein said his research shows that this is not true. He presented graphs to his audience showing that Democrats adhere to ideology on most issues.

“There’s a left and then there’s non-left, and there is not a lot of diversity in the left,” he said. “Not only do (liberal professors) dominate, but they dominate with a pretty narrow tent.”<br>
Klein suggested using affirmative action to diversify academic departments. When professors apply for a job, they should check a political ideology box, he said.

Klein also suggested creating new partisan departments. Non-left faculty could come together on campus, create a department and hire more faculty members who share their political views.

Klein said he does not think that either of these ideas are likely to be implemented, but he said university administrators still can try to create a more diverse academia.

By the end of his lecture, Klein said he wanted students to realize that a lack of diversity in academia is a problem at many universities.

“I want students to realize that its a general culture problem,” he said. “I hope students get a better understanding that it’s a policy issue; it’s not about being Democrat or Republican. We need more realism about the depth of the problem and the difficulties in trying to change it.”<br>
He stressed that universities make a big impact on American society.

“Academia is a big part of our culture,” he said.

“Even if we can’t change the composition of the faculty, awareness is an end in itself — it helps us to understand the culture around us.”

www.dailytarheel.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/04/19/4264e17b93ca8

[david]

interesting article. Do you think there is "problem" with liberal professors at Georgetown?

[HoyaNCCT]

Yes, almost all my professors were flaming liberals - including my Catholic Theology professors who were wrong in the junk they tried to pass off as Theology... We need more conservatives on campus.

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Despite all the hand-wringing over 'liberal' professors, including at GU (and thus the foregoing post), I personally found no problem with a consistent and particular bias coming across from my profs.

The whole notion turns on the oft-overlooked and highly ridiculous notion that 'liberals' or 'conservatives' strongly adhere to a specific and well-defined platform of beliefs. I see no such cohesion among those generally labeled 'conservative,' and find those typically labeled 'liberal' to be even more disparate. So complaining about the lack of 'conservatives' in college faculties or an agenda by 'liberals' in academia seems a rather tenuous assertion.

almost all my professors were flaming liberals - including my Catholic Theology professors who were wrong in the junk they tried to pass off as Theology.

"Flaming liberals," eh? I don't pretend to know what it was these profs "tried to pass off" as Theology, but the assertion that it was "wrong" seems highly suspect in and of itself. Theology ain't Math, chief.