Question for Someone in Academia: Is there really a huge group of unemployed conservatives profs?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

You can't be on any political message board for very long without someone putting forth the idea that colleges and universities are bastions of liberal thought because conservatives are barred from working there. The idea has been put forth by Sowell and others in countering progressive thoughts on diversity.

I know that at least two of my professors were conservatives. One got in trouble for inserting his beliefs in his teachings (creationism). Most of my professors were and are liberal. I just always chalked this up to education as Karl Rove has said. However, is there really a large group of conservative professors who cannot find work because of their political beliefs?

On Edit: I guess what I'm trying to ask is: Is this just another conservative fabrication?

[skids]

1. No but there can be in an instant...

...just say the word and we'll have the correspondence schools start the diploma printing presses.

[Tiggeroshii]

2. Certain schools harbor the conservative profs.

But there are few of them. Statistically the higher level your education is, the more liely you are to think more to the left. But some people just think all the conservatives are unemployed. I don't think it's true. For instance at my brother's school, the entire political science department is a bunch of moderate right to very right neoconservatives. That's just their poli sci department though, the rest of theteachers mostly lean to the left.

[nebenaube]

3. Well, academic freedom doesn't let one lie.... n/t

[treestar]

4. I doubt it

Just like there are no employed right wing journalists. The poor things are excluded from the public arena. :sarcasm:

[Lisa]

5. among the unemployed PhDs and faculty I know ...

.... if anything, the majority seem to be moderate-to-far-left. I'm not a real "prof" -- just a sessional instructor (and there are a lot of us -- we do most of the teaching at North American universities). But I recall that when our campus voted to unionize, even the hard sciences and engineering people, some of whom were libertarians, thought it would be a good idea! (Labor/hiring inequities tend to do that ....)

Not to deny that there are unemployed or underemployed conservative profs and grad students out there, but if there's an impression that only they have been "shut out" somehow ... I suspect it's either highly-selective sampling (that would be so blatant as to count as academic dishonesty) -- or because they are yelling more loudly than the rest of us?

[Rageneau]

6. It isn't that conservative profs are too few, but that lib profs exist at all.

Conservatives get connipitions when a point of view other than their own is voiced. They want right-wing dogma to dominate on college campuses -- the way it does in the MSM. Schools could hire noting but wingnut fascists from now on, but as long as there is still ANY liberal thought being expressed on campus, as far as they're cocerned -- there's nothing BUT liberal thought being expressed there.

[Colobo]

7. There are few conservative professors over here

but they are around. Colleges are naturally liberal grounds, though.

Among my fellow T.A.'s the number of right wingers is much much higher. I used to be one of them when I started! :(

[SoCalDem]

13. That, and probably most young carnivorous republicans are not attracted to

teaching :)

[mahina]

14. Well it's cool that you are able to change your thinking.

Lots of us just get stuck thinking what we think because...of course we're right! :)

[alarimer]

8. Reality has a well-known liberal bias

which is why there aren't more conservative professors. The more education a person has, the more likely they are not to be conservative. Generally speaking. I have known some biology professors that were moderately conservative (if that's possible) in their politics but of course they were not true right-wingers.

[caraher]

9. It's the same as the myth of the "liberal media"

Also, bear in mind that a conservative mindset, in which tradition is the preferred source of wisdom, is somewhat at odds with the kind of intellectual activity a career in academia demands. And if you're of the bent that worships money, clearly the smart move is NOT an academic career. Intelligent conservatives (not jokes about oxymorons, now!) self-select away from academia!

[SemiCharmedQuark]

10. Thanks to all for their input :)

I always wondered.

[marions ghost]

11. mostly BS, IMO

plenty of conservatives in academia.

[SoCalDem]

12. Nope.. there is just this thing called tenure..

the young angry conservos are pissed because the "old liberals" won't quit and get out of their way :)