i dont know if this scenario is a function of any particular biais on the part of instutions, frankly: i think this follows from the analytic view of social phenomena that you have to take in order to be able to do most academic work (here i obviously speak about the humanities--the situation is very very different in departments like mathematics and much more so in the sciences...this is not to mention bidness schools, which are almost entirely reactionary politically and analytically--not entirely, but almost so)...
which raises the central question i had about the article, which seems to focus on humanities to the exclusion of all else--i also wonder about the role of the funders in structuring and/or the extent to which these funders selected a study that would avance their a priori assumptions about faculty.
both these seem important in evaluating what the results, summarized in a potted manner in the article cited, have to tell a reader.
and this:
Quote:
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The study did not attempt to examine whether the political views of faculty members affect the content of their courses.
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made me wonder what the point of the study actually was at all.
if it dodges this question, then it looses any way of connecting its information to students, it seems to me--and by fixing on faculty "culture" it further blurs lines--many i know who would describe themselves as "liberal" operate in ways that are in fact very conservative, both in disciplinary terms and in the political terms that are connected to them--this, in my experience, is particularly true of americans who study america.
it is much less true of americans who study subjects not connected to america.
i do not see this situation as a problem in any event-----not for students, not for anyone. the ambient culture is being pushed well to the right of anything approaching center by any rational grid--in such a context, academic space can function as among the last remaining spaces for real debate. i do not see what bad there is for conservatives in being pushed to explain their positions, to think them out, to run into people who do not share their assumptions. if the ideology was worth anything, it could withstand this. if it cant, then the problem is the ideology, not the political composition of any given faculty.
for myself, i do not go after conservatives in my classes. i do however feel no compunction about making them explain their positions and back them up with information if this works into the design of the course--that is if they are not being asked to provide information from outside the class.
having a common ground to work across is important.
i also feel no compunction about requiring the same of students who describe themselves as being on "the left"--at 18-22 i dont expect them to be much more coherent politically than i was.
ultimately i am not sure what conservatives really want--sometimes it seems that what they want is absolute uniformity within whcih everyone talks in the same way about democracy--debate in which nothing is at stake, in which politics have been reduced to questions of faith and everyone who dissents has been pushed to the side, silenced, run out of town. until such an outcome happens, they will endlessly complain about their own persecution--this seems little more than another example.