Methodological Questions

Is asking whether gender gaps in math and science are due to discrimination a valid question here? Some of the faculty surveyed are clearly from a math and science background and would have a more informed opinion of what is truly happening. But other fields (like most of those listed with the least politically incorrect faculty) may not have faculty members with a background in math and science.

Additionally, what is the sample size in each discipline? I find it hard to believe that nobody in several fields was politically correct.

Robert, PhD Student, at 7:05 am EDT on July 25, 2008

Good question, Robert

If you follow the links back to the original Harvard study, you get to find a number of numbers (after the requisite wordy introduction). I found some of the data around page 26 and 27 there interesting (and somewhat amusing).

But this IHE article is an interesting treatment of the PC phenomenon, as long as we keep in mind their ad hoc definition of PC.

David, at 9:05 am EDT on July 25, 2008

This seems like a horriby flawed study. The fact that professors in the social sciences are more likely to believe that discrimination plays a role in gender and racial ineqalities in the academy and in wider society reflects the fact these are the types of things many of them are studying. Therefore their opinions on this matter are based on substantive data, not on political perspective. As another poster pointed out, this would not be the case for faculty in the professional colleges.

angelita, at 9:15 am EDT on July 25, 2008

For some of us who are liberals politically and economically but libertarian culturally, the term “politically correct” disgusts. My first memory of it was reading Peking Review in the late 70s, a journal that did not eschew duckspeak— oh, no. Soon, many friends I had in the women’s movement were using it. The term is basically designed to forclose critique and reflexivity, and is a bad thing essentially. I know that Marcuse, a writer I enjoy usually, preached intolerance of politically incorrect positions, but in this he was wrong.

It’s being used in an unfortunate way here.

TBD, at 9:30 am EDT on July 25, 2008

Well, the problem is, at this point, I don’t believe anything said by an academic not testable in a lab. Ya see, you lost your credibility a long time ago.

mike, at 10:00 am EDT on July 25, 2008

At the same time that it is restricted to a few positions, this definition of political correctness seems too watery in terms of how political correctness behaves. The article summarizes the “politically correct cohort” as “reflecting largely common views on a set of issues that are seen as defining political correctness.” But it isn’t simply the issues that define political correctness. It is also the use of those issues to stigmatize and discredit those who don’t approach them in the “right” way. We can have lots of debate over controversial issues without political correctness coming into play. Just because we have “common views” about a topic doesn’t mean those views are judged “correct” and opposing views “incorrect.”

Political correctness happens when people holding the “uncommon views” are judged not only wrong, but wrong-headed. In other words, disagreement isn’t due to intellectual differences. It’s due to the character flaws of the “uncommon” ones.

Also, Scott writes that “The charge made by conservative critics is that politically correct professors use classrooms to indoctrinate and try to prevent the hiring of conservatives.” Let’s add to that a less overt charge, which is that entire disciplines have ideological biases embedded into their root premises, so that political opinions have acquired the veneer of scholarly propriety. So, the filtering process doesn’t happen through blatant discrimination of persons. It happens through certain outlooks being judged irrelevant or inappropriate to the field.

Mark Bauerlein, at 5:45 pm EDT on July 25, 2008

...is still a rose

Mark, let’s just say what you’d like the ridiculously biased (far right) George Mason U “study” (that cherry-picks the data from another study) to say—"politically correct faculty” equals “liberal” and “politically incorrect faculty” equals “conservative.” Usually, what you, Balch, Horowitz, Neal, et al., would do at this point, is to go a dinky bit further and identify “liberal faculty” with those registered with the Democratic Party and “conservative faculty” with those registered with either the Republican or Libertarian Parties, right? Now, what YOU see lurking here is that IF this political campaign against higher education goes this extra step in this case, the GMU study will actually show that the Republican registered faculty (i.e., conservatives), which you in the recent past claimed were discriminated against, and even blacklisted, are actually doing BETTER as a group than those pesky Democratic registered faculty (i.e., liberals). You don’t want THAT, so now you’ve got to massage the GMU study to somehow say that only those who are “stars” among the conservative faculty will succeed. Imagine that....an academic STAR succeeding in academia. I take it that if not a star, the conservatives would...what?..find their names back on that blacklist? Do you really think that those of us who sniffed out the silliness of your previous attack will be fooled by this new wave—-political correctness versus political incorrectness?

Kurt Smith, at 10:00 am EDT on July 26, 2008

political correctness

I think this article shows the problem with today’s society. I believe being polite and curteous are necessary traits that should be focused on in today’s society instead everyone is pushing toward’s political correctness, which I believe is the wrong move. It tries to make Americans too tolerant and almost indifferent to issues. This should not be the case. One of the question’s in the article asked whether or not political correctness should be a consideration in hiring, why should it? I prefer a teacher with enough gumption to voice their beliefs without softening them. Political correctness just slows down progress because if you are working on a paper or a presentation, etc. it takes so much longer to go through and see if it will offend anyone. But the fact of the matter is an opinion is always going to offend someone no matter how mild you try and make it.

Kim, University of Rochester, at 8:25 am EDT on July 28, 2008

Responses to Posts

Scott — Your fear is based on a premise with no evidence “that those disciplines most likely to be represented in the classroom at the impressionable middle school and secondary levels are politically homogenized.” Yes, the humanities probably have a greater percent of students who will pursue “roles of direct influence over America’s youth". I don’t think it’s accurate to say the same of psychology or sociology. Regardless, the convictions of the professors are not necessarily neatly reflected in the leanings of K-12 teachers. There are probably seperate studies on this, so don’t be too hasty in positing what’s behind the numbers in this study.

Frank — Who says the “100% crowd” is afraid of anything? You are the one who sounds truly afraid here, or perhaps you are only fearmongering. Certain departments are all of one party? Which? How many? How might this compare with the boards or departments of certain comapnies? As far as I have read, the evidence does not support that Democrats in academe find out the political leanings of applicants and root out Republicans. However, evidence does support that jejune Republicans have been doing this in the Justice Department and the Office of Special Council. Now that’s something to be afraid of!

Mike — Ya see, while it is unfortunate that academics have lost credibility with you, no one else in the world sees you as the arbiter of truth. Scientists have ways of testing hypotheses in a laboratory. Experts in other fields have other methods and standards particular to their fields, but I assure you our work is not random. However, the fact that college educated people (such as yourself?) are unaware of the methods of inquiry and testing of a variety of fields does point to a failure of college professors to teach not only what we know, but also how we know what we know.

Dr. K, at 10:20 am EDT on July 30, 2008

The problem is the cultural gap

The “rightwing” is pretty much slang for the middleclass, marrieds who have multiple children and those who aspire to such. The “leftwing” is pretty much everyone else.

The problem is that academe is viewed by the traditionally-formed, middle-class family community as being the enemy. And as someone who comes from that community my personal, yes subjective, experience is that academe has a reciprocal view. Now, I don’t deny that institutions of high-level research and elite instruction are crucial to an advanced society, so the antipathy from the middle-class has a dangerous component. However, without a strong child-bearing, two-parent middle-class society would implode.

Pretending that the antipathy between the two groups is simply due to rightwing indoctrination is nothing more than burying one’s head in the sand. This is a cultural gap that needs serious bridging, and most of that burden falls on academe as it is the tax-paying middle-class that supports them.

Asher, at 8:05 pm EDT on July 30, 2008