Are Conservative Law Professors More Productive?

A new study, forthcoming in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, suggests that conservative and libertarian professors are more productive than are their colleagues. James Cleith Phillips, a Ph.D. student at the law school at the University of California at Berkeley, compared the publication and citation records of faculty members at the 16 highest-rated law schools in the country. He found that conservative and libertarian professors at the law schools were more productive than their peers. The paper says this finding is consistent with (but does not demonstrate) the thesis that conservative and libertarian applicants face some discrimination in the hiring process.