I am reading a lot of "Blog" reaction about Brooks Column. Being in the NYT is going to make a major difference in how Brook's articles are viewed. From now on, "When Brooks' talks, people listen!" Here are several comments from Law Professors, who have an easier time of it.
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VOLOKH CONSPIRACY
Juan Non-Volokh, 10:01 AM]
"Lonely Campus Voices": Today’s David Brooks column struck a chord. When I was an undergraduate at Yale, I had several long discussions with my senior essay advisor about whether to pursue my PhD. My advisor, who was himself quite liberal, cautioned against it, largely because of my emerging, right-of-center political views. As he described it, succeeding in the liberal arts academy is tough enough as it is without the added burden of holding unpopular views. To illustrate the risk, he noted that one of his colleagues on the graduate admissions committee explicitly blackballed each and every candidate who had ever received financial support (scholarships, fellowships, etc.) from the John M. Olin Foundation because, his colleague insisted, the Olin Foundation only funded people who thought like they did, and Yale did not want any graduate students who thought that way. If I truly wanted to be an academic, he counseled, I was better off going to law school. While he didn’t know much about the politics of the legal academy, a law degree would provide a better safety net than a history PhD. In the end, that’s what I did.
My experience in the academy further confirms Brooks' account. Most of the hostility faced by conservatives (and libertarians) is not explicit, and often not conscious or deliberate. In many cases, the subject matter and methodology of conservative scholarship is simply of no interest to those on the left (and probably vice-versa). At schools where there are no tenured conservatives, job candidates and junior professors may be left without a "champion" to help them navigate the process. The lack of right-of-center views at some schools may also make even moderate conservatives appear "kooky" or extreme. By the same token, it is clear to me that many conservatives in academia cry "wolf," or seek to blame political opposition on their failure to succeed in a highly competitive environment. Contrary to what some believe, not every conservative's failure to get tenure is the result of politics. Those that do succeed, however, will often work on faculties with few like-minded colleagues.
To conclude, I think the bias against conservatives is real (if overstated) in many parts of the academy, particularly the humanities. Nevertheless, careful and talented conservatives can succeed in the academy if they are willing to become “lonely voices.”
ADDENDUM: I forgot to note that the Conspiracy's own Jacob Levy is quoted in the Brooks piece, suggesting that much of academia is more tolerant than many conservatives might suggest. At some places, such as Chicago, that is clearly true. At others, well . . . let's just say there are reasons some untenured professors blog under pseudonyms.
volokh.com
ProfessorBainbridge.com
My own take is pretty close to that of Juan Non-Volokh. Personally, I have encountered very little overt discrimination in my career. On the other hand, I have spent enough time around law school hiring to know that it does happen. All too often, applicants with conservative lines on their resume -- an Olin fellowship, Federalist Society membership, or, heaven help you, a Scalia clerkship -- are passed over no matter how sterling the rest of their credentials may be. The problem is that at most law schools there is no critical mass of conservatives to act as "champions" for such candidates. (Leiter says "libertarians ... are well-represented at most of the top law schools (Yale, Harvard, Chicago, Virginia, Texas, UCLA, Northwestern, etc.)" He clearly has not met enough of our faculty.)
Law school hiring tends to be driven by the self-perpetuating network of left-leaning senior faculty. Nobody pulls the conservative candidate's AALS form out of the slushpile, while the latest left-leaning prodigy gets the benefit of phone calls from their mentors to buddies of the mentors and having their AALS form flagged or even hand carried around the building. It may not be deliberate bias, but there still is a disparate impact.
My advice to aspiring conservative legal academics? Stick to private law topics (business law is especially safe) and follow Juan's advice: "there are reasons some untenured professors blog under pseudonyms."
professorbainbridge.com
Matthew Yglesias
This Liberal Academy
Henry Farrel disputes David Brooks' allegations of anti-conservative bias in academia, at least with reference to political science departments. Maybe so. I will say, though, that the Harvard Philosophy Department was definitely a left-leaning crew and I'm pretty sure that my political views put me to the right of every single professor I had there except the late Robert Nozick.
The more interesting question, I think, is what difference is this supposed to make for the world outside the ivory tower. My impression is that departments of economics are both the most important in terms of altering students' policy views and the most right-leaning. Political science is also important, but also (as Henry notes) a pretty moderate field. Leftwing bias in literature departments seems rampant, but what difference does this make? Pretty little, I would think, except that it may make life hard for aspiring professors of English who are also conservatives. By the same token, however, a bleeding heart liberal will probably have difficulty getting all buddy-buddy with the senior partners at a big corporate law firm (or a big corporate boardroom, for that matter). Professional groups, after all, aren't arbitrary slices of the population -- they're largely composed of a self-selected group of people, and it's not particularly shocking that some fields (like academia) tend to attract liberals while others (like business) tend to attract conservatives
matthewyglesias.com |
