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The New PC
by RUSSELL JACOBY
[from the April 4, 2005 issue]

The Yale student did not like what he heard. Sociologists derided religion
and economists damned corporations. One professor pre-emptively rejected the
suggestion that "workers on public relief be denied the franchise." "I
propose, simply, to expose," wrote the young author in a booklong
denunciation, one of "the most extraordinary incongruities of our time.
Under the "protective label 'academic freedom,'" the institution that
derives its "moral and financial support from Christian individualists then
addresses itself to the task of persuading the sons of these supporters to
be atheistic socialists."

For William F. Buckley Jr., author of the 1951 polemic God and Man at Yale:
The Superstitions of "Academic Freedom" and a founder of modern American
conservatism, the solution to this scandal was straightforward: Fire the
wanton professors. No freedom would be abridged. The socialist professor
could "seek employment at a college that was interested in propagating
socialism." None around? No problem. The market has spoken. The good
professor can retool or move on.

Buckley's book can be situated as a salvo in the McCarthyite attack on the
universities. Indeed, even as a Yale student, Buckley maintained cordial
relationships with New Haven FBI agents, and at the time of the book's
publication he worked for the CIA. Buckley was neither the first nor the
last to charge that teachers were misleading or corrupting students. At the
birth of Western culture, a teacher called Socrates was executed for filling
"young people's heads with the wrong ideas." In the twentieth century,
clamor about subversive American professors has come in waves, cresting
around World War I, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and today. The
earlier assaults can be partially explained by the political situation.
Authorities descended upon professors who questioned America's entry into
World War I, sympathized with the new Russian Revolution or inclined toward
communism during the cold war.

Today the situation is different. The fear during the cold war, however
trumped up, that professors served America's enemies could claim a patina of
plausibility insofar as some teachers identified themselves as communists or
socialists. With communism dead, leftism moribund and liberalism wounded,
the fear of international subversion no longer threatens. Even the most
rabid critics do not accuse professors of being on the payroll of Al Qaeda
or other Islamist extremists. Moreover, conservatives command the
presidency, Congress, the courts, major news outlets and the majority of
corporations; they appear to have the country comfortably in their pocket.
What fuels their rage, then? What fuels the persistent charges that
professors are misleading the young?

A few factors might be adduced, but none are completely convincing. One is
the age-old anti-intellectualism of conservatives. Conservatives distrust
unregulated intellectuals. Forty years ago McCarthyism spurred Richard
Hofstadter to write his classic Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. In
addition, a basic insecurity plagues conservatives today, a fear that their
reign will be short or a gnawing doubt about their legitimacy. Dissenting
voices cannot be tolerated, because they imply that a conservative future
may not last forever. One Noam Chomsky is one too many. Angst besets the
triumphant conservatives. Those who purge Darwin from America's schools must
yell in order to drown out their own misgivings, the inchoate realization
that they are barking at the moon.

Today's accusations against subversive professors differ from those of the
past in several respects. In a sign of the times, the test for disloyalty
has shifted far toward the center. Once an unreliable professor meant an
anarchist or communist; now it includes Democrats. Soon it will be anyone to
the left of Attila the Hun. Second, the charges do not (so far) come from
government committees investigating un-American activities but from
conservative commentators and their student minions. A series of groups such
as Campus Watch, Academic Bias and Students for Academic Freedom enlist
students to monitor and publicize professorial conduct. Third, the new
charges are advanced not against but in the name of academic freedom or a
variant of it; and, in the final twist, the new conservative critics seem
driven by an ethos that they have adopted from liberalism: affirmative
action and a sense of victimhood, which they officially detest.

Conservatives complain relentlessly that they do not get a fair shake in the
university, and they want parity--that is, more conservatives on faculties.
Conservatives are lonely on American campuses as well as beleaguered and
misunderstood. News that tenured poets vote Democratic or that Kerry
received far more money from professors than Bush pains them. They want
America's faculties to reflect America's political composition. Of course,
they do not address such imbalances in the police force, Pentagon, FBI, CIA
and other government outfits where the stakes seem far higher and where,
presumably, followers of Michael Moore are in short supply. If life were a
big game of Monopoly, one might suggest a trade to these conservatives: You
give us one Pentagon, one Department of State, Justice and Education, plus
throw in the Supreme Court, and we will give you every damned English
department you want.

Conservatives claim that studies show an outrageous number of liberals on
university faculties and increasing political indoctrination or harassment
of conservative students. In fact, only a very few studies have been made,
and each is transparently limited or flawed. The most publicized
investigations amateurishly correlate faculty departmental directories with
local voter registration lists to show a heavy preponderance of Democrats.
What this demonstrates about campus life and politics is unclear. Yet these
findings are endlessly cited and cross-referenced as if by now they confirm
a tiresome truth: leftist domination of the universities. A column by George
Will affects a world-weariness in commenting on a recent report. "The great
secret is out: Liberals dominate campuses. Coming soon: 'Moon Implicated in
Tides, Studies Find.'"

The most careful study is "How Politically Diverse Are the Social Sciences
and Humanities?" Conducted by California economist Daniel Klein and Swedish
social scientist Charlotta Stern, it has been trumpeted by many
conservatives as a corrective to the hit-and-miss efforts of previous
inquiries by going directly to the source. The researchers sent out almost
5,500 questionnaires to professors in six disciplines in order to tabulate
their political orientation. A whopping 70 percent of the recipients did
what any normal person would do when receiving an unsolicited fourteen-page
survey over the signature of an assistant dean at a small California
business school: They tossed it. With just 17 percent of their initial pool
remaining after the researchers made additional exclusions, some
unastounding findings emerged. Thirty times as many anthropologists voted
Democratic as voted Republican; for sociologists the ratio was almost the
same. For economists, however, it sank to three to one. On average these
professors voted Democratic over Republican fifteen to one.

What does it show that fifty-four philosophy professors admitted to voting
Democratic regularly and only four to voting Republican? Does a Democratic
vote reveal a dangerous philosophical or campus leftism? Are Democrats more
likely to deceive students? Proselytize them? Harass them? Steal library
books? Must they be neutralized by Republican professors, who are free of
these vices? This study opens by quoting the conservative New York Times
columnist David Brooks on the loneliness of campus conservatives and closes
by bemoaning the "one-party system" of faculties. Nonleftist voices are
"muffled and fearful," the researchers say. They do not, however, present a
scintilla of information to confirm this. It is not a minor point. No matter
how well tuned, studies of professorial voting habits reveal nothing of
campus policies or practices.

The notion that faculties should politically mirror the US population
derives from an affirmative action argument about the underrepresentation of
African-Americans, Latinos or women in certain areas. Conservatives now add
political orientation, based on voting behavior, to the mix. "In the U.S.
population in general, Left and Right are roughly equal (1 to 1)," Klein and
Stern lecture us, but in social science and humanities faculties "clearly
the non-Left points of view have been marginalized." This is "clearly" not
true, or at least it is not obvious what constitutes a "non-Left" point of
view in art history or linguistics. In any event, why stop with left and
right? Why not add religion to the underrepresentation violation? Perhaps
Klein, the lead researcher, should explore Jewish and Christian affiliation
among professors. A survey would probably show that Jews, 1.3 percent of the
population, are seriously overrepresented in economics and sociology (as
well as other fields). Isn't it likely that Jews marginalize Christianity in
their classes? Shouldn't this be corrected? Shouldn't 76 percent of American
faculty be Christian?

The Klein study and others like it focus on the humanities and social
sciences. Conservatives seem little interested in exploring the political
orientation of engineering professors or biogeneticists. The more important
the field, in terms of money, resources and political clout, the less
conservatives seem exercised by it. At many universities the medical and
science buildings, to say nothing of the business faculties or the sports
complexes, tower over the humanities. I teach at UCLA. The history
professors are housed in cramped quarters of a decaying Modernist structure.
Our classiest facility is a conference room that could pass as generic space
in any downtown motel. The English professors inhabit what appears to be an
aging elementary school outfitted with minuscule offices. A hop away is a
different world. The UCLA Anderson School of Management boasts its own
spanking-new buildings, plush seminar rooms, spacious lecture halls with
luxurious seats, an "executive dining room" and--gold in
California--reserved parking facilities. Conservatives seem unconcerned
about the political orientation of the business professors. Shouldn't half
be Democrats and at least a few be Trotskyists?

Another recent study heralded as proving leftist campus domination was
sponsored by the conservative American Council of Trustees and Alumni; it
sought to document not the political orientation of professors but, more
decisively, the political intimidation of students by faculty. Claiming an
"error rate of plus or minus four," the sponsors assert that their study
demonstrates widespread indoctrination, that almost 50 percent of students
report that professors "use the classroom to present their personal
political views." According to the sponsor, "The ACTA survey clearly shows
that faculty are injecting politics into the classroom in ways that students
believe infringe upon their freedom to learn."

Closer examination of the study reveals dubious methodology. Most questions
were asked in a way that nearly dictated one answer. Students were asked if
they "somewhat agree" that "some" professors did this or that. A key
statement ran: "On my campus, some professors use the classroom to present
their personal political views." And the possible responses ran from
"Strongly agree" and "Somewhat agree" to "Somewhat disagree" and "Strongly
disagree." Of the 658 students polled, 10 percent answered "Strongly agree"
and 36 percent "Somewhat agree," which yields the almost 50 percent figure
that appeared in headlines claiming half of American students are subject to
political indoctrination.
Yet the statement is too imprecise to negate. Asked whether "some"
professors on campus--somewhere or sometime--interject extraneous politics,
most students (36 percent) respond that they "Somewhat agree." That is the
intelligent and safe answer: "somewhat" agreeing that "some" professors
misuse politics. To partially or even completely negate the statement would
imply that no professors ever mishandled politics. Yet a vague assent to a
vague assertion only yields twice as much vagueness. The statement does not
so much inquire whether the student him- or herself directly experienced
professors misusing politics, which might be more revealing. Yet these murky
findings are heralded as proof of campus totalitarianism.

These scattered studies are only part of the story. A series of articles,
books and organizations have taken up the cause of leftist campus
domination. An outfit called Students for Academic Freedom, with the credo
"You can't get a good education if they're only telling you half the story,"
is sponsored by the conservative activist David Horowitz and boasts 150
campus chapters. It monitors slights, insults and occasionally more serious
infractions that students suffer or believe they suffer. The organization
provides an online "complaint" form, where disgruntled students check a
category such as "Mocked national political or religious figures" (mocking
local figures is presumably acceptable) or "Required readings or texts
covering only one side of issues" and then provide details.

At the organization's website the interested visitor can keep abreast of the
latest outrages as well as troll through hundreds of complaints in the
Academic Freedom Complaint Center. Most listings concern professors'
comments that supposedly malign patriotic or family values; for instance,
under "Introduced Controversial Material" a student complained that in a
lecture on Reconstruction the professor noted how much he disliked Bush and
the Iraq War. A very few complaints raise more serious issues, and some of
these are pursued by other Horowitz publications or are seized on by
conservative columnists and sometimes by the national news services. A
Kuwaiti student who defends the Iraq War recounts that he fell afoul of a
leftist professor in a government class, who directed him to seek
psychological counseling. "Apparently, if you are an Arab Muslim who loves
America you must be deranged." To his credit, Horowitz's online journal also
ran a story from the same college about a student who was penalized after he
defended abortion in an ethics class conducted by a strident prolifer [for
background on Horowitz, see Scott Sherman, "David Horowitz's Long March,"
July 3, 2000].

Virtually all "cases" reported to the Academic Freedom Abuse Center deal
with leftist political comments or leftist assigned readings. To use the
idiom of right-wing commentators, we see here the emergence of crybaby
conservatives, who demand a judicial remedy, guaranteed safety and
representation. Convinced that conservatives are mistreated on American
campuses, Horowitz has championed a solution, a bill detailing "academic
freedom" of students; the proposed law has already been introduced in
several state legislatures. Until recently, if the notion of academic
freedom for students had any currency, it referred to their right to profess
and publish ideas on and off campus.
Horowitz takes the traditional academic freedom that insulated professors
from political interference and extends it to students. As a former leftist,
Horowitz has the gift of borrowing from the enemy. His "academic bill of
rights" talks the language of diversity; it insists that students need to
hear all sides and it refashions a "political correctness" for
conservatives, who, it turns out, are at least as prickly as any other group
when it comes to perceived slights. After years of decrying the "political
correctness police," thin-skinned conservatives have joined in; they want
their own ideological wardens to enforce intellectual conformity.

While some propositions of the academic bill of rights are unimpeachable
(for example, students should not be graded "on the basis of their political
or religious beliefs"), academic freedom extended to students easily turns
it into the end of freedom for teachers. In a rights society students have
the right to hear all sides of all subjects all the time. "Curricula and
reading lists," says principle number four of Horowitz's academic bill of
rights, "should reflect the uncertainty and unsettled character of all human
knowledge" and provide "students with dissenting sources and viewpoints
where appropriate."

"Where appropriate" is the kicker, but the consequences for teachers are
clear enough from perusing the "abuses" that Students for Academic Freedom
lists or that Horowitz plays up in his columns. For instance, Horowitz
lambastes a course called Modern Industrial Societies, which uses as its
sole text a 500-page leftist anthology, Modernity: An Introduction to Modern
Societies. This is a benign book published by a mainstream press, yet under
the academic bill of rights the professor could be hauled before authorities
to explain such a flagrant violation. If not fired, he or she could be
commanded to assign a 500-page anthology published by the Free Enterprise
Institute. Another "abuse" occurred in an introductory class, Peace Studies
and Conflict Resolution, where military approaches were derided. A student
complained that "the only studying of conflict resolution that we did was to
enforce the idea that non-violent means were the only legitimate sources of
self-defense." This was "indoctrination," not education. Presumably the
professor of "peace studies" should be ordered to give equal time to "war
studies." By this principle, should the United States Army War College be
required to teach pacifism?

In the name of intellectual diversity and students' rights, many courses
could be challenged. A course on Freud would have to include anti-Freudians;
a course on religion, atheists; a course on mysticism, the rationalists. The
academic bill of rights seeks to impose some limits by restricting diversity
to "significant scholarly viewpoints." Yet this is a porous shield. Once the
right to decide the content of courses is extended to students, the
Holocaust deniers, creationists and conspiracy addicts will come knocking at
the door--and indeed they already have.
The bill of rights for students and the allied conservative watchdog groups
that monitor lectures and book assignments represent the reinvention of the
old un-American activities committees in the age of diversity and rights.
The witch hunt has become democratized. Students for Academic Freedom
counsels its members that when they come across an "abuse" like
"controversial material" in a course, they should "write down the date,
class and name of the professor," "accumulate a list of incidents or
quotes," obtain witnesses and lodge a complaint. Rights are supposed to
preserve freedoms, but here the opposite would occur. Professors would
become more claustrophobic and cautious. They would offer fewer
"controversial" ideas. Assignments would become blander.

More leftists undoubtedly inhabit institutions of higher education than they
do the FBI or the Pentagon or local police and fire departments, about which
conservatives seem little concerned, but who or what says every corner of
society should reflect the composition of the nation at large? Nothing has
shown that higher education discriminates against conservatives, who
probably apply in smaller numbers than liberals. Conservatives who pursue
higher degrees may prefer to slog away as junior partners in law offices
rather than as assistant professors in English departments. Does an
"overrepresentation" of Democratic anthropologists mean Republican
anthropologists have been shunted aside? Does an "overrepresentation" of
Jewish lawyers and doctors mean non-Jews have been excluded?

Higher education in America is a vast enterprise boasting roughly a million
professors. A certain portion of these teachers are incompetents and frauds;
some are rabid patriots and fundamentalists--and some are ham-fisted
leftists. All should be upbraided if they violate scholarly or teaching
norms. At the same time, a certain portion of the 15 million students they
teach are fanatics and crusaders. The effort, in the name of rights, to
shift decisions about lectures and assignments from professors to students
marks a backward step: the emergence of the thought police on skateboards.
At its best, education is inherently controversial and tendentious. While
this truth can serve as an excuse for gross violations, the remedy for
unbalanced speech is not less speech but more. If college students can vote
and go to war, they can also protest or drop courses without enlisting the
new commissars of intellectual diversity.