LETTERS: IDEOLOGICAL DIALOGUE

                Brendan Ballou

Reading David Plotz's article “Ideological Diversity: No Handouts for Conservatives” in the November 2005 issue of AdHoc, I was surprised that I could agree with Plotz on so many points, yet reach such opposite conclusions. Neither of us believes that opposing ideas are inherently equal. Neither of us believes conservatives' complaints of conspiracy in academia. And neither of us disputes that academia is overwhelmingly liberal. But I believe dominance by any ideology is inherently dangerous; Plotz does not. At a fundamental level, Plotz and I disagree over the nature of inquiry in academia.

Just about everybody, Plotz and myself included, recognizes that liberals dominate academia. A recent study in Critical Review found that the vast majority of college professors identified themselves as Democrats. In political and legal philosophy departments, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans was more than 9-to-1. In anthropology and sociology departments, the ratio was 21-to-1. Even in economics, a more traditionally conservative department, Democrats outnumbered Republicans nearly 3-to-1. An academic career either attracts a more liberal mindset or further propels one to the left. Probably both. I do not see the vast liberal conspiracy some conservatives use to justify special treatment for conservatives.

In his article, Plotz writes, “The whole basis of academic achievement is inquiry, which means that the most successful academics tend to be those who are interested in questioning established hierarchies and common assumptions...” I could not agree more. But when it comes to current political and academic issues, real inquiry is unlikely when faculty, students, and campus publications are all in relative agreement, and this is where Plotz and I differ in opinion. It is all of our responsibility not just to allow political debate, but to encourage it, even if that means giving a disproportionate voice to a minority of conservatives.

There are a number of ways liberal dominance hurts real political inquiry, the first being that it can lead to unreasonable assumptions. In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Mark Bauerlin wrote about his own experiences as a conservative professor: “Liberal orthodoxy is not just a political outlook; it's a professional one ... [A]cademics with too much confidence in their audience utter debatable propositions as received wisdom. An assertion of the genocidal motives of early English settlers is put forward not for discussion but for approval.” Perhaps English settlers did have genocidal motives (though I think Bauerlin has exaggerated his colleagues  claims to prove his point). Nevertheless, such a statement should be questioned, debated, and (perhaps) resolved. Plotz and I agree that academic inquiry is based on questioning common assumptions. But why limit that inquiry to the assumptions of the outside world? Shouldn t the preconceptions of students and faculty be shaken and evaluated every day? A strong conservative challenge can force liberal students and faculty to reevaluate their beliefs.

Liberal dominance in academia also strengthens the conservative movement in the real world. As Bauerlin writes, “The [conservative] minority is excluded, but its thinking is tested and toughened. Being the lone dissenter in a colloquy, one learns to acquire sure facts, crisp arguments, and a thick skin.” It is no surprise that some of America's loudest conservatives, like Norman Podhoretz and Pat Buchanan, came from Columbia, one of America's most liberal universities. Conservatives like George Will and David Horowitz have used the specter of a liberal conspiracy in academics with great political results. When people see the academy as a liberal cabal, conservative politicians can present themselves as anti-elitist, in-touch with the common people.

The dominance of one ideology on college campuses also creates dangerous polarization. University of Chicago Professor Cass Sunstein described this process: “[T]he outcome of a group deliberation tends to be a more extreme version of the tendency indicated by the initial predisposition of group members. Deliberating groups thus move not towards the middle, but towards within-group extremes.” Talking only to people with the same beliefs inevitably confirms those beliefs in the individual, making them more extreme. The same study that found liberal dominance in most humanities departments also found that there was greater agreement between fellow liberal professors on political and social issues than there was between conservative professors. Liberal professors who talk mostly with other liberals polarize themselves, while the small minority of conservative professors who must talk mostly with liberals hold a healthy variety of opinions.

Group polarization is dangerous to any institution. Just as college liberal professors dominate campuses, conservative commanders overwhelmingly control the U.S. military, and both institutions suffer from their one-party rule. If there had been a few liberal military commanders in 2001, then perhaps our justifications for war would have been questioned earlier. Similarly, if there were greater internal debate in academia today, universities would create a more intellectually diverse body of research. Neither of these institutions is successful when all its members are in agreement.

And so, for the many reasons that one-party dominance hurts academia, conservative voices on college campuses should be encouraged. Inherently political fields such as political science and economics need political diversity in the faculty. And in publications in which political ideas are regularly discussed, like the Columbia Daily Spectator, it is worthwhile to have a more balanced op-ed page. Even some fields that do not have an explicit political bent are still influenced by the political beliefs of the professor. A conservative English professor could bring a new perspective to political authors like Chekhov or Derrida.

Conservative voices in colleges should be encouraged not for the sake of the conservatives, but for the sake of academia. Allowing academic discussion to remain a dialogue that varies only in shades of liberalism inevitably reduces the scale and breadth of the debate. Real inquiry is only possible when deeply held assumptions are continuously questioned. Thus, I argue not for creating some arbitrary ideological balance, but for fostering conditions that allow a healthy exchange of ideas.