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Liberal intolerance in education

sailordeac said:
Any criticisms of these dishonorable and destructive attitudes are brushed aside with shallow mendacious arguments such as we don't need any diversity of thought because our ideas are the best.
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Hmm, I feel like I've heard this somewhere before.

RJKarl said:
The article says "professors" not deans. Professors don't do the hiring.
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RJ, you should stop posting about academia.
 
Wow. That's laughably bad. Both of them.
 
wakephan09 said:
Hmm, I feel like I've heard this somewhere before.



RJ, you should stop posting about academia.
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Who does the hiring after the prospective prof meets with other faulty members and a committee? What if the the committee disagrees on the choice? Who has the ultimate decision?

Maybe "dean" isn't the exact word. Maybe it should have been "dean" or department head.

One possible mistake and stop posting? Would you adhere to that one strike rule about every subject you post about?
 
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MysteryMen said:
It's telling that they cite Richard Posner as an example when he rejected all of the illogical conservative justifications for prohibiting gay marriage and seeing a RFRA violation in forcing religious non-profits to affirmatively opt out of providing contraception. And while he upheld Wisconsin's voter ID law a decade ago, he later said that it was a mistake and that he never should have accepted the conservative arguments for it.

So basically one of the three people who the author holds up as an example of a smart conservative has acknowledged that many of the most prominent conservative talking points that dominate our politics are complete bullshit devoid of logic.

That's why I don't think it's inaccurate to say that truth has a liberal slant. Even the smart conservatives recognize it.
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Do you want to engage with this Wrangor? Or no?

This article was written by Posner by the way....so this is what the author holds up as a smart conservative. And I don't disagree that he is a smart conservative

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...berts_dissent_in_obergefell_is_heartless.html

The biggest problem I see in this country is the melding of "conservatism" with a theological approach to government. I'm not inherently opposed to conservative ideas, but it's hard to separate many of them from their Judeo-Christian underpinnings that I don't think should play a role in deciding the laws that govern many people of different beliefs. A lot of the religion-neutral justifications (for example, that legalizing gay marriage would hurt heterosexual marriage), are reverse-engineered to obscure the fact that it is a Christian-centered view of morality that is motivating a lot of "conservative" ideals.

In that sense, I do think the truth slants liberal because liberal ideas tend to be more grounded in a-religious logic rather than religious views of morality. Posner doesn't buy into the religious arguments, he's an economics guy, which is why I think he separates himself from many other conservatives. And also why a lot of the conservative hierarchy wouldn't consider him a "true conservative"
 
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RJKarl said:
Who does the hiring after the prospective prof meets with other faulty members and a committee? What if the the committee disagrees on the choice? Who has the ultimate decision?

Maybe "dean" isn't the exact word. Maybe it should have been "dean" or department head.

One possible mistake and stop posting? Would you adhere to that one strike rule about every subject you post about?
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1) Faculty do the hiring. If the committee disagrees on the choice, the search fails. Sometimes a dean will intervene or hijack a search. It happens, but it isn't the norm.

2) Deans are invariably professors themselves. Or, in the very least, former professors in the sense they don't necessary teach anymore. At four-year colleges and Universities, department heads are always professors.

3) This is not the first time you've been confused about something academic. I certainly don't blame you; it's a self-consciously arcane and insular world.
 
Some additions:

1. Deans authorize and fund searches and approve who the faculty decide.

2. Yep. They are often very accomplished. Same goes for provosts and university presidents. Taking an administrative position is the main way for faculty to increase their salaries without promotion to associate or full professor or getting an offer from another institution or a counter offer.

3. I imagine like most professions. Unfortunately, people think they are experts in academia if they went to college.
 
I think it's something worth discussing, but the article is pretty bad. First, it doesn't explain what he means by conservative.

This line is particularly terrible:

My Facebook followers have incredible compassion for war victims in South Sudan, for kids who have been trafficked, even for abused chickens, but no obvious empathy for conservative scholars facing discrimination.

Also, his refutation of the self-selection possibility makes no sense. He cites no information on the ideological leanings of applicants, only on professors. That says nothing about how it matches up to applicants.

He also acts like Christianity is the only religion with a conservative population, when some Islam, Hinduism, and non-religious people all have strong conservative leanings.

I'm all for more diverse perspectives and permitting students to think independently, but that article is terrible.
 
wakephan09 said:
1) Faculty do the hiring. If the committee disagrees on the choice, the search fails. Sometimes a dean will intervene or hijack a search. It happens, but it isn't the norm.

2) Deans are invariably professors themselves. Or, in the very least, former professors in the sense they don't necessary teach anymore. At four-year colleges and Universities, department heads are always professors.

3) This is not the first time you've been confused about something academic. I certainly don't blame you; it's a self-consciously arcane and insular world.
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I notice you don't address my other problems with the article like how do we know what the percentage of libs vs. evangelicals who are applying or do conservative colleges hire libs at a higher rate the other colleges hire evangicals and other questions.
 
I'm sure there is discrimination against evangelicals. Personally, I do not do well with them. I am very much live and let live in all aspects of life, but I find the notion of saving my soul to be one of the most presumptuous, obnoxious, and arrogant things someone could try to do to me. It makes people uncomfortable at the least, and at worst is wholly inappropriate and disrespectful. Of course this is lost on the true believers who are only trying to save my poor soul.

So the respondents to the survey in that odd article are being honest. I would say the same thing. I'm a hirer of workers in my occupation and if one of them was prosthelityzing and I heard it I wouldn't want them on my team because is it an irritant and unnecessary.
 
RJKarl said:
I notice you don't address my other problems with the article like how do we know what the percentage of libs vs. evangelicals who are applying or do conservative colleges hire libs at a higher rate the other colleges hire evangicals and other questions.
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That's because I (more or less) agree with you on those points.
 
wakephan09 said:
That's because I (more or less) agree with you on those points.
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So let me get this straight. You more or less agree with 80% of the post, but I shouldn't such posts about academia. That's curious. :cool:
 
PhDeac said:
Black? At conception
Evangelical Christian? As a kid
Sociology professor? 2005
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I bet you're the most conservative person in the department, not that you're conservative, but all the sociologists I knew came across as legit commies. Maybe things have changed.
 
Probably. I don't get into many religion/politics discussions with my coworkers. I don't think any other faculty personally identify as Christians, but I could be wrong. One studies religion and he's quite prominent in this field.

If there was legit discrimination against Christians in my field, it would be seen in how graduate students are treated, not fellow faculty. Christian grad students would have trouble finding advisors and forming committees. MA students wouldn't get admitted to PhD programs. I haven't seen any evidence of that happening at my institution or beyond.

One thing people should keep in mind is people in academia have a broader sense of Christianity beyond the mainstream politicized "evangelical" Christians. I know several Christian sociologists who attend Unitarian churches or other congregations accepting of homosexuality, for example. Plenty of Christian sociologists study religion. Religion is an important area of interest for folks who study race and ethnicity. If a Christian is discriminated against due to their beliefs, it's probably because he/she's just a horrible person to be around and possibly uses their scholarship to be preachy.
 
Ph as the most conservative person in his department? Sad, but probably true. This will tell you a lot about intellectual diversity on college campuses today.
 
PhDeac said:
Black? At conception
Evangelical Christian? As a kid
Sociology professor? 2005
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Conservatives deride intellectuals yet complain about "intellectual diversity."
 
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