Eugene David<br>...The One-Minute Pundit

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

Oiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii....

As it happens, the contemporary university is diverse only as a matter of definition and ideology, but not in practice or reality. A recent national survey of college faculty by Stanley Rothman, Robert Lichter, and Neil Nevitte showed that over 72 percent held liberal and left of center views, while some 15 percent held conservative views. The survey also found that, over time, and especially since 1980, academic opinion has moved steadily leftward as the generation shaped by the 1960s has taken control of academe. In the humanities and social sciences, where political views are more closely related to academic subject matter, the distribution of opinion is even more skewed to the left. Unlike professors in the past, moreover, many contemporary teachers believe it is their duty to incorporate their political views into classroom instruction. Thus students at leading colleges report that they are subjected to a steady drumbeat of political propaganda in their courses in the humanities and social sciences.

The same researchers found that 50 percent of college faculty were Democrats, while just 11 percent were Republicans, which should surprise no one since the diversity ideology that drives the university is the same one that defines the Democratic party. Other researchers have reported even more lopsided distributions. Daniel Klein, an economist at Santa Clara University, found in a national survey of professors that Democrats outnumber Republicans in social science and humanities departments by a ratio of 7 to 1. Meanwhile, college administrators and faculty continue to promote campaigns for cosmetic diversity even as their institutions are becoming more monolithic in the one area academics should care about most--that is, in the area of ideas.

In the humanities and social sciences...in the humanities and social sciences...in social science and humanities departments....I for one will not challenge that HYER EHDYUKAYSHUN has intellectual and political rigor mortis. But what of the HARD SCIENCES, and their vacuuming of Federal money for ANYTHING? What of the huge business and accounting programs, breeding grounds nonpareil for Babbittry? And what of the closely allied Babbitts in the ATHUHLETIC PROGRAMS, whose sole purpose is WINNING at ANY COST? People who criticize our universities SOLELY for their HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL-SCIENCE DEPARTMENTS may be guilty of very selective thinking.