Local opinion: Political diversity among college professors

Every time I read an opinion piece about the lack of political diversity among college professors, I ask myself: how would I try to address this issue if I were a university president? And the answer is simple: Hire the best teachers and researchers in any given academic field.

As part of that process, I would strive to ensure that the political science department and the economics department and the philosophy department contained a balanced contingent of liberal and conservative thinkers, because that would provide students with the different perspectives necessary to become scholars and practitioners in those fields. I would also try to hire the best scientists and literature professors and historians, and this is where my thought experiment becomes more problematic.

All respected natural history scholars (biologists, geologists, paleontologists, etc.), as a result of years of questioning and study, accept evolution as the organizing principle of their discipline, so when one major political party consistently challenges that basic premise, is it any wonder these scientists favor the other party? Literature professors study the written word in all its diversity and glory, so when one party advocates for book banning is it any wonder literature professors tend to support the other party? Historians study history by going to prime source documents (not secondary or tertiary sources), so when the public is presented with indisputable prime source documents as they were in the Jan. 6 hearings, and one party openly tries to suppress and discredit the sources, is it any wonder reputable historians are appalled?

Additionally, when one party generally advocates cutting National Science Foundation (NSF) research funding while the other party generally advocates for more publicly funded science research, is it any wonder the political views of researchers lean one particular way?

Although these observations are straightforward, they are not necessarily politically definitive. That is, a person could disagree with one political party on the issue of NSF funding and still support that party if they believe other issues are more important, like the need to balance the budget for example. But it is to say that, human nature being what it is, it is unsurprising that college professors tend to skew politically liberal these days.

Which leads me to wonder what my conservative parents thought as they sent us off to college in the early seventies?

I think my parents’ generation viewed college as one more step on the way to adulthood. They knew we’d be exposed to a variety of different beliefs, including many that were in opposition to our espoused family values, and they accepted that. They understood that each of their children were interested in different things, and that their chosen field would influence their political outlook (along with many other factors such as their choice of friends and partners, the amount of money they made, the church they chose to attend, etc.). They believed that liberal arts lean politically liberal, that business tilts politically conservative, and that politics and economics are to be argued about. I like to think our parents ultimately trusted us to make our own sense of the world.

But times have changed. My sense is that we are currently at a point in history when one political party is at odds with the basic tenets of the academic establishment in many fields of study, and the argument about whether conservative professors are fairly represented on college campuses is one of many ways that party is trying to discredit academic institutions and promote its own political agenda. This is not the first time in history the academic establishment has been challenged by other powerful forces in our society.

What do you think? Is this a problem? How would you address the issue if you were a college president?