Good essay. As an academic who might be labeled heterodox–I do not think I could be easily categorized as Right or Left–and who is deeply dissatisfied with the trends in academia for at least the past decade, let me offer additional commentary.
I am in a Department of Psychology, and since I was hired in 1989, there has definitely been a preponderance of faculty members on the Left. I struggle to think of anyone who likely voted Republican in any national election. But for the first 20+ years of my professorship, I could disagree/argue openly with faculty and students about contentious issues, including race, gender, sexuality–the kinds of issues that one can easily get one cancelled now. I have tenure, but I worry more than I used to about losing my job. But more plausibly, there are lots of ways university administrators, faculty, and students can make one's life miserable these days that simply didn't happen until fairly recently.
I am less certain that we need conservative faculty–although sure, I'd be fine with that–than that we need openness to controversial ideas. These would include, for example (among many controversial ideas that might be true): for race, considering causes of racial disparities other than discrimination; for gender, the possibility of innate differences that affect life goals; for sexuality, the possibility that child-adult sexual interaction isn't always a "destroyer of souls." It is discussion of these uncomfortable ideas that we need, not necessarily more Republicans. (Though, again, I'd be happy to have. them.)
Academia is in deep trouble now, as it slides toward an intellectual abyss of intellectual bias leading to the embrace of false and stupid ideas. If the Rufo initiative can help change this, then I'm for it. But my goal is open and honest inquiry of important and controversial topics, without concern that one will be hounded or fired from one's job. It is progressives who have made these concerns realistic, so perhaps Rufo's pushback will help. It would be good, however, if they would keep in mind the real problem.
Great comment. I agree wholeheartedly, and appreciate you chiming in from a place of experience. One large chunk of my reason to support more conservative interest in academia is instrumental: it’s harder to establish an overarching orthodoxy if there are multiple cultures butting heads with each other than when there’s extensive political agreement. I think “more conservatives” is instrumentally useful both towards an academic world where no one orthodoxy can shut down controversial ideas and towards one where academia writ large is motivated to seriously investigate the premises of politically fashionable research rather than regularly applying isolated demands for rigor.
Well said. I'm kind of on the Right but I don't want there to be colleges which only have right-wing professors and ideas any more than I want there to be colleges which only have left-wing professors and ideas. As you say, ideological diversity sharpens ideas. Ideological homogeny encourages lazy, dogmatic thinking.
I am also a professor, and am completely unconvinced that DeSantis/Rufo's efforts will help here. For example there is absolutely no way he or his ilk would tolerate discussions of what to do about the problem of pedophilia that you raise. For example look at what happened to that professor who dared to refer to to pedophiles as minor attracted persons, or the ethics professor that asked his students to justify their answer to the question of why pedophilia is evil. The answer to intolerance isnt' more intolerance.
I do share your view that there's a problem currently with the loudest activist students, professors, and ESPECIALLY administrators. But looking at my actual colleagues who I know, this is not the case. Despite most having liberal political views folks are not happy about anything that limits professors' speech, and the tide seems to be turning (see Hamline). I'd dare to say that most have liberal political views because traditionally there was more a home for free speech and expression on the political left, and so being professors they shared those views, rather than anything coming top down from the institution.
DeSantis and Rufo absolutely will not contribute to an environment where those who are less than maximally harsh on pedophiles will receive a fair hearing. I suspect their dream New College would not be the ideal place for a professor like Dr. Allyn Walker. Nor, would I argue, does it need to be—though if someone like Dr. Walker ended up at an institution like that and the trustees shut her down, it would betray the values they claim to uphold and their feet should be held to the fire for it.
But their dream university would be a better environment than most for, say, education professors interested in classical education and willing to push back against some of the progressive-coded fads in the education world. If those professors were competent and rigorous in their own research, that, in turn, would lead to a healthier overall academic environment, in which those ideas had more ground on which to be expressed and progressive educators received more serious scrutiny. It would be an impoverished academia in which every institution looks the way Rufo dreams of seeing New College look, but a richer one in which some public liberal arts colleges look a bit more like that.
I agree and respect that most professors genuinely support free expression, and I will not support top-down coercion over that expression. I believe what I describe in the article is compatible with that, and more specifically, that the best route to serious diversity of expression in academia is not by encouraging a similar culture and similar focuses at every university, but precisely one in which one university is a better choice for Dr. Allyn Walker, another is a better choice for classical educators, and the public as a whole can learn from the outputs of each.
I just don't think that viewpoint discrimination in hiring and firing going the other direction (or any direction) is the way to go if we care about Academic Freedom. If anything it's just going to cause a backlash. There is a great way to move forward and that is to work hard to get free speech and free expression back on campus. Give to FIRE. If you work at a college, use the Hamline debacle as a way to start a conversation about getting the Chicago Principles passed at your institution.
Not to mention at public universities there really are very strong first amendment protections for professors. If these guys really try to DO anything they will likely be facing 1A lawsuits.
Private institutions are more free to do what they want, but those which actively descriminate based on political persuasion will, I think, remain a niche choice, like the more explicitly religious colleges around today.
Pretend there are only two colleges in the country. At the moment, both discriminate heavily against conservatives. There is zero ideological diversity.
Now pretend that one of the two is captured by Rufo-ites, who turn it into an equally-discriminatory home for conservatives. Now there is one conservative, and one progressive university. There is ideological diversity.
Sure, you and I can agree that having thriving debates inside each college would be best of all. But don't pretend that scenario two does *nothing* to advance intellectual diversity.
Can you clarify what you object to? You think that conservatives like DeSantis and Rufo are OK with academic freedom around discussions of things like Pedophilia? Or you think that me even bringing them up is evil?
Children’s brains are not fully developed until after they reach 18, and are not able to consent. Thinking this is a topic which is genuinely still up for debate (aside from of a few odd academics) makes it seem irrelevant.
You sound like you have more of a problem with the people reacting to the MAPs controversy than with the thing they’re reacting to.
I do have more of a problem with the cancellation of professors who work on these issues, than the discussion of the issues, yes. I don’t think that Allyn walker or that other guy did anything wrong in discussing these issues. All this while I obviously think actual pedophilia is morally reprehensible. Call me a pervert for nuance if you will.
"I am less certain that we need conservative faculty–although sure, I'd be fine with that–than that we need openness to controversial ideas."
I tend to agree with Trace on this point, in that the way you get to that openness *is* by having different sensibilities in conversation and conflict with each other. But another way of looking at the lack of conservative faculty is as a measure of openness -- such that it isn't so much that we need to have conservative faculty as that, if the openness we're looking for existed, we *would* have more of them. The lack is what demonstrates the problem, to some degree.
as I said in my separate comment, I'm fine with expanding intellectual diversity. Letting someone like Rufo take over the school isn't a great way to do that, and I don't believe Rufo and DeSantis really want intellectual diversity.
This is a great response to Jesse and Katie's critique. However, I think that Jesse and Katie didn't offer the best argument against Rufo's appointment and what looks to be DeSantis's strategy. At the risk of some level of arrogance, I'm going to try that here.
The fundamental problem with these appointments is that they are "solutions" that don't address the root cause of the issue. Jesse was patently incorrect about the prevalence of "wokeness" at public universities. There's a strong argument that second and third tier publics are actually the bedrock of the "wokeness" trend in academia with the ethos moving up the chain rather than down. Boards, on the other hand, are absolutely not the "woke" heart of a university and are usually the most conservative body within the university's structure. Much like the wider trend of the spread of "wokeness" from lower tier institutions upwards, the trends within institutions tend to move upwards from faculty, staff, and students who demand certain policies, positions, and offices and are acquiesced to.
As you point out, Boards are mostly charged with fundraising and promotion of the institution. But, that is because of the tradition of shared governance. Boards have the power to take a much more active role in both the larger governance and the daily operations of the institution. It is traditional that boards leave the academic administration to the academics, for example, with the Provost as the highest ranking academic officer and then the deans, department chairs, and faculty below them. This is both as part of the ethic that the academic staff of an institution are expert in their field and best qualified to shape things like curricular questions and because faculty are generally reluctant to join an institution that does not allow them that level of autonomy. However, if a Board (or Board member) doesn't believe in faculty expertise or care about faculty retention, there is very little to stop them from tossing that tradition aside (there will be lawsuits of course, but I think this hypothetical -- or maybe not so hypothetical -- board would mostly prevail).
This idea of shared governance is an important bedrock of how American higher education is organized. It's one of the main ways in which academic freedom is protected. And, if you care about more ideological and intellectual diversity within the academy, I would argue that academic freedom is the most important ideal that needs to be protected. Diversity of thought isn't going to come from the top down, it's going to come from faculty who recognize the importance of it and are willing to bring people into the fold who can be protected by the principles of academic freedom.
I think the George Mason example is actually a great example of why faculty led diversification is so effective and preferable to Board intervention. The faculty in the economics department made a conscious decision to recruit and create a deliberately oriented space to allow for conservative scholarship to grow and thrive. This isn't uncommon for departments outside of the top, top tier. Specializing in a specific sub-field of scholarship is a way to recruit and retain faculty who might otherwise look to more prestigious programs where they might be less welcome or find less of a collaborative community.
On the other hand, the Nikole Hannah/Hannah Nikole-Jones debacle at UNC is a prime example of how Board overreach can really backfire. I agreed with the Board member(s) that NHHNJ was a bad and somewhat cynical choice for a tenured Knight chair, but when the faculty make their recommendation to the provost to hire with tenure, and the provost approves and submits it to the board, the ramifications of the Board pushing back are far more disruptive than they are productive. UNC lost a ton of credibility with both its current faculty and faculty they might want to recruit because it indicated that the board might be meddling in operations beyond what is generally considered appropriate. Not only that, the reaction was so strong and negative they had to embarrassingly offer her tenure anyway and even more embarrassingly be rejected by her in the end.
Diversifying thought within the academy is very important. But, where I think both the hosts and Trace miss the mark is that it cannot come at the expense of the ingrained protections those new, diverse thinkers will need to thrive. Rufo's appointment is a direct affront to those protections. As Katie rightly said, he is an ideologue and makes no secret of it. While one man on the board cannot make decisions unilaterally, the model should be troubling to anyone who actually cares about this issue. Putting ideologues on the boards of public institutions won't so much achieve intellectual diversity as it will drive talent of all ideological stripes towards private institutions that will have every motivation to double down on being the foil to the mess on the other side of the dividing line. Public universities are a vital resource and are so, so important. Even with rising tuition costs, so many provide a world class education for a fraction of the cost of their private competitors and it is because they can recruit talented faculty. That can, and very well may, fall apart quickly if people like Rufo start taking charge and remaking public institutions around the country.
Fantastic counter-argument, and the NHJ example is a well-taken case of the limits of board influence and the dangers of a top-down shift without buy-in from the ground level. From my angle, a lot of the success or failure this will come down to the questions of whether the board will attract or repel more talent and whether it can avoid stepping too hard on the toes of faculty who never asked for their input.
I disagree that diversity of thought can never come from the top down, though. Leaders set the tone for any institution, and healthy institutional culture relies on leadership who allow that culture to thrive. More, it’s easy to neglect governance and institutional barriers when pushing for bottom-up change: even when faculty have the best of intentions, something as simple as ideological capture in the accrediting bodies of a field can force them to conform or to lose accreditation entirely.
There’s certainly a valid question of whether board members are the right sort of leadership, and another of pushing culture too far and too fast, but for serious change to happen within academic culture, people need to take all levels of that culture seriously, from faculty to on-the-ground administration to the distant bureaucrats behind the scenes. No group is sufficient to enact substantive change; some degree of buy-in from all is necessary.
I do agree that I overstated how hands off the board should be overall. They do have their place and I think it is primarily in the selection and oversight of institutional leaders (mainly the president). That position should be able to translate the broad vision of the Board into an operational plan and structure that reflects the needs and visions of all stakeholders appropriately.
As a side note, I'm glad you wrote this (and that the overlords of the podcast allowed and encouraged your posting it here) and sparked a productive and challenging discussion!
I appreciate the viewpoint of Woodgrains, but I find the Haidt, Chait, etc. arguments more compelling. I don’t think DeSantis nor Rufo care much about academic freedom. I think the criticism that they just want to impose their own stringent ideology is true.
But actually I don’t think that this is even their main goal. I think they just like fighting the culture wars, mostly because it makes them rich, powerful, and famous.
I don’t think much is going to come, even inadvertently, from people whose objective is just to endlessly own liberals and never really solve anything.
There's a strain of Jesse/Katie's approach where they recognize an issue but then seem to strenuously object and express horror at any actual on the ground attempt to address the issue. I'm not that team. I'm team Woodgrains.
Because sometimes “solutions” become worse than the problems they purport to solve. The last few years should have taught us that if they taught us anything.
“At least they’re doing something” is not a universal maxim. It’s a case by case situation and then case I don’t think the solution is a good thing.
Yes, something like the University of Austin model, with people who have a better track record and more commitment to academic freedom--but in person, not online.
I have to give Rufo, DeSantis et al credit for “trying to solve something.” They’re not just bloviating about wokeness with the New School. They are trying to create a solution.
I’m not mind-reading. I’m making reasonable inferences based on what Rufo/DeSantis actually say and do.
As to their actual ideas, I don’t think a conservative reconquering of academia sounds like a good idea, nor do I think a conservative Christian outwardly Trump-loving is a good model for how state schools should be.
Great so we have a less conservative university that doesn't care about academic freedom, just like every other university (that is hyper liberal). Seems like an improvement to me, no?
The way Rufo and the other new trustee handled the town hall, and particularly the provost's attempt to shut it down gives me some optimism. I don't think there's anything wrong with trustees explicitly devoted to classical liberalism. There is a legitimate role in public higher education for transmitting cultural values, broadly defined. One of those is open inquiry and free exchange of ideas. I trust Rufo et al to oversee that than I do the people they're replacing.
You need an adversary to keep you honest, someone out there who will pounce on your bullshit. Like Trace I doubt even doing something like this can completely overhaul the school which is what I think everyone fears, but it could probably make a professor think twice before they step over a ledge on absolutely nothing, without even the fear of gravity, sustained only by the knowledge no one will hold them accountable for absolute horseshit.
I’d like to be able to read research papers and actually believe them to be plausible without having to do a whole bunch of research myself. I want that fight to happen way before it gets to me.
The position that the American Academy of Pediatrics has taken on trans health care- bolstered by bullshit research- throws everything they say into question for me.
How to I reconcile that when I work with a pediatric population? I can't re-research everything by myself.
This is sad but I don’t really trust anything unless it’s from before about 1960 unless it’s some super niche field where there are the kind of direct feedback loops you need to have actual experts.
The only way I ever feel like I know something is when I know at least four or five counter intuitive things about it and have to eat shit about being wrong at least three times.
Eating shit is the epistemic equivalent of vegetables.
People who never eat shit for being wrong are claiming that they are never actually so wrong that they need to eat shit, and that they are so brilliant the universal human foible of self delusion doesn’t apply to them.
I’ve felt crazy a few times in my life, but never while eating shit.
The main problem is Rufo himself. He has already proven to care more about ideology than the truth by conflating critical race theory with other independent arguments. He’s lied about diversity training curricula and promotes the idea that LGBT discussion in school is child grooming. All of this shows a very distinct lack of restraint or intellectual honesty. His lies about how powerful the New College council is should be disqualifying alone. The problem has been people like him of all political stripes gaining power, and it’s weird seeing people here willing to give Rufo a shot despite his track record.
I will say that I’m glad to have read this article. I agreed with a lot of your broad takes, but still believe that not addressing the zealotry and honesty issues will only lead to more of the current problem.
Yes, with checks and balances. That's the whole point of the Madisonian order - "If men were angels, no government among men would be necessary" and all that.
Why would you want someone who cares more about ideology than truth in charge of an institution that should put truth above ideology. The antidote to an overemphasis on politics is not more politicization.
Even if there is an alternate ideology being pushed, openness to ideas mitigates against any ideology becoming dominant. The point is to inquire without *having to* subscribe, no matter which “side” your inquiry seems to favor.
Except that in this instance we don’t have that openness. Your ending point is the desired outcome by you and me, but not by Rufo and more than likely DeSantis. It’s not just about the ideology, it is about who the vehicle for that ideology is. If the vehicle is on a fixed track built on lies and outrage, the only outcome is a toxic cesspool.
That’s an assumption not in evidence. It’s just like all the other fearful assertions that the opponents are too existentially “bad” to take seriously. Rufo absolutely has valid things to say even if you don’t agree with everything he says. If he’s “extreme” it’s because he’s reacting to extremities.
That’s an absolutely bullshit argument. I specifically named Rufo due to his previous bad faith behavior. Any valid points are completely wiped out by his absolute dishonesty. He makes things up whole cloth, thus calling into question everything else he says. I can absolutely assume based on past behavior what his goals will most likely be. Nowhere did I say he should be silenced, but that his loyalty to ideology over truth should not be rewarded with power over an educational institution. It’s a perpetuation of the problem, not an honest attempt to solve it. There are plenty of conservatives who have pushed against this type of ideological conformity without resorting to lies. I’m tired of being told I should accept the Trumps and Rufos of my party because they can manage to spout a broad point that’s true but then stumble all over themselves to look like a woke caricature. Truth matters if real change is going to happen.
Thanks for this piece. What I have noticed in academia is that the shortage of right wingers on the faculty is not seen as something to be redressed, but a source of smug satisfaction. I've been told, with a straight face, that there are no conservatives because "they're too interested in making money [to pursue academic careers]" and even "conservatives are too stupid to do a PhD". The lack of curiosity, as there would be about any other underrepresented group, is truly staggering.
More insidiously when I've pushed the issue, some responded that making an effort to hire right wingers would lower standards (!!). (This argument from the same people who would be outraged if you made this criticism of affirmative action....)
It continues to shock me how widely it is assumed that conservatives can't do intellectually rigorous research, but it's there in academia.
You see it when one of the rare right wingers in the humanities is cited, they'll be referred to as "conservative historian professor Jones...", a qualification that left-liberal scholars don't get, because theirs is the presumed neutral position. You have to be an actual communist to get that kind of label if you're on the left. But even a moderate con is always described as a "right winger". (I've often wondered if I'll get this hedging qualification attached to my work too.)
This is the insidiousness, that Heterodox Academy and others are fighting, but it's an uphill battle.
I would also query your claim that libertarians are well represented: perhaps among economists or in business schools, but not in the humanities.
Nice job Trace! I felt the same when listening to Jesse and Katie. The stats around liberal dominance in these schools is remarkable. The one that really jumps out is 40% of administrators say they are far left, not just left, but far left. I think it’s safe to say those folks are woke.
I'm sorry, but this is terrible analysis that completely misses the point. To spend so much of the evidence portion of the article showing percentages of political feeling makes me think that you believe the problem with wokeness is a lack of diversity of political opinion. Wokeness is not a problem of percentages of people who say they are liberal or conservative. You could have a 100% liberal or conservative institution without the problems of wokeness. The problems of wokeness are not unique to wokeness and they are trying to silence your opponents and painting them with labels that signal you don't have to listen or grapple with them, that they are fascist or racist or transphobic (or woke or communist or an sjw, etc).
The contention you are arguing might well be true. Florida universities might well be overrun by wokeness. It wouldn't shock me that New College of Florida has been. You didn't make that argument either. Instead you supply one person who went to the college 20 years ago and is now concerned that the college has taken a turn and are pretending that isn't the biggest cliche in the world, that it's even evidence.
This is largely the problem of thinking the answer to wokeness is heterodox thinking. But many of the stars of heterodox thinking are victims of the same unreasoned audience capture of Michael Hobbes, etc. All one has to do is see how many star heterodox thinkers became vaccine skeptics and ivermectin pushers to see how bankrupt this answer is. The answer is not to have heterodox thinking or to have one of each type of ideology. Its have people who honestly grapple with and understand their opponents and treat them with good faith. The question is do you think thats Chris Rufo?
Honestly you are critiquing DEI in the same article you are calling for even percentages of professors to be of all the political bents
I emphasize explicitly in my article that "wokeness" is not a simple byproduct of conservative versus liberal, and explicitly reject the idea that even percentages of professors should be of all political bents.
Along with that, though, I reject the case that honest grappling and good faith alone are sufficient. They're important, don't get me wrong. But to be able to honestly grapple with opponents, you need serious opponents to go toe-to-toe with. If you have a room full of good-faith people aware of their own biases and set on understanding different perspectives, but all of them share similar ideological assumptions, they will nonetheless instinctively fixate on the same problems and scrutinize ideas more or less depending on how well those ideas align with their own instincts.
The only solution I know of to that is to meet them with serious, good-faith people who simply do not share their biases. My contention is that particularly in the social sciences, humanities, and liberal arts colleges, that is broadly untrue. My core problem with "wokeness" in universities is that it seeks to instill an orthodoxy across the whole of academia, in which the explicit goal is for everyone to share certain biases. Take it out altogether, and you still need people with emphatically divergent biases for ideas to receive the scrutiny they deserve.
You're right to emphasize that many "heterodox thinkers" fall prey to bankrupt intellectual fads and lead their audiences with them. We can recognize these as fads because many others are motivated to examine and expose the flaws in their thinking. But politically fashionable ideas often need to look to figures from the fringes of academia or outside it altogether before they receive similar levels of scrutiny. I want an overall academic environment where shaky progressive assertions receive as close of scrutiny as vaccine skepticism and ivermectin pushing, and the only environment in which that will happen is one where we have more serious academics who simply do not share progressive biases.
"and the only environment in which that will happen is one where we have more serious academics who simply do not share progressive biases." You're doing the same thing again that they were objecting to. You don't know that this is true. Someone can have "progressive biases" and still be completely committed to a non-political truth finding. Your own personal political biases need not always cloud your academic work. The focus should be on finding people committed to this deeper project, not on weeding out progressives. You're suggesting that the illiberalism you oppose be met with more illiberalism
Many progressives are honest, intellectually curious, and committed to truth-finding. I have no desire to "weed them out". But here's the thing: take the most intellectually honest progressive in the world, and if their work touches on anything that interacts with their values, I will still trust it more if it either:
1) is directly inconvenient to their values
or
2) faces and stands up to rigorous criticism from people who do not share the same values.
Bluntly, I have read too many papers whose abstracts could read wholly differently based on politics without altering the underlying data to believe in scientists who have clear values but whose work is not influenced by them. Your values influence what you focus on and how you focus on it. They influence the data you collect and the way you interpret that data. This is not a claim about the quality, or lack thereof, of anyone's work. Clear values can and should coexist with a commitment to truth-finding. Rather, it is an emphatic claim that your opponents are better critics of your work than you are.
I am not suggesting that illiberalism be met with illiberalism. I am suggesting that an individual quest to be unbiased is dramatically aided by coming face-to-face with intelligent, determined people who do not share your biases, because they will tear your work apart in ways neither you nor your allies could ever manage. I am not asking anyone to be cast out of academia; I am asking academia to be serious about the need for dramatic values divergence between members of any given field.
I'm sorry but I call BS. What political party you're a part of or whether or not someone else would call you a progressive is such a silly binary to place on people who are in reality much more complex than these superficial labels. And no, your political affiliations need not affect the way you collect data. People can have commitments to values that go deeper than superficial political designations - truth seeking, academic freedom, free exchange of ideas. These are things that are core to liberal values. In your essay you talk a lot about having too many liberals. Now you're using the term progressive. I think the equivocation speaks to the muddiness of the proposal you're putting forward and a lack of clarity on terms and definitions. If you're arguing for measuring the political makeup of public school employees and changing that composition to have fewer progressives, liberals, leftists, or whoever you are focusing on, you are talking about a rooting out. I don't think that kind of illiberalism is the answer.
I use the terms I mean when I mean them. Some progressives are leftists; some progressives are liberals; not all liberals are progressives. These groups share some values but not all, and both their overlap and their divergence should be properly understood. This is unfortunately muddied by US convention (including in the paper I linked) which tends to use "liberal" as a synonym for "left", but at the times I can reasonably use my own words, I work to be precise.
You're getting pretty hung up on the specifics of parties, so we can use a different example: in Mormon scholarship, there are a number of rigorous, honest, truth-seeking Mormons—Richard Bushman, for example. Their work is valuable, but it would present an incomplete picture without responses from people who do not share their belief. BYU, built and dominated by Mormons, is a strong university that produces worthwhile academic work. I'm glad it exists, but I would not want every university to be BYU. Rinse and repeat for every value system.
I don't think political commitments are superficial at all, and while I hope every academic is committed to truth seeking, academic freedom, and free exchange at least to the point of abiding by those values within their work, I recognize that they do and should have other values as well, including political ones. You're free to believe these values have no impact on the nature of someone's work, but I am confident my approach leads to clearer-eyed readings of particularly controversial subjects than a values-blind one.
As much as you seem to wish I was talking about a rooting out, I am not. I am calling for no firings, no restrictions on professors' ability to say what they mean. I am pointing out the same principle Heterodox Academy has repeated from its founding: viewpoint diversity matters, and university culture has homogenized, with a difference only in my focus on the value of diversity between institutions rather than within institutions.
I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not arguing for a values-blind approach. I'm arguing for the support of liberal values over illiberal ones, which I think characterize your proposals. I'm arguing against personal politics litmus tests to determine whether someone is a qualified candidate. I don't know how many search committees for higher ed faculty you've been a part of but perspectives in one's scholarship and research are taken into account. Viewpoint diversity or diversity in research topics/expertise is a fine goal. Unfortunately that's not what you're proposing. You're acting as though someone's political donations are a proxy for their research and scholarship. They are not. And to suggest otherwise is to give in to the kind of crude and reductive logic of so many partisans that are trying to further entrench politics and culture wars in the universities. Your defense of Rufo as a good choice to be the one to increase viewpoint diversity makes it clear that it's not in support of the liberal values that universities thrived under in the past but a solution that would meet one form of illiberalism, censoriousness, and partisanship with a mirror image of the same.
Your reference to "Mormon scholarship", while not a very deft analogy, shows the flaw in your logic. Scholarship should not be defined by the identity of the person engaged in the work; it should be a seeking of truth that follows the thread wherever one is led by inquiry and evidence. Balancing a philosophy dept. with scholars who specialize in the study of different wings of philosophy, or even balancing a statewide system in the same way, is very different than taking stock of people's party affiliations, religious beliefs, etc. One is a virtuous goal in support of the liberal values that support a quality education; the other is a result of culture war brain rot that would have us all believe that we can be reduced to the R, D, or NPA on our voter registration card
"Honestly you are critiquing DEI in the same article you are calling for even percentages of professors to be of all the political bents"
Exactly. Shouldn't it be entirely beside the point who someone voted for in the last election? There seems to be an unwarranted assumption that political affiliations should be exactly evenly distributed among all careers that flies in the face of the supposed goal of the classically liberal freedoms (I think cynically) espoused by Rufo et al. You can't mandate that no more than 42% of faculty be registered as Democrats without committing active viewpoint discrimination.
But he explicitly says he *isn't* calling for even percentages! This is arguing with a position he didn't take!
From the piece:
"When I dream of diversity in academia, I do not dream of a diversity that sees every university aiming to achieve a perfect 50/50 balance of people who fall on the left or the right of the American political spectrum. I do not dream of a diversity in which every economics department offers the same mix of Keynsian, Chicago, and Austrian economics. I dream of diversity between institutions [...]."
If you keep reading it seems like he's saying he wants each institution to discriminate in whatever way it seems fit and then overall you get the percentages to equal out. I don't believe in discriminating by viewpoint in any case. Of course private colleges can do what they want.
Yeah it’s a lousy remedy. It’s too bad we got to the point that a remedy is needed. The recognition that there is indeed a problem to be addressed is a necessary first step and I applaud the writer for acknowledging that. Better remedies are possible. The embrace of free speech is a start. You have to be able to disagree. You have to be able to risk being wrong, and not get crucified for it.
So vax skepticism disqualifies one from your club? Proves the point that we need a club that includes people who ask uncomfortable questions. Even if they turn out to be wrong. No, make that especially if they turn out to be wrong Let’s normalize critical thinking itself, and not grasp after answers. Let’s be okay with being wrong. Asking the questions is the important part. We aren’t going to ever have all the answers.
Thanks for that interesting take! Well argued. One problem I have with it, though, is that I don't trust Rufo or DeSantis on matters of higher education. They specialize in political stunts. They have no business reforming any college, in my view. Here's one reason: They say they want to "[h]ire new faculty with expertise in constitutionalism, free enterprise, civic virtue, family life, religious freedom, and American principles." To my ear, this sounds like indoctrination, not education. Although many of the terms are unobjectionable in the abstract, we know what they mean in context: a right-wing agenda -- socially conservative, economically libertarian, jingoistic. It reminds me of the 1776 Project, an asinine, half-baked purported antidote to the 1619 Project. These are not serious people.
Compare that hackneyed statement with some lines from Notre Dame's mission statement: "The University is dedicated to the pursuit and sharing of truth for its own sake. As a Catholic university, one of its distinctive goals is to provide a forum where, through free inquiry and open discussion, the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions, and every other area of human scholarship and creativity." See the difference? If you're not committed to doing something like the second, no matter your inclinations or institutional commitments, you're not an actual school.
One of the insidious aspects of DEI training -- one that immediately turns off and disgusts thinking people who went to real school -- is that it pretends to be about "conversation" when in fact it defines any viewpoint not in line with its controversial agenda as off-limits. It's what gives such sessions their infuriating Orwellian character. A pressing danger we face today, I think, is impatience with "free inquiry and open discussion" in "pursuit ... of truth for its own sake." I don't see Rufo or DeSantis remedying that problem. They're proposing the college equivalent of Fox News because they're sick of the New York Times.
I think back to my higher education some 20-25 years ago, and the genuine problem comes increasingly into focus. I majored in history at Northwestern, where the faculty ranged from conservative (a few) to liberal (most) to Marxist (a good number). It definitely leaned left, as did the student body (which is the nature of students, or, at least, was then and there). At the same time, with all its superficial left-wing bias, it was normie town, and it's where I first learned to take conservative arguments, indeed any challenging arguments, seriously. This is a potential problem with your stats-based evidence. The problem isn't the number of faculty who identify as this or that. The problem is one of ethos, of spirit. *That's* what needs fixing, and the solution is not an inter-school balance of bullshit.
For law school, I went to the University of Chicago. I'm not sure why that school doesn't come up more often in these discussions. As in, why do we need a University of Austin when we already have a University of Chicago? The Law School, as it calls itself, was known -- and still is, I think -- as a place where conservatives and libertarians and originalists and so-on would feel comfortable, just as Catholic intellectuals feel comfortable at Notre Dame. So I took classes from Richard Epstein, Richard Posner, and Frank Easterbrook. At the same time, I took classes from Cass Sunstein, Barack Obama, and Catharine MacKinnon. How many of those six names would fit Rufo's hiring criteria? Probably two.
I was an FDR liberal back then. I still am. Nothing thrills me like the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I'm not sure I was ever in the majority really at either school, but there were certainly more like-minded people at Northwestern. The point is, that didn't matter, because both places had a commitment to rigorous inquiry. You could expect, say, Obama to vigorously defend a Clarence Thomas opinion, at least for the sake of argument. I was challenged at both places. I became smarter because of both places. I learned that Learned Hand was right: "the spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right." I fear that Rufo and company, just like their lefty enemies, want to hurry up and get to their right answers. If so, that's anti-intellectual, anti-education, and fundamentally opposed to the liberal tradition they claim to vindicate.
This was interesting, and I definitely want to think about it more. However as a person who has interacted with way more Nobel Prize winning economists then any sanish person should have — and with no insult meant to George Mason — we should not be using them as any sort of benchmark or proof of rational or reasoned thought. A good idea in economics is often based more on its modeling than relationship with actual reality (and I say this as person who works with and actually respects economists).
On a more practical level, I’m also not sure where New College will pick up these new conservative staff. It would be hard to convince many people with tenure to switch to what is, as Trace points out, a failing college in an ecosystem where colleges are failing all the time unless you could convince people that there’s any stability in the new venture. There are certainly plenty of un- or under-employed new PHDs, but given the current politics, anyone who got through a decent program recently is almost always going to be “woke” to some level (or possibly foreign). Having a ton of new faculty and being some sort of political football is also unlikely to inspire a lot of more practical but higher achieving students to apply even if they’re fond of the politics of the project.
Good stuff, Trace! I love the fact that I can hear a diversity of opinions here. Good on you, Jesse, and Katie for being intellectually curious and humble.
Jan 30, 2023·edited Jan 30, 2023Liked by TracingWoodgrains
While previously on the Haidt/Pinker/Singal side of this, I'm... reluctantly convinced. I still don't trust Rufo and DeSantis in the long term, but I think maybe Trace is right that, in this particular case, it might be for the best.
I admit, Rufo's handling of the threats may have helped push me over the edge. No whining, just a firm calling of a bluff. We'll inevitably be enemies, our ideologies are too different and the man's a cold-blooded political operative at heart, but that's not mutually exclusive with a dash of respect.
Good essay. As an academic who might be labeled heterodox–I do not think I could be easily categorized as Right or Left–and who is deeply dissatisfied with the trends in academia for at least the past decade, let me offer additional commentary.
I am in a Department of Psychology, and since I was hired in 1989, there has definitely been a preponderance of faculty members on the Left. I struggle to think of anyone who likely voted Republican in any national election. But for the first 20+ years of my professorship, I could disagree/argue openly with faculty and students about contentious issues, including race, gender, sexuality–the kinds of issues that one can easily get one cancelled now. I have tenure, but I worry more than I used to about losing my job. But more plausibly, there are lots of ways university administrators, faculty, and students can make one's life miserable these days that simply didn't happen until fairly recently.
I am less certain that we need conservative faculty–although sure, I'd be fine with that–than that we need openness to controversial ideas. These would include, for example (among many controversial ideas that might be true): for race, considering causes of racial disparities other than discrimination; for gender, the possibility of innate differences that affect life goals; for sexuality, the possibility that child-adult sexual interaction isn't always a "destroyer of souls." It is discussion of these uncomfortable ideas that we need, not necessarily more Republicans. (Though, again, I'd be happy to have. them.)
Academia is in deep trouble now, as it slides toward an intellectual abyss of intellectual bias leading to the embrace of false and stupid ideas. If the Rufo initiative can help change this, then I'm for it. But my goal is open and honest inquiry of important and controversial topics, without concern that one will be hounded or fired from one's job. It is progressives who have made these concerns realistic, so perhaps Rufo's pushback will help. It would be good, however, if they would keep in mind the real problem.
Great comment. I agree wholeheartedly, and appreciate you chiming in from a place of experience. One large chunk of my reason to support more conservative interest in academia is instrumental: it’s harder to establish an overarching orthodoxy if there are multiple cultures butting heads with each other than when there’s extensive political agreement. I think “more conservatives” is instrumentally useful both towards an academic world where no one orthodoxy can shut down controversial ideas and towards one where academia writ large is motivated to seriously investigate the premises of politically fashionable research rather than regularly applying isolated demands for rigor.
Well said. I'm kind of on the Right but I don't want there to be colleges which only have right-wing professors and ideas any more than I want there to be colleges which only have left-wing professors and ideas. As you say, ideological diversity sharpens ideas. Ideological homogeny encourages lazy, dogmatic thinking.
I am also a professor, and am completely unconvinced that DeSantis/Rufo's efforts will help here. For example there is absolutely no way he or his ilk would tolerate discussions of what to do about the problem of pedophilia that you raise. For example look at what happened to that professor who dared to refer to to pedophiles as minor attracted persons, or the ethics professor that asked his students to justify their answer to the question of why pedophilia is evil. The answer to intolerance isnt' more intolerance.
I do share your view that there's a problem currently with the loudest activist students, professors, and ESPECIALLY administrators. But looking at my actual colleagues who I know, this is not the case. Despite most having liberal political views folks are not happy about anything that limits professors' speech, and the tide seems to be turning (see Hamline). I'd dare to say that most have liberal political views because traditionally there was more a home for free speech and expression on the political left, and so being professors they shared those views, rather than anything coming top down from the institution.
DeSantis and Rufo absolutely will not contribute to an environment where those who are less than maximally harsh on pedophiles will receive a fair hearing. I suspect their dream New College would not be the ideal place for a professor like Dr. Allyn Walker. Nor, would I argue, does it need to be—though if someone like Dr. Walker ended up at an institution like that and the trustees shut her down, it would betray the values they claim to uphold and their feet should be held to the fire for it.
But their dream university would be a better environment than most for, say, education professors interested in classical education and willing to push back against some of the progressive-coded fads in the education world. If those professors were competent and rigorous in their own research, that, in turn, would lead to a healthier overall academic environment, in which those ideas had more ground on which to be expressed and progressive educators received more serious scrutiny. It would be an impoverished academia in which every institution looks the way Rufo dreams of seeing New College look, but a richer one in which some public liberal arts colleges look a bit more like that.
I agree and respect that most professors genuinely support free expression, and I will not support top-down coercion over that expression. I believe what I describe in the article is compatible with that, and more specifically, that the best route to serious diversity of expression in academia is not by encouraging a similar culture and similar focuses at every university, but precisely one in which one university is a better choice for Dr. Allyn Walker, another is a better choice for classical educators, and the public as a whole can learn from the outputs of each.
I just don't think that viewpoint discrimination in hiring and firing going the other direction (or any direction) is the way to go if we care about Academic Freedom. If anything it's just going to cause a backlash. There is a great way to move forward and that is to work hard to get free speech and free expression back on campus. Give to FIRE. If you work at a college, use the Hamline debacle as a way to start a conversation about getting the Chicago Principles passed at your institution.
Not to mention at public universities there really are very strong first amendment protections for professors. If these guys really try to DO anything they will likely be facing 1A lawsuits.
Private institutions are more free to do what they want, but those which actively descriminate based on political persuasion will, I think, remain a niche choice, like the more explicitly religious colleges around today.
Pretend there are only two colleges in the country. At the moment, both discriminate heavily against conservatives. There is zero ideological diversity.
Now pretend that one of the two is captured by Rufo-ites, who turn it into an equally-discriminatory home for conservatives. Now there is one conservative, and one progressive university. There is ideological diversity.
Sure, you and I can agree that having thriving debates inside each college would be best of all. But don't pretend that scenario two does *nothing* to advance intellectual diversity.
aren't you supporting top-down coercion by defending this move by DeSantis?
That first paragraph. Good grief, surely you can't be serious?
Can you clarify what you object to? You think that conservatives like DeSantis and Rufo are OK with academic freedom around discussions of things like Pedophilia? Or you think that me even bringing them up is evil?
Children’s brains are not fully developed until after they reach 18, and are not able to consent. Thinking this is a topic which is genuinely still up for debate (aside from of a few odd academics) makes it seem irrelevant.
You sound like you have more of a problem with the people reacting to the MAPs controversy than with the thing they’re reacting to.
I do have more of a problem with the cancellation of professors who work on these issues, than the discussion of the issues, yes. I don’t think that Allyn walker or that other guy did anything wrong in discussing these issues. All this while I obviously think actual pedophilia is morally reprehensible. Call me a pervert for nuance if you will.
if anything, the issue is administrators more than academics. Most fellow faculty (I'm a professor) just want to do our jobs.
"I am less certain that we need conservative faculty–although sure, I'd be fine with that–than that we need openness to controversial ideas."
I tend to agree with Trace on this point, in that the way you get to that openness *is* by having different sensibilities in conversation and conflict with each other. But another way of looking at the lack of conservative faculty is as a measure of openness -- such that it isn't so much that we need to have conservative faculty as that, if the openness we're looking for existed, we *would* have more of them. The lack is what demonstrates the problem, to some degree.
I keep trying to like this comment but it keeps unliking itself somehow. So just in case “LIKED”
:)
I get that problem sometimes too.
as I said in my separate comment, I'm fine with expanding intellectual diversity. Letting someone like Rufo take over the school isn't a great way to do that, and I don't believe Rufo and DeSantis really want intellectual diversity.
This is a great response to Jesse and Katie's critique. However, I think that Jesse and Katie didn't offer the best argument against Rufo's appointment and what looks to be DeSantis's strategy. At the risk of some level of arrogance, I'm going to try that here.
The fundamental problem with these appointments is that they are "solutions" that don't address the root cause of the issue. Jesse was patently incorrect about the prevalence of "wokeness" at public universities. There's a strong argument that second and third tier publics are actually the bedrock of the "wokeness" trend in academia with the ethos moving up the chain rather than down. Boards, on the other hand, are absolutely not the "woke" heart of a university and are usually the most conservative body within the university's structure. Much like the wider trend of the spread of "wokeness" from lower tier institutions upwards, the trends within institutions tend to move upwards from faculty, staff, and students who demand certain policies, positions, and offices and are acquiesced to.
As you point out, Boards are mostly charged with fundraising and promotion of the institution. But, that is because of the tradition of shared governance. Boards have the power to take a much more active role in both the larger governance and the daily operations of the institution. It is traditional that boards leave the academic administration to the academics, for example, with the Provost as the highest ranking academic officer and then the deans, department chairs, and faculty below them. This is both as part of the ethic that the academic staff of an institution are expert in their field and best qualified to shape things like curricular questions and because faculty are generally reluctant to join an institution that does not allow them that level of autonomy. However, if a Board (or Board member) doesn't believe in faculty expertise or care about faculty retention, there is very little to stop them from tossing that tradition aside (there will be lawsuits of course, but I think this hypothetical -- or maybe not so hypothetical -- board would mostly prevail).
This idea of shared governance is an important bedrock of how American higher education is organized. It's one of the main ways in which academic freedom is protected. And, if you care about more ideological and intellectual diversity within the academy, I would argue that academic freedom is the most important ideal that needs to be protected. Diversity of thought isn't going to come from the top down, it's going to come from faculty who recognize the importance of it and are willing to bring people into the fold who can be protected by the principles of academic freedom.
I think the George Mason example is actually a great example of why faculty led diversification is so effective and preferable to Board intervention. The faculty in the economics department made a conscious decision to recruit and create a deliberately oriented space to allow for conservative scholarship to grow and thrive. This isn't uncommon for departments outside of the top, top tier. Specializing in a specific sub-field of scholarship is a way to recruit and retain faculty who might otherwise look to more prestigious programs where they might be less welcome or find less of a collaborative community.
On the other hand, the Nikole Hannah/Hannah Nikole-Jones debacle at UNC is a prime example of how Board overreach can really backfire. I agreed with the Board member(s) that NHHNJ was a bad and somewhat cynical choice for a tenured Knight chair, but when the faculty make their recommendation to the provost to hire with tenure, and the provost approves and submits it to the board, the ramifications of the Board pushing back are far more disruptive than they are productive. UNC lost a ton of credibility with both its current faculty and faculty they might want to recruit because it indicated that the board might be meddling in operations beyond what is generally considered appropriate. Not only that, the reaction was so strong and negative they had to embarrassingly offer her tenure anyway and even more embarrassingly be rejected by her in the end.
Diversifying thought within the academy is very important. But, where I think both the hosts and Trace miss the mark is that it cannot come at the expense of the ingrained protections those new, diverse thinkers will need to thrive. Rufo's appointment is a direct affront to those protections. As Katie rightly said, he is an ideologue and makes no secret of it. While one man on the board cannot make decisions unilaterally, the model should be troubling to anyone who actually cares about this issue. Putting ideologues on the boards of public institutions won't so much achieve intellectual diversity as it will drive talent of all ideological stripes towards private institutions that will have every motivation to double down on being the foil to the mess on the other side of the dividing line. Public universities are a vital resource and are so, so important. Even with rising tuition costs, so many provide a world class education for a fraction of the cost of their private competitors and it is because they can recruit talented faculty. That can, and very well may, fall apart quickly if people like Rufo start taking charge and remaking public institutions around the country.
Fantastic counter-argument, and the NHJ example is a well-taken case of the limits of board influence and the dangers of a top-down shift without buy-in from the ground level. From my angle, a lot of the success or failure this will come down to the questions of whether the board will attract or repel more talent and whether it can avoid stepping too hard on the toes of faculty who never asked for their input.
I disagree that diversity of thought can never come from the top down, though. Leaders set the tone for any institution, and healthy institutional culture relies on leadership who allow that culture to thrive. More, it’s easy to neglect governance and institutional barriers when pushing for bottom-up change: even when faculty have the best of intentions, something as simple as ideological capture in the accrediting bodies of a field can force them to conform or to lose accreditation entirely.
There’s certainly a valid question of whether board members are the right sort of leadership, and another of pushing culture too far and too fast, but for serious change to happen within academic culture, people need to take all levels of that culture seriously, from faculty to on-the-ground administration to the distant bureaucrats behind the scenes. No group is sufficient to enact substantive change; some degree of buy-in from all is necessary.
I do agree that I overstated how hands off the board should be overall. They do have their place and I think it is primarily in the selection and oversight of institutional leaders (mainly the president). That position should be able to translate the broad vision of the Board into an operational plan and structure that reflects the needs and visions of all stakeholders appropriately.
As a side note, I'm glad you wrote this (and that the overlords of the podcast allowed and encouraged your posting it here) and sparked a productive and challenging discussion!
Get enough different ideologues together and let them fight it out! That’s diversity
I appreciate the viewpoint of Woodgrains, but I find the Haidt, Chait, etc. arguments more compelling. I don’t think DeSantis nor Rufo care much about academic freedom. I think the criticism that they just want to impose their own stringent ideology is true.
But actually I don’t think that this is even their main goal. I think they just like fighting the culture wars, mostly because it makes them rich, powerful, and famous.
I don’t think much is going to come, even inadvertently, from people whose objective is just to endlessly own liberals and never really solve anything.
There's a strain of Jesse/Katie's approach where they recognize an issue but then seem to strenuously object and express horror at any actual on the ground attempt to address the issue. I'm not that team. I'm team Woodgrains.
Because sometimes “solutions” become worse than the problems they purport to solve. The last few years should have taught us that if they taught us anything.
“At least they’re doing something” is not a universal maxim. It’s a case by case situation and then case I don’t think the solution is a good thing.
Yes, something like the University of Austin model, with people who have a better track record and more commitment to academic freedom--but in person, not online.
I have to give Rufo, DeSantis et al credit for “trying to solve something.” They’re not just bloviating about wokeness with the New School. They are trying to create a solution.
Mind reading is just a way to attribute bad faith to those with different ideas without having to engage with those ideas.
I’m not mind-reading. I’m making reasonable inferences based on what Rufo/DeSantis actually say and do.
As to their actual ideas, I don’t think a conservative reconquering of academia sounds like a good idea, nor do I think a conservative Christian outwardly Trump-loving is a good model for how state schools should be.
They are both cheerleaders for anti-1A legislation. Why would we expect them to usher in more academic freedom/free speech?
This x 100000
The legislation that FIRE successfully filed lawsuits against and had multiple provisions struck down by different judges on 1A grounds https://www.thefire.org/news/victory-after-fire-lawsuit-court-halts-enforcement-key-provisions-stop-woke-act-limiting-how
Great so we have a less conservative university that doesn't care about academic freedom, just like every other university (that is hyper liberal). Seems like an improvement to me, no?
The way Rufo and the other new trustee handled the town hall, and particularly the provost's attempt to shut it down gives me some optimism. I don't think there's anything wrong with trustees explicitly devoted to classical liberalism. There is a legitimate role in public higher education for transmitting cultural values, broadly defined. One of those is open inquiry and free exchange of ideas. I trust Rufo et al to oversee that than I do the people they're replacing.
Well put Mr, Ms, Mx Woodgrains! I agree with almost all of your points and thanks to Jesse and Katie for allowing you to post this.
You need an adversary to keep you honest, someone out there who will pounce on your bullshit. Like Trace I doubt even doing something like this can completely overhaul the school which is what I think everyone fears, but it could probably make a professor think twice before they step over a ledge on absolutely nothing, without even the fear of gravity, sustained only by the knowledge no one will hold them accountable for absolute horseshit.
I’d like to be able to read research papers and actually believe them to be plausible without having to do a whole bunch of research myself. I want that fight to happen way before it gets to me.
This is exactly how I feel.
The position that the American Academy of Pediatrics has taken on trans health care- bolstered by bullshit research- throws everything they say into question for me.
How to I reconcile that when I work with a pediatric population? I can't re-research everything by myself.
This is sad but I don’t really trust anything unless it’s from before about 1960 unless it’s some super niche field where there are the kind of direct feedback loops you need to have actual experts.
True.
The only way I ever feel like I know something is when I know at least four or five counter intuitive things about it and have to eat shit about being wrong at least three times.
Eating shit is the epistemic equivalent of vegetables.
People who never eat shit for being wrong are claiming that they are never actually so wrong that they need to eat shit, and that they are so brilliant the universal human foible of self delusion doesn’t apply to them.
I’ve felt crazy a few times in my life, but never while eating shit.
The main problem is Rufo himself. He has already proven to care more about ideology than the truth by conflating critical race theory with other independent arguments. He’s lied about diversity training curricula and promotes the idea that LGBT discussion in school is child grooming. All of this shows a very distinct lack of restraint or intellectual honesty. His lies about how powerful the New College council is should be disqualifying alone. The problem has been people like him of all political stripes gaining power, and it’s weird seeing people here willing to give Rufo a shot despite his track record.
I will say that I’m glad to have read this article. I agreed with a lot of your broad takes, but still believe that not addressing the zealotry and honesty issues will only lead to more of the current problem.
"He has already proven to care more about ideology than the truth". I hate when that happens at every single university.
So someone who does the same thing should be put in a position of power?
Yes, with checks and balances. That's the whole point of the Madisonian order - "If men were angels, no government among men would be necessary" and all that.
Why would you want someone who cares more about ideology than truth in charge of an institution that should put truth above ideology. The antidote to an overemphasis on politics is not more politicization.
Thanks largely due to the post-modernism endorsed by progressives, there is no truth. There is only ideology.
How did they convince you? And why would you say there is no truth?
Even if there is an alternate ideology being pushed, openness to ideas mitigates against any ideology becoming dominant. The point is to inquire without *having to* subscribe, no matter which “side” your inquiry seems to favor.
Except that in this instance we don’t have that openness. Your ending point is the desired outcome by you and me, but not by Rufo and more than likely DeSantis. It’s not just about the ideology, it is about who the vehicle for that ideology is. If the vehicle is on a fixed track built on lies and outrage, the only outcome is a toxic cesspool.
That’s an assumption not in evidence. It’s just like all the other fearful assertions that the opponents are too existentially “bad” to take seriously. Rufo absolutely has valid things to say even if you don’t agree with everything he says. If he’s “extreme” it’s because he’s reacting to extremities.
That’s an absolutely bullshit argument. I specifically named Rufo due to his previous bad faith behavior. Any valid points are completely wiped out by his absolute dishonesty. He makes things up whole cloth, thus calling into question everything else he says. I can absolutely assume based on past behavior what his goals will most likely be. Nowhere did I say he should be silenced, but that his loyalty to ideology over truth should not be rewarded with power over an educational institution. It’s a perpetuation of the problem, not an honest attempt to solve it. There are plenty of conservatives who have pushed against this type of ideological conformity without resorting to lies. I’m tired of being told I should accept the Trumps and Rufos of my party because they can manage to spout a broad point that’s true but then stumble all over themselves to look like a woke caricature. Truth matters if real change is going to happen.
Thanks for this piece. What I have noticed in academia is that the shortage of right wingers on the faculty is not seen as something to be redressed, but a source of smug satisfaction. I've been told, with a straight face, that there are no conservatives because "they're too interested in making money [to pursue academic careers]" and even "conservatives are too stupid to do a PhD". The lack of curiosity, as there would be about any other underrepresented group, is truly staggering.
More insidiously when I've pushed the issue, some responded that making an effort to hire right wingers would lower standards (!!). (This argument from the same people who would be outraged if you made this criticism of affirmative action....)
It continues to shock me how widely it is assumed that conservatives can't do intellectually rigorous research, but it's there in academia.
You see it when one of the rare right wingers in the humanities is cited, they'll be referred to as "conservative historian professor Jones...", a qualification that left-liberal scholars don't get, because theirs is the presumed neutral position. You have to be an actual communist to get that kind of label if you're on the left. But even a moderate con is always described as a "right winger". (I've often wondered if I'll get this hedging qualification attached to my work too.)
This is the insidiousness, that Heterodox Academy and others are fighting, but it's an uphill battle.
I would also query your claim that libertarians are well represented: perhaps among economists or in business schools, but not in the humanities.
Nice job Trace! I felt the same when listening to Jesse and Katie. The stats around liberal dominance in these schools is remarkable. The one that really jumps out is 40% of administrators say they are far left, not just left, but far left. I think it’s safe to say those folks are woke.
This. Was. Fantastic.
I'm sorry, but this is terrible analysis that completely misses the point. To spend so much of the evidence portion of the article showing percentages of political feeling makes me think that you believe the problem with wokeness is a lack of diversity of political opinion. Wokeness is not a problem of percentages of people who say they are liberal or conservative. You could have a 100% liberal or conservative institution without the problems of wokeness. The problems of wokeness are not unique to wokeness and they are trying to silence your opponents and painting them with labels that signal you don't have to listen or grapple with them, that they are fascist or racist or transphobic (or woke or communist or an sjw, etc).
The contention you are arguing might well be true. Florida universities might well be overrun by wokeness. It wouldn't shock me that New College of Florida has been. You didn't make that argument either. Instead you supply one person who went to the college 20 years ago and is now concerned that the college has taken a turn and are pretending that isn't the biggest cliche in the world, that it's even evidence.
This is largely the problem of thinking the answer to wokeness is heterodox thinking. But many of the stars of heterodox thinking are victims of the same unreasoned audience capture of Michael Hobbes, etc. All one has to do is see how many star heterodox thinkers became vaccine skeptics and ivermectin pushers to see how bankrupt this answer is. The answer is not to have heterodox thinking or to have one of each type of ideology. Its have people who honestly grapple with and understand their opponents and treat them with good faith. The question is do you think thats Chris Rufo?
Honestly you are critiquing DEI in the same article you are calling for even percentages of professors to be of all the political bents
I emphasize explicitly in my article that "wokeness" is not a simple byproduct of conservative versus liberal, and explicitly reject the idea that even percentages of professors should be of all political bents.
Along with that, though, I reject the case that honest grappling and good faith alone are sufficient. They're important, don't get me wrong. But to be able to honestly grapple with opponents, you need serious opponents to go toe-to-toe with. If you have a room full of good-faith people aware of their own biases and set on understanding different perspectives, but all of them share similar ideological assumptions, they will nonetheless instinctively fixate on the same problems and scrutinize ideas more or less depending on how well those ideas align with their own instincts.
The only solution I know of to that is to meet them with serious, good-faith people who simply do not share their biases. My contention is that particularly in the social sciences, humanities, and liberal arts colleges, that is broadly untrue. My core problem with "wokeness" in universities is that it seeks to instill an orthodoxy across the whole of academia, in which the explicit goal is for everyone to share certain biases. Take it out altogether, and you still need people with emphatically divergent biases for ideas to receive the scrutiny they deserve.
You're right to emphasize that many "heterodox thinkers" fall prey to bankrupt intellectual fads and lead their audiences with them. We can recognize these as fads because many others are motivated to examine and expose the flaws in their thinking. But politically fashionable ideas often need to look to figures from the fringes of academia or outside it altogether before they receive similar levels of scrutiny. I want an overall academic environment where shaky progressive assertions receive as close of scrutiny as vaccine skepticism and ivermectin pushing, and the only environment in which that will happen is one where we have more serious academics who simply do not share progressive biases.
"and the only environment in which that will happen is one where we have more serious academics who simply do not share progressive biases." You're doing the same thing again that they were objecting to. You don't know that this is true. Someone can have "progressive biases" and still be completely committed to a non-political truth finding. Your own personal political biases need not always cloud your academic work. The focus should be on finding people committed to this deeper project, not on weeding out progressives. You're suggesting that the illiberalism you oppose be met with more illiberalism
Many progressives are honest, intellectually curious, and committed to truth-finding. I have no desire to "weed them out". But here's the thing: take the most intellectually honest progressive in the world, and if their work touches on anything that interacts with their values, I will still trust it more if it either:
1) is directly inconvenient to their values
or
2) faces and stands up to rigorous criticism from people who do not share the same values.
Bluntly, I have read too many papers whose abstracts could read wholly differently based on politics without altering the underlying data to believe in scientists who have clear values but whose work is not influenced by them. Your values influence what you focus on and how you focus on it. They influence the data you collect and the way you interpret that data. This is not a claim about the quality, or lack thereof, of anyone's work. Clear values can and should coexist with a commitment to truth-finding. Rather, it is an emphatic claim that your opponents are better critics of your work than you are.
I am not suggesting that illiberalism be met with illiberalism. I am suggesting that an individual quest to be unbiased is dramatically aided by coming face-to-face with intelligent, determined people who do not share your biases, because they will tear your work apart in ways neither you nor your allies could ever manage. I am not asking anyone to be cast out of academia; I am asking academia to be serious about the need for dramatic values divergence between members of any given field.
I'm sorry but I call BS. What political party you're a part of or whether or not someone else would call you a progressive is such a silly binary to place on people who are in reality much more complex than these superficial labels. And no, your political affiliations need not affect the way you collect data. People can have commitments to values that go deeper than superficial political designations - truth seeking, academic freedom, free exchange of ideas. These are things that are core to liberal values. In your essay you talk a lot about having too many liberals. Now you're using the term progressive. I think the equivocation speaks to the muddiness of the proposal you're putting forward and a lack of clarity on terms and definitions. If you're arguing for measuring the political makeup of public school employees and changing that composition to have fewer progressives, liberals, leftists, or whoever you are focusing on, you are talking about a rooting out. I don't think that kind of illiberalism is the answer.
I use the terms I mean when I mean them. Some progressives are leftists; some progressives are liberals; not all liberals are progressives. These groups share some values but not all, and both their overlap and their divergence should be properly understood. This is unfortunately muddied by US convention (including in the paper I linked) which tends to use "liberal" as a synonym for "left", but at the times I can reasonably use my own words, I work to be precise.
You're getting pretty hung up on the specifics of parties, so we can use a different example: in Mormon scholarship, there are a number of rigorous, honest, truth-seeking Mormons—Richard Bushman, for example. Their work is valuable, but it would present an incomplete picture without responses from people who do not share their belief. BYU, built and dominated by Mormons, is a strong university that produces worthwhile academic work. I'm glad it exists, but I would not want every university to be BYU. Rinse and repeat for every value system.
I don't think political commitments are superficial at all, and while I hope every academic is committed to truth seeking, academic freedom, and free exchange at least to the point of abiding by those values within their work, I recognize that they do and should have other values as well, including political ones. You're free to believe these values have no impact on the nature of someone's work, but I am confident my approach leads to clearer-eyed readings of particularly controversial subjects than a values-blind one.
As much as you seem to wish I was talking about a rooting out, I am not. I am calling for no firings, no restrictions on professors' ability to say what they mean. I am pointing out the same principle Heterodox Academy has repeated from its founding: viewpoint diversity matters, and university culture has homogenized, with a difference only in my focus on the value of diversity between institutions rather than within institutions.
I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not arguing for a values-blind approach. I'm arguing for the support of liberal values over illiberal ones, which I think characterize your proposals. I'm arguing against personal politics litmus tests to determine whether someone is a qualified candidate. I don't know how many search committees for higher ed faculty you've been a part of but perspectives in one's scholarship and research are taken into account. Viewpoint diversity or diversity in research topics/expertise is a fine goal. Unfortunately that's not what you're proposing. You're acting as though someone's political donations are a proxy for their research and scholarship. They are not. And to suggest otherwise is to give in to the kind of crude and reductive logic of so many partisans that are trying to further entrench politics and culture wars in the universities. Your defense of Rufo as a good choice to be the one to increase viewpoint diversity makes it clear that it's not in support of the liberal values that universities thrived under in the past but a solution that would meet one form of illiberalism, censoriousness, and partisanship with a mirror image of the same.
Your reference to "Mormon scholarship", while not a very deft analogy, shows the flaw in your logic. Scholarship should not be defined by the identity of the person engaged in the work; it should be a seeking of truth that follows the thread wherever one is led by inquiry and evidence. Balancing a philosophy dept. with scholars who specialize in the study of different wings of philosophy, or even balancing a statewide system in the same way, is very different than taking stock of people's party affiliations, religious beliefs, etc. One is a virtuous goal in support of the liberal values that support a quality education; the other is a result of culture war brain rot that would have us all believe that we can be reduced to the R, D, or NPA on our voter registration card
I think the solution is to hire people that don't mix their scholarship with their personal politics, not those who do
"Honestly you are critiquing DEI in the same article you are calling for even percentages of professors to be of all the political bents"
Exactly. Shouldn't it be entirely beside the point who someone voted for in the last election? There seems to be an unwarranted assumption that political affiliations should be exactly evenly distributed among all careers that flies in the face of the supposed goal of the classically liberal freedoms (I think cynically) espoused by Rufo et al. You can't mandate that no more than 42% of faculty be registered as Democrats without committing active viewpoint discrimination.
But he explicitly says he *isn't* calling for even percentages! This is arguing with a position he didn't take!
From the piece:
"When I dream of diversity in academia, I do not dream of a diversity that sees every university aiming to achieve a perfect 50/50 balance of people who fall on the left or the right of the American political spectrum. I do not dream of a diversity in which every economics department offers the same mix of Keynsian, Chicago, and Austrian economics. I dream of diversity between institutions [...]."
If you keep reading it seems like he's saying he wants each institution to discriminate in whatever way it seems fit and then overall you get the percentages to equal out. I don't believe in discriminating by viewpoint in any case. Of course private colleges can do what they want.
Yeah, you might even call his viewpoint - "counterhegemonic."
Yeah it’s a lousy remedy. It’s too bad we got to the point that a remedy is needed. The recognition that there is indeed a problem to be addressed is a necessary first step and I applaud the writer for acknowledging that. Better remedies are possible. The embrace of free speech is a start. You have to be able to disagree. You have to be able to risk being wrong, and not get crucified for it.
So vax skepticism disqualifies one from your club? Proves the point that we need a club that includes people who ask uncomfortable questions. Even if they turn out to be wrong. No, make that especially if they turn out to be wrong Let’s normalize critical thinking itself, and not grasp after answers. Let’s be okay with being wrong. Asking the questions is the important part. We aren’t going to ever have all the answers.
Thanks for that interesting take! Well argued. One problem I have with it, though, is that I don't trust Rufo or DeSantis on matters of higher education. They specialize in political stunts. They have no business reforming any college, in my view. Here's one reason: They say they want to "[h]ire new faculty with expertise in constitutionalism, free enterprise, civic virtue, family life, religious freedom, and American principles." To my ear, this sounds like indoctrination, not education. Although many of the terms are unobjectionable in the abstract, we know what they mean in context: a right-wing agenda -- socially conservative, economically libertarian, jingoistic. It reminds me of the 1776 Project, an asinine, half-baked purported antidote to the 1619 Project. These are not serious people.
Compare that hackneyed statement with some lines from Notre Dame's mission statement: "The University is dedicated to the pursuit and sharing of truth for its own sake. As a Catholic university, one of its distinctive goals is to provide a forum where, through free inquiry and open discussion, the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions, and every other area of human scholarship and creativity." See the difference? If you're not committed to doing something like the second, no matter your inclinations or institutional commitments, you're not an actual school.
One of the insidious aspects of DEI training -- one that immediately turns off and disgusts thinking people who went to real school -- is that it pretends to be about "conversation" when in fact it defines any viewpoint not in line with its controversial agenda as off-limits. It's what gives such sessions their infuriating Orwellian character. A pressing danger we face today, I think, is impatience with "free inquiry and open discussion" in "pursuit ... of truth for its own sake." I don't see Rufo or DeSantis remedying that problem. They're proposing the college equivalent of Fox News because they're sick of the New York Times.
I think back to my higher education some 20-25 years ago, and the genuine problem comes increasingly into focus. I majored in history at Northwestern, where the faculty ranged from conservative (a few) to liberal (most) to Marxist (a good number). It definitely leaned left, as did the student body (which is the nature of students, or, at least, was then and there). At the same time, with all its superficial left-wing bias, it was normie town, and it's where I first learned to take conservative arguments, indeed any challenging arguments, seriously. This is a potential problem with your stats-based evidence. The problem isn't the number of faculty who identify as this or that. The problem is one of ethos, of spirit. *That's* what needs fixing, and the solution is not an inter-school balance of bullshit.
For law school, I went to the University of Chicago. I'm not sure why that school doesn't come up more often in these discussions. As in, why do we need a University of Austin when we already have a University of Chicago? The Law School, as it calls itself, was known -- and still is, I think -- as a place where conservatives and libertarians and originalists and so-on would feel comfortable, just as Catholic intellectuals feel comfortable at Notre Dame. So I took classes from Richard Epstein, Richard Posner, and Frank Easterbrook. At the same time, I took classes from Cass Sunstein, Barack Obama, and Catharine MacKinnon. How many of those six names would fit Rufo's hiring criteria? Probably two.
I was an FDR liberal back then. I still am. Nothing thrills me like the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I'm not sure I was ever in the majority really at either school, but there were certainly more like-minded people at Northwestern. The point is, that didn't matter, because both places had a commitment to rigorous inquiry. You could expect, say, Obama to vigorously defend a Clarence Thomas opinion, at least for the sake of argument. I was challenged at both places. I became smarter because of both places. I learned that Learned Hand was right: "the spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right." I fear that Rufo and company, just like their lefty enemies, want to hurry up and get to their right answers. If so, that's anti-intellectual, anti-education, and fundamentally opposed to the liberal tradition they claim to vindicate.
This was interesting, and I definitely want to think about it more. However as a person who has interacted with way more Nobel Prize winning economists then any sanish person should have — and with no insult meant to George Mason — we should not be using them as any sort of benchmark or proof of rational or reasoned thought. A good idea in economics is often based more on its modeling than relationship with actual reality (and I say this as person who works with and actually respects economists).
On a more practical level, I’m also not sure where New College will pick up these new conservative staff. It would be hard to convince many people with tenure to switch to what is, as Trace points out, a failing college in an ecosystem where colleges are failing all the time unless you could convince people that there’s any stability in the new venture. There are certainly plenty of un- or under-employed new PHDs, but given the current politics, anyone who got through a decent program recently is almost always going to be “woke” to some level (or possibly foreign). Having a ton of new faculty and being some sort of political football is also unlikely to inspire a lot of more practical but higher achieving students to apply even if they’re fond of the politics of the project.
Good stuff, Trace! I love the fact that I can hear a diversity of opinions here. Good on you, Jesse, and Katie for being intellectually curious and humble.
I still share the worries of the BARpod bosses, but I appreciate the views of the Chief of Staff.
While previously on the Haidt/Pinker/Singal side of this, I'm... reluctantly convinced. I still don't trust Rufo and DeSantis in the long term, but I think maybe Trace is right that, in this particular case, it might be for the best.
I admit, Rufo's handling of the threats may have helped push me over the edge. No whining, just a firm calling of a bluff. We'll inevitably be enemies, our ideologies are too different and the man's a cold-blooded political operative at heart, but that's not mutually exclusive with a dash of respect.
Why do you think Rufo is better than any other potential candidate for the job?
Yes, I do actually. There are no shortage of good candidates who've been working in and around Florida public universities for a long time.
I don't know how to answer that but in most cases they keep their head down and do their work rather than getting caught up in unproductive drama