Daniel Klein Uncovers Academic Bias

By Alexander Z. Rogers | Friday, April 8, 2005

Santa Clara University Professor Daniel Klein on Wednesday laid out the current state of ideological diversity among college and university faculty: there is none. His analysis was frightening. If his data, from two of our nation's leading universities, Democrats outnumber Republicans by a margin of roughly eight to one.

Speaking in Carson Hall, the economics professor lectured on the results of his latest published work, a survey that explored the ratio of Democrats to Republicans among the tenure-track teaching staff of Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley. Further surveys probed diversity in six nationwide scholars' associations.

Of the more than 20 departments Klein investigated for his project, all suffered from a dearth of Republicans. Some departments, including journalism and anthropology, had not a single Republican or right-leaning professor on the faculy.

What started as liberal dominance in the mid-20th century, when Democrats outnumbered Republicans four-to-one, has now declined into a virtual Democratic stranglehold of the academy. "Basically, there are no Republicans in the social sciences and humanities at the two Harvards of the West."

As if the current situation is not disheartening enough, Klein postulated that things will grow worse in future years. He revealed that the number of young, non-tenured faculty with Republican tendencies is practically negligible. Nearly all members of the current Republican minority are tenured faculty, many of them holdovers from a previous era and nearing retirement. When they finally step down, there simply will be no Republican associate professors able to fill the vacant posts.

"Republicans are being systematically eradicated from the faculty," Klein said. Unless this trend shifts dramatically in the next few years, Republican faculty are facing almost certain extinction. Klein did offer one optimistic note, suggesting that a sizable portion of the current Democrats might one day "mature into Republicans."

Klein derided Democrats—he refused to call them "liberal" since he didn't believe the term properly applied to "social democrats"—saying that the "hippy left" doesn't "get" economics.

Klein also presented another study he conducted among the members of six leading academic associations as further evidence of ideological bias in the halls of scholarship. Unlike the survey of California campuses, which examined voter registrations, this survey identified the participants' reactions to 18 statements of government activism expressed policy.

Many critics have argued that the prevalence of Democrats in academic fields was irrelevant because the Democratic tent offers a much greater variety of opinion than that of their Republican nemeses. The results of Prof. Klein's research, however, lend credence to the argument that, in fact, the opposite is true. While those with Democratic tendencies tended to toe a single party line on many of the topics, those maintaining a viewpoint that placed them under the umbrella description of "conservative" held a more varied range of opinions. The monolith was revealed, but it turned out to be a construct of Democratic rather than Republican designs. As it stands, Klein explained, students brave a learning environment where a much narrower range of opinions is tolerated.

From his various studies and his personal experiences as an academic, Klein determined that university departments are trapped in a fixed academic structure. This stagnant ziggurat divides professors by discipline and unites professors from across the nation into a "self-validating club."

These clubs, and by extension the academic departments they make up, have sworn fealty to the high-falutin' journals and premier associations, Klein maintained. The educational establishment is dependent on the good graces of these publications and organizations for everything from academic reputation to grant money. They are subservient to their whims, and when these organizations are overwhelmingly supportive of Democratic ideals, the rest of the academic world takes notice and plays along. Professors who do not co-operate face being relegated to the intellectual limbo consonant with being ignored by the apex of the pyramidal structure.

Having explained the present situation to the assembled students and faculty, Klein offered several possible solutions to the lack of diversity. Acceptable methods for reversing the one-party rule of departments were few, however, and Klein was the first to admit that many of the propositions, such as enacting an affirmative action quota system for conservative-minded professors, were at best unfeasible and perhaps undesirable.

Klein added that, at this point, the best solution may simply be awareness. Awareness breeds discussion, he said, and it is from this discussion and sharing of ideas that change can be achieved.

Klein left the podium stressing that ideology is an integral part of teaching . Whether he speaks from the Left or the Right, a professor's personal biases are a necessary aspect of the education they bestow, and both professors and students should be aware of them.

Government Professor Jeffrey Smith closed ranks with Klein on the issue of ideology in the classroom. "Trying to sterilize the classroom of perspective is simply one of the dangers we should avoid," he said. "Lay your biases on the table."

Daniel Klein Uncovers Academic Bias

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