Was She Pushed or Did She Jump?

There has been a lot of talk of late about the relative paucity of Conservatives in academia and the reasons for their scarcity. Law prof. Steven Lubet adds his two cents in Why Republicans shun ivy towers

Perhaps fewer conservatives than liberals are willing to endure the years of poverty- stricken graduate study necessary for a faculty position. Perhaps conservatives are smarter than liberals, recognizing that graduate school is a poor investment, given the scant job opportunities that await newly minted Ph. D.s. Or perhaps studious conservatives are more attracted to the greater financial rewards of industry and commerce.

Beyond the ivy walls, there are many professions that are dominated by Republicans. You will find very few Democrats (and still fewer outright liberals) among the ranks of high-level corporate executives, military officers or football coaches. Yet no one complains about these imbalances, and conservatives will no doubt explain that the seeming disparities are merely the result of market forces.

They are probably right. It is entirely rational for conservatives to flock to jobs that reward competition, aggression and victory at the expense of others. So it should not be surprising that liberals gravitate to professions -- such as academics, journalism, social work and the arts -- that emphasize inquiry, objectivity and the free exchange of ideas. After all, teachers at all levels -- from nursery school to graduate school -- tend to be Democrats. Surely there cannot be a conspiracy to deny conservatives employment on kindergarten playgrounds.

If you remove the childishly simplistic stereotypes from the above (e.g. all Republicans are proto-fascists whose number one goal is to harm people for their personal gain, or all Democrats are starry eyed selfless dreamers who only want to help children!) there is some common sense in Lubet's views. But it, just like most conservative takes on the subject, suffers from what I call "Was She Pushed or Did She Jump?" syndrome. The issue really isn't covered by setting up a dichotomy of either A) Republicans are discriminated against academia -i.e. She Was Pushed, or B) Republicans remove themselves from employment consideration in academia -i.e. She Jumped. The trurth is more interesting than that.

Just like any other organization, academia is very status quo oriented. Anyone who has been in grad school recognizes this. In spite of all the talk of "inquiry, objectivity and the free exchange of ideas" profs involved in the production of new PhD's can often be more interested in making little versions of themselves rather than independantly minded scholars. And, lets face it, it is easier to work with students that share your world view. It certainly is easier for the student to work with like minded profs! So it isn't that students with different perspectives are necessarily being actively discriminated against, as much as such students cannot count on support or sympathy with their work. In most cases such students are neither pushed nor do they jump. They are ignored.

Then again you can't blame conservatives for viewing academia as an inherently hostile place for them when you read things like the following: Meet the Newest Member of the Faculty: Clinton pardons a terrorist, and now she's teaching in Clinton, N.Y.