Why There Are No Conservative Professors and Why Do Conservatives Care: Implications for Christian Scholarship

ABSTRACT

The dearth of conservative professors in many disciplinary fields in higher education has been the concern, oddly enough, of liberal scholars. Perhaps one of the most prolific apologists of the liberal professorate has been professor of sociology Neil Gross at the University of British Columbia. Gross attributes the abundance of liberal professors in certain fields to political typing, a process of self-selection based on preconceived and self-perpetuating biases regarding the epistemological assumptions of disciplinary domains. This study offers a more pedestrian account of the liberal bias on the university campus and proposes implications for Christian scholarship.

Notes

See Theodor Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality, (New York: Harper, 1950); Richard Hofstadter, Anti-intellectualism in American Life, (New York: Knopf, 1963).

See Ian Deary, G. David Batty, and Catharine Gale, “Bright Children Become Enlightened Adults,” Psychological Science 19, no. 1 (2008), 1-6; Gordon Hodson and Michael Busseri, “Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes: Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact,” Psychological Science 23, no. 2 (2012), 187-194.

John Jost, Jack Glaser, Arie Kruglanski, and Frank Sulloway, “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition,” Psychological Bulletin 129, no. 3 (2003), 339-375. The following are some of the sub-headings from the paper in reference to the conservative: “Intolerance of Ambiguity,” “Mental Rigidity, Dogmatism, and Close-Mindedness,” “Uncertainty Avoidance,” “Threats to Self-Esteem,” “Fear, Anger, and Aggression,” “Pessimism, Disgust, and Contempt,” “Fear and Prevention of Loss,” “Fear of Death,” and “Threat to Stability of Social System.” I come to ask myself if they have anything good to say about the conservative.

Cited in John Zipp and Rudy Fenwick, “Is the Academy a Liberal Hegemony? The Political Orientations and Educational Values of Professors,” Public Opinion Quarterly 70, no. 3 (Fall 2006), 304-326. For results of the Carnegie study see “Table 2: Political Orientations by Academic Disciple,” 310.

See Woessner and Kelly-Woessner (2015) for a discussion on the politicization of professional academic associations. See also Schmidt (2014).

Gross (2013), p. 245. Research has shown that, in many ways, evangelicalism is synonymous with conservatism. See Christopher Bader, Kevin Dougherty, Paul Froese, Bryon Johnson, F. Carson Mencken, Jerry Park, and Rodney Stark, American Piety in the 21st Century: New Insights to the Depth and Complexity of Religion in the US: Selected Findings from The Baylor Religion Survey, (Waco, Tex.: Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, 2006); “Young White Evangelicals: Less Republican, Still Conservative,” Pew Forum (2007, September 28), http://pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Young-white-Evangelicals-Less-Republican-Still-Conservative; “By Slim Margin, Voters Want Democrats to Win House and Senate; Split Evenly on Re-Electing Obama: Evangelical’s Feel Differently,” Barna (2010), http://www.barna.org/culture-articles/419-by-slim-margin-voters-want-democrats-to-win-house-and-senate-splitevenly-on-re-electing-obama-evangelicals-feel-differently

For the social conservativism of Africa-Americans, see Cathy Cohen, Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and the Future of American Politics, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010); Angela Lewis, Conservatism in the Black Community: To the Right and Misunderstood, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013); Gregory Lewis, “Black-White Differences in Attitudes Toward Homosexuality and Gay Rights,” Public Opinion Quarterly 67 (2003), 59-78. For social conservativism of Asian Americans see Lindsay (2007) and Kim (2006).

Original results of the Politics of American Professors (PAP) survey was reported in Neil and Solon Simmons, The Social and Political Views of American Professors [Working paper], (2007, September 24). For these specific numbers, refer to Neil Gross, Why are Professors Liberal, p. 44.

See Dinesh D’Souza, Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus, (New York: Free Press, 1991), particularly his discussion of the CIV curriculum at Stanford.

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Notes on contributors

Mark V. Brow

Mark V. Brow currently is teaching statistics with the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He holds a doctoral degree from Azusa Pacific University and is Ph.D. student in measurement and statistics with the University of Illinois at Chicago.