The case of natural sciences disproves discrimination against conservatives.

Submitted by Bucephalus (United States), Apr 13, 2005 at 05:25

The humanities and the social sciences are political and politicised. It is therefore perfectly plausible that faculties might discriminate against candidates for tenure who do not share their political views. However, the sciences and engineering are not politicised -- or at least it's much less politicised and there's nothing intrinsically political about the natural sciences. There are no gender wars in computer science, there are no Marxist interpretations of geology, there is no "gay-studies" variant of astronomy, etc. It's difficult to imagine how a palaeontologist's or a solid-state physicist's private political views would even become known to the faculty considering hiring him.

Yet faculties of science and engineering are overwhelmingly liberal, according to the very study Pipes cites in his article. Why should this be so?

A social science department, economics, is also illustrative. Until the 1980s, most economists were liberal. Today, they are much more evenly split between conservatives and liberals. Why didn't the liberals on economics faculties block the appointment of conservative professors, if the discrimination theory is correct?

The reason conservatives aren't well represented in university faculties is self-selection. But conservatives apparently want to join the ranks of feminists, civil rights activists and others whining about discrimination.

Can a conservative endorsement of political affirmative action on campuses be far behind?

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