The American Academy is in a Declared War

In recent years the leftist bias in colleges and Universities in the US has been quantified through a variety of independent studies of the political views of faculties. Conservative professors and students have widely complained that such bias has generated an intolerant and even hostile environment on campuses. While many still deny any real problem with campus political bias, America should know now that the ideological hostilities on campus have devolved into an explicitly declared war. Recent statements by administration officials and professors unequivocally show that the academy has declared war on conservatives and, in particular, Bush supporters. In fact, some administration officials and professors now openly imply that support for Bush or being a conservative would constitute a disqualification for tenure.

In an essay entitled “What’s at Stake in Academia” published on 9 April 2005 on the website of the group “The World Can’t Wait”, Alan Jones, the Dean of Faculty of Pitzer College heralded the fact that the academy has explicitly declared war on Bush supporters. Dean Jones cited an un-named “president at one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country” as having announced at a national conference, “[W]e are at war.” Jones, who is also a professor of psychology at Pitzer, referred to that declaration as a “radical stand” that he supported. In the essay Jones made it clear in an astonishing generalization that supporters of Bush are at not suitable for the academy because they are at odds with the academic pursuit of truth. “For followers of the President, the task is not to weigh the merits of his decisions or to evaluate the facts that support his position. The task is to have faith in him, despite the facts,” he wrote. Jones explained in the essay that the academy should be viewed as the “reality based” community that is fundamentally incompatible with anybody who supports Bush.

Alan Jones did not specify in his essay when the un-named college president declared academic war on the Bush administration. It seems that other faculties were openly waging war on conservatives in 2004. In 2004 some students at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California posted flyers on campus complaining that the faculty of Occidental’s Department of World Affairs consisted entirely of registered Democrats. One conservative professor presented this concern to the entire campus in an email. Professor Jeffrey Bernstein of the Music Department responded to that professor’s concerns in an email response to the entire faculty, staff and student body stating, “To imply that something is amiss in the DWA department because 100% of its members registered to vote [D]emocrat is akin to insisting that the Physics department should seek faculty who believe the Earth is flat.” Nobody on campus except the professor who had introduced the concern originally ever responded to that remarkable statement. Apparently, it is not inappropriate at Occidental college to announce that non-Democrats are unfit for the academy.

Moreover:

(1)Bernstein’s email was addressed to the entire faculty, staff and student body and unequivocally constituted speech that promoted an environment of disrespect and intolerance.

(2)Members of the Oxy administration were made aware of the email and my objection soon after the incident. I know that certain members of the administration also discussed the email and my objection soon after the incident.

(3)The Oxy administration never issued any statement to the community to address the email or my objection (even though they were aware of it and conducted some discussions of it).

(4)The Oxy administration never issued any statement to me regarding the issue.

(5)As far as I know the administration never took any action in response to Bernstein’s blatant violation of university conduct and blatant act of harmful discrimination.

(6)However, the Oxy administration fired Oxy DJ Jason Antebi (as you well know) for what they considered to be speech that promoted an atmosphere of intolerance and disrespect. Can you imagine if a prof had made the same remark but substituted “Republican” for “Democrat?”

Now that war has been publicly declared on Bush supporters, how will the nation respond? It is now official: conservative students can expect to have their views openly ridiculed as intellectually unacceptable. Professors who support Bush can expect never to get tenure at schools where Deans openly state that Bush supporters are unfit for the academy. Is this acceptable?

Scott Funkhouser is a Physics professor at Occidental College.