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Assuming Colin's concern is with the relative lack of conservatives in the academy, I'm afraid he's doomed. To see why, it's helpful to zoom out and get a sense of the scale of the "problem". Not just in academia, but in white collar professions in general. https://twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1278086383245185026
Highly educated professionals of all sorts have been trending leftward for more than 20 years, especially since around 2008. Academics are near the forefront of this shift, but they are by no means unique. h/t @adam_bonica
For methodological details, see here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ajps.12062?casa_token=SbKFeWAie0kAAAAA:uGzXRIobFpcDtNR7T3FA-dfnBglHKSS1hafu1c2D6Gl5EKG59EY8pYgnirOxwKpGzKbcWyAuLGt0
Nor is the shift solely an American phenomenon. It's happening in rich democracies across the world.
http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Piketty2018.pdf
http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Piketty2018.pdf
This is not an "academia" thing. This is a "highly educated, urban professional class" thing, for which academics are just a leading indicator. I mean, here's high tech. With the exception of industry regulation, they are deeply, deeply liberal.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ajps.12408
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ajps.12408
Same with US medical students, who are far more liberal than the rest of their cohort. This table is from 2003, by the way. I'm sure it's much more imbalanced now. For a glimpse of tomorrow's medical profession, see here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31460934/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17372802/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31460934/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17372802/
And lord knows Trump can't be helping. Here's what the education-leftward shift looked like in 2016. It's going to be MUCH bigger in 2020.
h/t @davidshor
h/t @davidshor
All of this, I think, complicates things enormously for the viewpoint diversity crowd. Much of the emphasis right now is on alleged bias in the student-to-faculty pipeline. Maaaaaybe. But then why the similar shift in other professions as well?
Which is why I think Colin is doomed, at least in the medium term. Academia is going to grow more liberal. High tech will grow more liberal. Medicine and journalism and law will grow more liberal. Yes, things will one day reverse. Nothing lasts.
But it's going to take a while.
But it's going to take a while.
And btw, I say this as someone who thinks the political imbalance is a bad thing, even if the causes are largely benign. https://arcdigital.media/no-professors-are-not-brainwashing-their-students-d4694522f413
