September/October 2008

Informants R Us
To kick off the new school year, the National Association of Scholars has launched a new crusade, the Argus Project. The association has recruited volunteers to serve as its "eyes on campus," according to a press release. These observers will look into whether that college conducts politicized teaching, requires ideological adherence, or sustains slights to conservative students."

Profs, politics and bias
The July issue of The Forum, a journal of applied research in contemporary politics, features an article on the prevalence and implications of "political correctness" in academic life. Solon Simmons of George Mason University expands upon earlier themes in his research, where he has tried to get at the professoriate's religious habits and social and political views.

In the newest study, he classifies professors on a spectrum ranging from politically correct to politically incorrect, based on their views regarding race and gender in society, and then analyzes the impact of their perspectives on hiring decisions and academic life.

Simmons' conclusions bust some assumptions, as Inside Higher Ed reports. Simmons shows that the politically correct (PC) are more common in elite institutions, even though the un-PC are disproportionately among the academic "stars" at such institutions.

Additionally, the PC are more prevalent in the humanities and social sciences (except, notably, political science) and among the baby-boomer generation, in contrast to more recent cohorts of scholars.

Most important, Simmons says, while the PC "are more willing than others to reveal their political commitments in the classroom and to let their passions guide their choice of research topics, there is strong support for academic freedom and no evidence of political intolerance in the group."

Pennsylvania squeaks
For all the barking and baying about how college faculty members in Pennsylvania were systematically brainwashing their students (legislative hearings were covered extensively in On Campus at the time), an examination of student complaint procedures implemented in 2006 by Temple University and the Pennsylvania State University has turned up six complaints filed by four students at those institutions.

Chris Goff, at Free Exchange on Campus, comments:
By my calculations, that means about 0.005 percent of the students at the Philly and State College campuses feel that they've been victims of professorial bias. Even if we're generous and assume that for every student who speaks up, 10 more have had similar experiences, that's still only 0.05 percent of the students. No competent statistician would infer "systematic" indoctrination from those numbers.