
Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators - pdog
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/opinion/liberal-college-administrators.html
======
ianai
The topics discussed are about as political as “slavery is wrong.”

Edit-Just to add a quote, the author describes the following as being
liberally “lopsided.”

“The conference would touch on such progressive topics as liberation spaces on
campus, Black Lives Matter and justice for women as well as for lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and allied people.”

This has no place on HN, as it’s clearly political and not what this sites
about.

~~~
true_religion
To be fair, no one ever describes their side in unfavorable terms so I cannot
expect the conference’s self description to be poorly worded.

For example, a conference for hardcore racists will claim to talk about the
importance of “european heritage”, and hardcore sexists merely claim to want
“traditional family values”.

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dash2
Oh man, so true. Where I am it's like a permanent Pride parade.

That said, is this really a big issue? Employees, often public employees, at
traditionally liberal institutions, many of whom are humanities PhDs
themselves are liberal... Popes are often Catholic and wear funny hats... I'm
not clear this is a huge threat to Western civilization.

~~~
jeffdavis
People don't go to Catholic church to hear a diversity of religious opinions.

People do go to college thinking that it will broaden their intellect, but at
least when it comes to politics and culture that does not appear to be true.

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assblaster
I contend that this is yet more evidence that college education needs radical
reformation.

The best way to reform college: competition.

Why not have a "free", government funded post secondary education that is
online only and is standardized across the entire country. The standardized
course content is created by the leading experts in all relevant subjects.
Testing of students is on standardized exams only.

The cost of this system would be miniscule compared to the redundancy of
multiple institutions, and to the physical footprint/costs of traditional
schools. Especially in light of this article which shows huge resources spent
on pet issues of liberal administrators.

When colleges need to compete on price with this free system, then colleges
will reduce costs and cut this unneeded waste.

~~~
hackeraccount
I think automobiles need radical improvements. Why not have the government
give out free cars as way of getting the private car companies to produce a
better product.

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jahaja
I think I'll never understand the US pundits view that there should be some
sort of permanent equilibrium between what goes for liberal and conservative
in the US, no matter how bonkers the latter goes.

It's like monarchists in 1920's Europe clutching at every straw and demanding
respect while deluding themselves that their time has not yet passed.

------
mmaunder
A conservative leaning political post on HN's home page? I'm guessing this
will be disappeared in a few minutes.

~~~
gpm
Look at the comments that already exist - is there any way that you can
imagine this not turning into a flamefest?

~~~
394549
> Look at the comments that already exist - is there any way that you can
> imagine this not turning into a flamefest?

That's an interesting censorship tactic: if you don't like a topic or an idea,
start a fight about it, the ruder and unproductive the better. Your disliked
topic is thrown out like a baby with the bathwater, an objections to the
censorship can be countered with the misdirection that the topic or idea isn't
getting suppressed, just "fights."

That's why I think, in the interest of open, good-faith discussion, the
flamers themselves need to be moderated, but not the topics that attract them.

~~~
gpm
You're not wrong, it's an instance of a heckler's veto.

But HN policy is (basically) to allow the veto to work as the lesser of two
evils, on the theory that there are lots of other places to discuss this sort
of stuff. I think that's a reasonable policy for a tech site.

------
mklarmann
Tell me again. What is his issue?

~~~
jchanimal
I think it’s the old canard where conservatives don’t realize that the reason
their viewpoints are not represented on campus is because they don’t hold up
to intellectual scrutiny.

~~~
weberc2
Is this true across the board? I can think of a handful of popular tropes
where this is true, like climate change skepticism, but even this comes in
degrees ranging from conservatives who agree that climate change is real and
needs action to those who agree it's real but are skeptical about the long
term consequences to those who think that climate change is real but not man-
made to those who think it's not real at all. Other popular examples are just
evangelical beliefs projected to conservatives en masse (e.g., creationism). I
guess conservatives seem pretty ideologically diverse, so maybe it would be
helpful to specify which ideas in particular are keeping conservatives out of
the academy?

~~~
jchanimal
Ok I’ll bite. Another unsubstantiated conservative canard: taxes are bad. When
in fact highly redistributive polices are correlated with all-boats-rising
economic tides. “But who cares if we are all worse off, taxes are theft,”
whines the conservative. Cry me a river, it was always already the
government’s money.

~~~
warrenm
> it was always already the government’s money

Sounds like you went to the same fallacious economic school Elizabeth Warren
did

~~~
jchanimal
I'm not the one choosing to fetishize some government's money.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
You're the one choosing to fetishize a soundbite that most consider to be
clearly wrong, if not completely insane. Merely repeating it is not a good
persuasion tactic.

------
jchanimal
It’s funny that the pundit writing this says the example liberation event is
lopsided, when it seems perfectly mainstream to me.

~~~
aschampion
Further, having worked in university systems, diversity offices and
administrators are not highly funded. Almost all their activities are student
led and organized; they usually just provide administrative guidance for
student initiatives.

------
iaosfgnionio
I've never been sure whether or not this is a problem. Academics are _not_ a
representative cross-section of the American people, so there's no real reason
to expect their political opinions to be representative.

I would argue that professors should know better than the general public. In
that case, we should want to see true beliefs over-represented and false ones
under-represented. So-called liberal and conservative beliefs are often
mutually exclusive. That means that at most one of them can be true. Wouldn't
that suggest that, if academics are doing their job of finding the truth, they
_should_ be biased? If professors were half liberal and half conservative,
that means that _at least 50% of them are wrong._

 _If liberal beliefs are true_ , this bias might be what we want. If they're
false, of course, then it clearly isn't.

Or maybe not. Professors and administrators are responsible for teaching.
There is certainly an argument to be made that a diversity of viewpoints is
useful. Informed and well-reasoned positions might be useful for education
even if half of them are wrong. And a spirited debate among peers could help
everyone learn and come closer to the truth.

If the bias were the other way, with 90% of administrators being
conservatives, would this author be saying the same things? Would I be saying
the same things? I think the answer to both is "probably not." Or, if we said
the same things, we'd definitely feel differently about them.

~~~
JoHawth31
A couple things I think you’re missing:

Your assumption that one of the positions, either liberal or conservative,
must be correct, is wrong.

Second, the assumption that professors know better than the general population
in all cases is also incorrect. People in academia have a way of thinking that
is sometimes divorced from reality and real world experience. Professors can
be much more wrong than the general population in some cases.

This highlights the original point: viewpoint diversity and rigorous debate
are the best tools for discovering truth. If your idea is so fragile it can’t
exist outside of some protected ecosystem, the idea probably isn’t very good
to begin with.

~~~
iaosfgnionio
>Your assumption that one of the positions, either liberal or conservative,
must be correct, is wrong.

I didn't say that. I said that _at most one_ is right.

I would also say that, even if both are wrong, one is probably wronger than
the other.

>Second, the assumption that professors know better than the general
population in all cases is also incorrect.

I didn't assume they _do_ know better. But I think we should _want_ them to.
Which would imply they should be "biased."

------
sebular
It's impossible to take this author and article seriously when he opens by
describing "justice for women as well as for lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and allied people" as being "politically
lopsided".

~~~
tiglionabbit
The author whines about progressive events existing without conservative
events. He never describes what sort of conservative events he would want to
see.

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fjsolwmv
It's unfortunate that HN only shows the domain name of a source. Sources like
NYT and other newspapers have News and Opinion directories, which quote
different reputations.

~~~
johnday
The links are direct on HN - you can always hover links to find out, if you'd
rather not give the Opinion section any traffic.

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matchbok
Seems that the problem is the existence of departments like the "Office of
Diversity and Campus Engagement".

It's a school. Why are these needed? To pad tuition?

~~~
geofft
One cold, capitalist argument is to attract and retain black students, women
students, and LGBTQIA students, have them do their best work, and have them
graduate and succeed in life and donate back to the university.

~~~
matchbok
I don't disagree. I just fail to see how it warrants an entire department with
(I'm sure) 4+ highly paid admins.

Every dep at my college was horribly bloated.

------
josefresco
_politically lopsided_

When the fuck did equal rights for minorities, women, and GLBTQ become
"politically lopsided". We're talking about _human rights_ here. There is no
legitimate "other side" to this argument, just hate.

This article is concern trolling 101.

~~~
creaghpatr
>There is no legitimate "other side" to this argument, just hate.

This is a perfect example of the problem, no intellectual capability to
refute, resulting in a desperate resort to bigotry.

~~~
josefresco
There's no intellectual argument to refute. Just the conservative trope "my
opinions are being oppressed!" then when you ask about their _conservative
principles_ it basically boils down to justifying their racism/sexism or their
own bigotry.

~~~
true_religion
Oh, I can give you examples.

Here is one: the natural hair movement, good or bad?

A liberal view is on favor of it, as straightening ones hair can be seen as
trying to ape European hair type, and popularizing it as glamarous demeans
people with naturally kinky hair forcing them to change to an unnatural state.

A conservative view holds that hair straightening is ok, as that is the
culture which we grew up in, and to throw it away turns our backs on the
decades of tradition and shared culture around it.

A hostile liberal would say a conservative is an “uncle tom” at best, or at
worst someone who was brainwashed by racists and is a danger to society.

The hostility prevents further discussion.

.........

I am sure this is not what you expected but I chose a light topic
intentionally to show it is the hostility and not the base principles that are
at fault.

Also I wanted to show that the conservative / liberal divide is not one of
race. Many blacks have conservative views if you look outside of race issues
(e.g. topics of religion trend conservative within the black community).

~~~
josefresco
What would a "hostile conservative" say? Or are you implying there is no
hostility from conservatives voices in this debate?

~~~
true_religion
Hostile conservatives would say spitting upon existing practice is tantamount
to destroying society.

Personally, I think that universities should be a place of debate, and
intellectual broadening without hostility. As a conservative, I am well aware
that conservative universities exist, and are often extremely hostile to
liberal viewpoints (e.g. try suggesting cohabitation is okay at Liberty
University, and see how fast you are reprimanded).

I think that is wrong, even though society seems to feel that by going to a
conservative university, that treatment is okay because you knew what you were
getting.

We can do better, on both sides. Don’t you agree?

------
LiterallyDoge
Why is this post flagged?

------
geofft
I have a few questions:

1\. Why aren't there very many conservative administrators? Are they not
interested in these sorts of jobs, or is there discrimination/bias in the
hiring process?

2\. Why does _having_ such events threaten the free and open exchange of
ideas? Shouldn't it be quite the opposite? Incoming conservative students are
being exposed to viewpoints they haven't heard before; isn't that a good
thing?

3\. Why aren't conservatives organizing similar events? The only group I can
think of is Turning Point USA, which is hardly acting as a serious ideological
advocate for conservative viewpoints.

4\. The author calls "justice for women" a progressive cause. Does he believe
conservatives are not interested in justice for women? Should conservatives
run events about injustice for women to provide ideological balance, and if
they do, is that good for society?

~~~
fjsolwmv
1\. There may be biological reasons why people with conservative psychology
are better suited for other jobs than University administrator.

4\. By the literal meanings of the words, justice for women is progressive,
not conservative. Giving women civil rights wss please.

~~~
geofft
1\. I'd like to see the author explore that.

4\. Ok, then, is it not a moral imperative for those of us who agree with
progress to silence conservatives, _and vice versa_? Who is the author
appealing to by extolling the virtues of an open and well-represented
conversation?

~~~
smsm42
> Who is the author appealing to by extolling the virtues of an open and well-
> represented conversation?

I guess to people that still think that a functioning civil society, composed
of diverse viewpoint engaged in productive policy debate, is better than a
zero-sum tribal civil war.

------
minikites
>The conference would touch on such progressive topics as liberation spaces on
campus, Black Lives Matter and justice for women as well as for lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and allied people. I was taken
aback by the college’s sponsorship of such a politically lopsided event.

How is this lopsided? If you want a space with opposing views, visit anything
or anywhere else in all of Western society, where everything and everyone
caters to the "ideal" person: a white male aged 18-49.

