Soc (2015) 52:35–41 DOI 10.1007/s12115-014-9864-0
SYMPOSIUM: LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES IN ACADEMIA
Reflections on Academic Liberalism and Conservative Criticism Matthew Woessner & April Kelly-Woessner
Published online: 16 December 2014 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract Liberal bias in academia is a complex sociological issue. The empirical evidence suggests that part of the explanation for ideological imbalance is that conservatives tend to selfselect out of careers in higher education. We examine the explanation offered by Neil Gross that political-typing is partially responsible. While we are generally receptive to this explanation, our own research provides some evidence that college students do not find academia to be a hostile or unpleasant place. This raises some questions about why they would self-select out of careers in academia. We also offer alternative explanations for conservative criticism of the academy and suggest that institutions of higher education have some responsibility for creating the impression that they are hostile to conservative views. Keywords Faculty politics . Higher education . Liberal bias . Academia . Indoctrination Neil Gross’s book, Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care?, is an important contribution to the scholarship on politics in academia and will inevitably spark spirited debate over the role that ideology plays in shaping higher education. Gross’s conclusion that liberal dominance in higher education is the byproduct of academia’s liberal reputation runs somewhat parallel with our work, in which we argue that the Left’s dominance among Ph.Ds. is partly a byproduct of self-selection (Woessner and Kelly-Woessner 2009). While neither study precludes discrimination against conservatives in select instances, both emphasize that personal M. Woessner Department of Political Science and Public Policy, Penn State University, State College, PA, USA A. Kelly-Woessner (*) Department of Political Science, Elizabethtown College, 1 Alpha Drive, Elizabethtown, PA 17022, USA e-mail:
[email protected]
preferences appear to play a more important role in shaping the ideological imbalance in academia. The notion that conservatives might opt-out of academia, given its liberal reputation, makes intuitive sense. As Gross argues, nursing has long been gender-typed as a female profession. These gender norms surely discourage men from entering a field that, otherwise, offers career opportunities and gainful employment. Along the same lines, academia has long been associated with the political left. Gross argues that conservatives self-select out of academia due to widespread politicaltyping. This tends to discourage conservatives from academic careers, thus perpetuating academia’s ideological imbalance. Any model of career choice is inherently based on the “reputation” of that field. We argue, in our work, that academia’s reputation appeals to liberals, given their somewhat distinct worldview and personal goals (Woessner and KellyWoessner 2009). Conservatives, who tend to place a higher value on starting a family and making money, are far less likely to spend 5 to 8 years pursuing a Ph.D. Liberals, who place a greater emphasis on autonomy and intellectual pursuits, as well as the ability to “influence social change,” (Woessner and Kelly-Woessner 2009; Lindholm 2004) are more likely to consider careers in academia. Interestingly enough, there is evidence that academia’s reputation also may have a moderating influence on its ideological imbalance. Whereas women tend to be more liberal than men, they are somewhat less likely to consider a career in higher education, as the field is perceived to be somewhat hostile to family interests (Van Anders 2004; Sanders et al. 2009). In short, any individual’s choice to pursue an academic career will inherently be based on the reputation of academia as a suitable work environment. The question is whether the liberal/conservative dimension of this reputation factors into career choice, in the same way that individuals consider perceptions of work-life balance, job duties, and other more traditional career dynamics. We have little doubt that it does. When choosing a career, people assess
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a number of aspects, one of which is whether or not they will get along with coworkers. Additionally, there is evidence that people consider whether their own values match an organization’s reputation when choosing among competing employers (Cable and Judge 1996; Judge and Cable 1997). In many ways, Gross’s theory complements our own findings. Even accounting for career expectations, personality traits, life goals, etc., we found that an undergraduate’s ideology remained highly predictive of their interest in pursuing a Ph.D. (Woessner and Kelly-Woessner 2009). From this, we concluded that there is a great deal about the relationship between politics and career choice that personal preferences have yet to explain. Indeed, one of the missing elements that we discussed in our 2009 paper was perception of the ideological threat. Finally, although values and choice appear to provide the best explanation for why more conservatives do not get doctorates, it is important to note that our model explains only a portion of the difference between liberal and conservative career aspirations. Even accounting for grades, mentoring, personal choice, and a host of other factors, ideology remains the second best predictor of students’ intentions to pursue a doctorate. In fact, there remains a great deal that we do not understand about the relationship between ideology and intention to pursue a Ph.D. For example, while a host of concrete indicators (overall satisfaction with college experience, grade point average, contact with faculty, etc.) do not tend to support the assertion the conservatives are frequently the victims of discrimination, academia may create an environment that appears hostile to young conservatives. Just as academic institutions have, in the pursuit of racial and ethnic diversity, taken great care to foster a climate of tolerance, so too, should they consider how their doctoral programs might be made more inviting to ideological conservatives (Woessner and Kelly-Woessner 2009, p56). Having made the case that academia’s liberal reputation is driving conservatives away from higher education, Gross may have moved us closer to unraveling the mystery of conservatives’ absence from higher education. However, the magnitude of the effect is yet to be determined. If Gross is correct, we should see a fairly strong correlation between a conservative’s perception of liberal bias in academia and their choice to pursue an academic career. We have some reason to question the strength of this relationship. The reputation explanation is based on the assumption that people view academia as hostile to conservative thought. If this is the case, academia should also be a hostile place for both conservative students and professors. Yet, the HERI survey of college seniors shows little evidence of this. Conservative seniors, who have presumably had plenty of opportunity to assess the liberal reputation of academia and are on the verge of making career choices, show no evidence of perceiving academia as a hostile or unwelcoming place. Rather, they report similar levels of satisfaction with their college experience and actually rate the “campus community” as more positive than do
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liberal students. It hardly appears to be a “deterring” environment for conservatives. Similarly, we do not find much evidence that conservative professors or conservative students report political discrimination, nor do they appear less willing to express their viewpoints on campus (Rothman et al. 2011). If the reputation for liberal bias in higher education sent signals to conservatives that this place isn’t really for them, wouldn’t we see some sign of it among students and professors? This does not mean that liberal reputation doesn’t have some effect. However, in some ways, Gross is too quick to dismiss other explanations, based solely on their limited predictive power. What is clear is that career choice, in general, and perhaps for academics, in particular, is a complex sociological phenomenon, and there are many variables (and interactions among them) at play. The liberal reputation thesis certainly deserves to be considered as we further develop our predictive models, but there are also indications that other unexamined factors need additional attention. For example, Lindholm (2004) finds evidence of parental influence on academic career choice, and one might assume that conservative parents would be less likely to push children into academic careers than liberal parents, due to liberals’ increased emphasis on intellectualism. Furthermore, the most common response from faculty about why they pursue academic careers is related to autonomy, so we need to investigate further the connection between ideology and need for autonomy. The point is that the predictive power of any one explanation is likely to be fairly low, as the problem is clearly multifaceted. Gross’s ideological reputational theory probably explains a portion of the gap. However, it’s premature to assert that the explanation accounts for most of the ideological imbalance in higher education. Gross also notes the self-sorting of students by ideology into major field, which translates into higher levels of political imbalance in the social sciences and humanities. While this may be a factor of political typing by discipline, there are other explanations that cannot be ruled out. In fact, we find that even when conservatives are inclined or required to take courses in the humanities and social sciences, they are less satisfied with them (Woessner and Kelly-Woessner 2009). It is important to note that this isn’t about majors. Most students take general education courses outside of their major, and there is nothing to prevent conservatives from loving a course in the humanities, all-thewhile pursuing a degree in accounting. The fact that conservatives like these courses less may mean that there is something inherent in the nature of the field that attracts liberals or conservatives. It is also possible, that ideology factors into evaluations more subtly. For example, recent evidence is that one of the best predictors of students’ choice of major is their experience with the first professor in that major (Chambliss and Takacs 2014). So how does this draw liberals to the humanities and conservatives to business? Our research shows that students evaluate professors based, in part, on their political views and values, rewarding those who share their views with positive evaluations
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(Kelly-Woessner and Woessner 2006, 2008). However, students aren’t necessarily aware that politics is the reason for their like or dislike of a professor. Rather, they justify their aversion to political foes by finding them to be less effective on more “objective” teaching measures. In other words, conservatives may be driven out of sociology, not because they recognize that sociology is liberal, but rather because they dislike their sociology professor. And while their disdain for the sociology professor may be tied to her political beliefs, the student may not be consciously aware of the basis for their judgment. As a minor point, we urge some caution about the reliance on faculty’s self-identification as a measure of ideological tilt. One of the charges against the liberal academy is that it is insular and that professors have lost connection with the values and perspectives of the rest of America. Since ideological positions are relative, this criticism is important. A faculty member who self-identifies as a moderate, because he is a middle-of-the-road academic, is not a moderate in a larger sense. Additionally, if the faculty are aware of the liberal reputation of academia and are sensitive to conservative attacks about their politics, we might expect some faculty to downplay their radicalism or liberalism on an opinion survey. For these reasons, self-reported ideology among the faculty gives us an incomplete picture. When we examine actual policy beliefs, it is easy to see that academics are actually quite different from the rest of the country, especially on hot-button social issues. For example, even among self-identified Republican academics, half are pro-choice. At the same time, only a quarter of Republicans in the general population favor a woman’s right to choose (Rothman, Kelly-Woessner, and Woessner 2011). We see similar patterns on other issues, indicating that academics are liberal, even relative to others within their own parties. In answering Gross’s question “Why do conservatives care?,” we would like to propose a different perspective or frame of analysis. Gross’s explanation for conservative “attacks” on higher education is rooted in the growth of Conservative organizations and their motivations. In fact, he appears to start from the assumption that this is an unprovoked attack. While Gross does a remarkable job of examining the evidence and attempting to remain impartial, this is the area where he is most open to accusations that his own bias is clouding his conclusion. To get a complete view of the battle between academia and the Right, it’s important to consider the conflict with higher education from both the liberal and the conservative point of view. Conservatives don’t view their actions as an unfounded attack on innocent, unsuspecting academics, but rather as a justifiable counterstrike against a liberal assault on conservative values. Universities are not dispassionate repositories of knowledge but are institutions of socialization, designed to shape the views of the next generation. Whereas liberal scholars are confident that university education is nothing more than an effort to open students’ minds and help them think for themselves, conservatives are convinced that the
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faculty is actively engaged in shaping students’ worldviews, and in so doing, remaking society. In trying to develop an ideologically neutral perspective on battles between the Right and higher education, we are not endorsing the conservative perspective of academia. Indeed, whatever the Left’s intentions in shaping the curriculum, we’ve found little evidence of widespread ideological indoctrination. Nonetheless, framing the conflict purely in terms of a Right-wing assault on academia obscures higher education’s role in antagonizing conservatives both on and off campus. It’s not only that a vast majority of professors happen to be liberal. Rather, liberalism within higher education has become institutionalized and embedded in the academic mission. For example, the American Association of Colleges and Universities sponsors a number of programs with what are clearly progressive aims. For example, the mission statement of the AAC&U, adopted in 2012, is “to make liberal education and inclusive excellence the foundation for institutional purpose and educational practice in higher education.” A 2013 statement by the Board elaborates further: Making excellence inclusive means attending both to the demographic diversity of the student body and also to the need for nurturing climates and cultures so that all students have a chance to succeed. Commitment to student success in these terms requires broad-based, compassionate leadership and equity-minded practice– not only within individual institutions, but also across states and systems and in policy circles that make decisions affecting the nation. Seeking inclusive excellence requires reversing the current stratification of higher education and ensuring that all students develop capacities to prosper economically, contribute civically, and flourish personally. Here, the AAC&U specifically identifies its mission as influencing “policy circles.” Even if liberals and conservatives can agree to the goal of equality in educational opportunities, it is highly unlikely that they will agree on the methods and policies by which such equity can be achieved. A great example of this is affirmative action policies. While the Left views these as necessary to the goal of equality, the Right perceives racebased admissions policies as a perversion of equality, in that they give advantage to some groups over others on the basis of race alone. Yet, institutions of higher education frequently take public positions on such issues. In fact, in 2002 the AAC&U issued a statement in support of Affirmative Action. Our point is not to debate the merits of affirmative action. Rather, it is important to recognize that conservatives and moderates do not share the AAC&U’s commitment to race based admissions. Within the public sphere, this remains an extremely controversial issue. In fact, a recent NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll shows public support for affirmative
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action at an all-time low. Only 45 % of respondents believe such programs are still necessary, and an equal number believe that they have gone too far and are discriminatory (Montanaro 2013). Yet the AAC&U boasts a membership of over 1300 colleges and universities and thus claims to represent the views and missions of those institutions, placing higher education firmly at odds with half of the American public. Similarly, colleges and universities have adapted their educational philosophies and mission statements to reflect liberal and progressive themes of diversity, sustainability, and social justice. While one can argue the merits of these concepts, they are clearly both political in nature and slanted toward the liberal end of the political spectrum. A review of the nation’s top liberal arts colleges demonstrates this trend well. For example, Amherst takes a position on global warming, stating that “Global climate change may be the defining issue of this and future generations and, in recognition of this issue, Amherst College is taking bold steps to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.” Again, this may be a noble goal, but not one that is apolitical. Likewise, many universities have signed “sustainability pledges”. For example, at the urging of Washington, DC mayor, Vincent Gray, the major of universities in DC pledged to reduce energy consumption and provide “green education”. While no one would advocate useless destruction of the environment, conservatives argue that these programs increase college costs with virtually no environmental impact. At Swarthmore, the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility is designed to realize the “vision of a Swarthmore education as preparation for lifelong leadership in civic engagement and positive social change.” The Center promotes student and faculty activism on issues of social justice. Again, this is not apolitical or value neutral. If one merely concedes that conservatives might have a different perspective or interpretation of these issues than liberals, the problem of liberal bias in higher education becomes apparent. Academics are not merely neutral and objective interpreters of social issues, but rather have, by their own admission here and elsewhere, adopted the view that they are agents of social change. As Gross mentions, the curriculum has also changed, reflecting a more liberal worldview. The newest departments on most college campuses are the most liberal: Women and Gender Studies, and African American Studies, for example. A review of required courses at America’s top colleges by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni revealed that traditional requirements in American history and economics have been replaced with “politically correct” courses in sexuality, race, sustainability, social justice, and the like (Latzer 2004). Further evidence that liberalism and political positions have become institutionalized can be found in the actions of professional associations. There is nothing inherently liberal
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or political about an association that claims to represent the professional interests of a particular discipline. However, many of these professional associations are using their positions and power to take progressive positions on political issues. Most recently, the American Studies Association decided to boycott Israeli scholars in order to protest Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. The decision has generated much controversy (Schmidt, 2014). Even if one agrees with the positions academic organizations have taken, one must question why a professional organization that represents a diverse group of members would even take a political position. These actions contribute to the perception that academics are doing something illegitimate – that they are not professionals, are not impartial, and cannot keep their personal politics out of their professional responsibilities. Perhaps for this reason, criticism of higher education’s political mission has not been limited to conservative, antiintellectual camps. Rather, prominent academics have also weighed in on the controversy. Most notably, Stanley Fish’s book, Save the World on Your Own Time (2008), makes the case that by entering into the political fray in matters unrelated to their teaching and expertise, academics have opened themselves up to criticism that they are not doing their jobs. In Fish’s views, this erodes public support for higher education. Other academics have written on political correctness in higher education and the mistreatment of conservatives. When academics make these criticisms, it is difficult to dismiss them as being “anti-intellectual.” If higher education has adopted a mission of liberal advocacy, then conservative “attacks” are entirely predictable and can be explained from a political psychology perspective as a response to threat. Experiments and surveys in social psychology demonstrate that people are highly motivated to maintain existing beliefs and values (Nyhan and Reifler 2010; Dettrey and Palmer 2013). As a result, they have a preference for information and sources that they agree with, and try to avoid those with which they disagree. But not all messages can be avoided. When people are confronted with counter-attitudinal messages, they respond by discrediting the source of the message. Studies on source credibility have found that people tend to assign greater levels of expertise to those with whom they agree and lower levels of expertise to those with whom they do not agree (Lord et al. 1979; Lodge et al. 1999; Huckfeldt 2001; Woessner 2005). Our research on students in the classroom supports the argument that this source derogation applies to professors. When students in our study believed that their professor held views and values that were different from their own, they were less likely to rate the professor high in expertise and competence (Kelly-Woessner and Woessner 2008). To the extent that higher education’s mission and messages are conveyed to the public, we might expect the same response on a larger scale. The result is that the credibility of higher education, itself, is
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called into question. Indeed, liberals respond the same way to conservative institutions, dismissing and ridiculing religious organizations, Fox News, and conservative policy organizations. The difference, however, is that the stakes here are comparatively low. Higher education, by contrast, is seen as a path to social mobility and an individual right. Merely avoiding it is not an option. Adding fuel to conservatives’ anxiety over academia’s leftist tilt is the rising cost of higher education. Even as Americans attach greater importance to a college degree, and believe that access to higher education is a “right” afforded to every citizen, prices continue to rise well beyond the rate of inflation. Efforts to restrain the costs of a college education through government subsidies or loans may temporarily offset the high costs to consumers, but it also invites scrutiny from lawmakers and concerned parents, who wonder what they’re getting for their money. Skyrocketing tuition would inevitably invite scrutiny from the public sector, half of whom do not share the faculty’s appreciation for liberalism. However, the fact that the university is slanted to the left heightens these concerns among fiscal conservatives, who believe that universities spend too much, in general, and way too much on social reform programs. As a result, conservative criticism of higher education is not likely to wane anytime soon, and circling the wagons to defend the academy will likely produce even more suspicion. Some responsibility lies within. We need to acknowledge how our programs, initiatives, and actions are perceived by those outside of the academy. The overwhelming evidence is that higher education’s attempts to resocialize students do not work. The research on diversity initiatives demonstrate that they have little effect on students over 4 years, with graduates having essentially the same racial and political attitudes they came in with, though they are perhaps more entrenched in those viewpoints (Sidanius et al. 2008). Additionally, some research shows that heavy-handed efforts and pressures to appreciate diversity actually backfire, causing students to increase their prejudice (Legault, Gutsell, and Inzlicht 2011). Admittedly, subtle political cues can have a short-term impact on racial attitudes and race relations (Kelly-Woessner and Woessner 2006, Nelson et al. 2007). However, there is relatively little evidence that efforts to reengineer society by funneling students through diversity education programs are particularly effective. In some ways, the ineffectiveness of social programming is a defense of higher education. It appears that students are not 1
Indeed, there is an ongoing debate over whether students are even learning in the traditional sense (Arum and Roksa 2011, KellyWoessner and Woessner 2006), let alone whether they are internalizing complex ideological messages. Arum and Roska’s critique that college students show only modest gains in reading and writing over four years in college is not merely a devastating criticism of higher education, but potentially evidence that students are resistant to subtle political ques.
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easily “indoctrinated” by their professors.1 At the same time, it also means that many of the programs and initiatives that universities undertake in an effort toward social reform are ineffective. So to the extent that they bring about public scrutiny and conservative criticism, they do so at great expense and for no legitimate purpose. One of the common defenses of higher education is that our colleges and universities are not beholden to public opinion and external pressures. The concept of academic freedom allows institutions to define their own missions. At the same time, however, colleges and universities are becoming increasingly dependent on state and federal funds to support their activities. There is considerable public outrage over the escalating costs of higher education. The result is that higher education faces more and more oversight from state legislatures and accrediting agencies. Conservative critics may be the least of our problems if we do not take some responsibility for cleaning our own houses. This means recognizing which of our own actions lead to the reputation that academia is a haven for radical, liberal activists and acknowledging that public funding is used to support these agendas. Overall, Gross’s book provides an important new perspective on the nature of academic leftism. His theory that academia’s liberal reputation is a driving force behind its overwhelmingly leftist tilt is both innovative and based on a plausible interpretation of the evidence. Gross himself would concede that, like all theories of human behavior, the explanation is subject to important limitations. Recognizing that human decision-making is complex and idiosyncratic, even the best social scientific theories explain only a portion of the unexplained phenomenon. With the advent of a new approach, researchers can spend decades testing and prodding the new theory in an effort to explore the limits of its predictive power. Accordingly, researchers will spend some time considering this new approach to academic liberalism. One potentially important line of inquiry, which may challenge Gross’s overall conclusion, concerns the role that politics plays in the academic job market. Are conservatives subject to subtle forms of discrimination when they apply to graduate school, work their way through a Ph.D. program, secure their first job, and attempt to establish an ongoing program of research? Based on his experiment, involving phantom graduate applicants with varying partisan identifications, Gross concludes that the impact of discrimination is minimal. These findings are somewhat consistent with our own work in The Still Divided Academy. We find little evidence that right-leaning students, faculty or college administrators are the victims of widespread political persecution within academia. However, both Gross’s experiment and our survey results are meant to uncover an overt form of political discrimination. These methods might miss a subtle but pernicious bias that could act to stifle conservative efforts to work and thrive in academia. Whereas our own work shows that
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right-leaning students are far less likely to pursue Ph.Ds. and join the ranks of academia (Woessner and Kelly-Woessner 2009), once in the profession, conservative scholars must continually submit their work to a peer review system whose jurors may be predisposed to discredit the work (albeit often unconsciously) when the conclusions support conservative policy positions. It’s true that conservatives have the option of keeping a low profile and avoiding research topics that are certain to draw criticism from liberal colleagues. Otherwise, they may simply choose to work in a field devoid of partisan politics (e.g. mathematics, astronomy, botany, etc.). Yet, these strategies place special burdens on right-leaning scholars (Maranto and Woessner 2012a, b). The pressure to lay low for the many years leading up to promotion and tenure could play a significant role in discouraging young conservatives from joining the ranks of the professoriate. Gross’s experiment, like our survey research, simply cannot capture this dimension of conservative decision-making. As to whether conservatives are the victims or aggressors in the conflict with higher education, we take no position. Fair-minded people can view the evidence either way. In raising questions about Gross’s presumption that academia is under an unjustified assault, we are inviting academics to at least consider the criticisms of the Right. Must the AAC&U really promote “demographic diversity” in its mission statement? Is it wise for the American Studies Association to call for a boycott of Israel? Is it appropriate for Amherst to elevate global warming to the “defining issue of this and future generations?” Unquestionably, these organizations enjoy academic freedom and can promote whatever issues they choose. However, promoting political issues, rather than narrowly defined professional objectives, comes at a cost. In framing the Right’s actions as an unjustified attack on innocent academic bystanders, it makes it more difficult for higher education to engage in healthy and meaningful soulsearching. In the end, the real strength of Gross’s work is in his sincere attempt to set aside personal views and pet theories and focus on the state of the evidence. His book, Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care?, is a step in the right direction. It provides a new lens through which our field will examine liberal academia for many years to come.
Further Reading Arum, R., & Roksa, J. 2011. Academically adrift: Limited learning on college campuses. University of Chicago Press. Cable, D. M., & Judge, T. A. 1996. Person–organization fit, job choice decisions, and organizational entry. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 67(3), 294–311. Cable, D. M., & Judge, T. A. 1997. Interviewers’ perceptions of person– organization fit and organizational selection decisions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(4), 546.
Soc (2015) 52:35–41 Chambliss, D. F., & Takacs, C. G. 2014. How college works. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dettrey, B. J., & Palmer, H. D. 2013. Reconsidering individual-level heterogeneity in economic voting. Electoral Studies, 32(4), 718– 728. Fish, S. 2008. Save the world on your own time. Oxford University Press. Huckfeldt, R. 2001. The social communication of political expertise. American Journal of Political Science, 45, 425–438. Judge, T. A., & Cable, D. M. 1997. Applicant personality, organizational culture, and organization attraction. Personnel Psychology, 50(2), 359–394. Kelly-Woessner, A., & Woessner, M. C. 2006. My Professor is a partisan hack: How perceptions of a professor’s political views affect student course evaluations. PS: Political Science & Politics, 39(03), 495– 501. Kelly-Woessner, A., & Woessner, M. 2008. Conflict in the classroom: Considering the effects of partisan difference on political education. Journal of Political Science Education, 4(3), 265–285. Kelly-Woessner, A., & Woessner, M. 2011. Promoting a “House of study”. Society, 48(3), 227–231. Latzer, B. 2004. The Hollow Core: Failure of the General Education Curriculum. A Fifty College Study. American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Legault, L., Gutsell, J. N., & Inzlicht, M. 2011. Ironic effects of antiprejudice messages How motivational interventions Can reduce (but also increase) prejudice. Psychological Science, 22(12), 1472– 1477. Lindholm, J. A. 2004. Pathways to the professoriate: The role of self, others, and environment in shaping academic career aspirations. The Journal of Higher Education, 75(6), 603–635. Lodge, M., Taber, C., & Galonsky, A. C. 1999. The political consequences of motivated reasoning: Partisan bias in information processing. Atlanta, Georgia: Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. Lord, C. G., Ross, L., & Leeper, M. R. 1979. Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 2098–2109. Maranto, R., & Woessner, M. 2012a. Diversifying the academy: How conservative academics can thrive in liberal academia. PS: Political Science and Politics, 45(3), 469–475. Maranto, R., & Woessner, M. 2012b. Seeking relevance: American political science and america. Academic Questions, 25(3), 403–417. Montanaro, D. 2013. NBC News/WSJ poll: Affirmative action support at historic low. Retrieved from http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/ 2013/06/11/18885926-nbc-newswsj-poll-affirmative-actionsupport-at-historic-low?lite on February 1, 2014. Nelson, T. E., Sanbonmatsu, K., & McClerking, H. K. 2007. Playing a different race card: Examining the limits of elite influence on perceptions of racism. The Journal of Politics, 69(2), 416–429. Nyhan, B., & Reifler, J. 2010. Corrections fail: The persistence of political misperceptions. Political Behavior, 32(2), 303–330. Rothman, S., Kelly-Woessner, A., & Woessner, M. 2011. The still divided academy: How competing visions of power, politics, and diversity complicate the mission of higher education. Rowman & Littlefield. Sanders, K., Willemsen, T. M., & Millar, C. C. 2009. Views from above the glass ceiling: does the academic environment influence women professors’ careers and experiences? Sex Roles, 60(5–6), 301–312. Schmidt, Peter. 2014. Backlash Against Israel Boycott Throws Academic Association on Defensive. New York Times, January 5, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/us/backlashagainst-israel-boycott-throws-academic-association-on-defensive. html?_r=0 on February 1, 2014. Sidanius, J., Levin, S., Van Laar, C., & Sears, D. O. 2008. The diversity challenge. New York: Russell Sage.
Soc (2015) 52:35–41 Van Anders, S. M. 2004. Why the academic pipeline leaks: Fewer men than women perceive barriers to becoming professors. Sex Roles, 51(9–10), 511–521. Woessner, Matthew. 2005. “Scandal, Elites and Presidential Popularity: Considering the Importance of Cues in Public Support of the President” Presidential Studies Quarterly, 35:1, March 2005 Woessner, M., & Kelly-Woessner, A. 2009. Left pipeline: Why conservatives don’t get doctorates. In R. Maranto, R. E. Redding, & F. M. Hess (Eds.), The politically correct university: Problems, scope, and reforms (pp. 38–59). Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Woessner, Matthew and April Kelly-Woessner. 2006. “Reparations and Race Relations in America: An Experimental test of Group Conflict Theory.” Politics and Policy. Volume 34, Number 1
41 Matthew Woessner is associate professor of political science and public policy at Penn State University, Harrisburg, PA. April Kelly-Woessner is professor and chair of political science at Elizabethtown College, in Elizabethtown, PA. Together, the Woessners have conducted a number of studies about politics in higher education, including The Still Divided Academy: How Competing Visions of Power, Politics, and Diversity Complicate the Mission of Higher Education (2010), with co-author Stanley Rothman. Their research on higher education has been covered in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Science Magazine. This article was written for a conference held at the Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World at Claremont McKenna College on February 22, 2014.