Liberal academic bias evaluating a political movement

Abstract

This essay attempts to describe and critically assess the validity of accusations that a liberal bias is undermining higher education. In descriptive terms, the liberal academic bias (LAB) argument has four interrelated components: a) liberals are over-represented among college faculty and academic administrators: b) liberals hire only other liberals; c) liberals consistently teach from a partisan perspective, denying conservative students access to conservative material: and d) liberals punish ideological dissent of both students and faculty. As an analytical manner, whether LAB is the result of conscious bias or is merely an example of "self-segregation" fairly common and unnoticed in other elite and politically sensitive professions is unclear based on the present literature. Academic response has ranged from cautious acceptance to mitigating concessions to outright rebuttals. A reliance on anecdotal evidence weakens many facets of the LAB argument, and much of the empirical evidence needs to be replicated and reconsidered in a more sophisticated manner. The political consequences of this movement for the discipline of political science, the social sciences generally. and for higher education are considerable, and cannot be over-stated. To some extent, tills issue can be viewed as the point of spear aimed at academic freedom. Although significant challenges exist in the attitudinal study of elites, the potential of this issue area as a sustained field of research is very nearly limitless, given adequate support.