PressEthic

John Tierney has written a follow-up to his column, ( which Ryan commented on last week) about the field of academia being monopolized by liberals. Dominated by liberal professors, he points out, that university campuses have become intolerant of conservative views.

Liberals on campus have become so used to hearing their opinions reinforced that they have a hard time imagining there are intelligent people with different views.

One of the examples he gives while elaborating his point, if true, poses a danger to the field of academia.

Suppose, he said, you were a conservative who wanted to do a sociology dissertation on the debilitating effects of the European welfare state, or an English dissertation arguing that anticommunists literature from the mid-20th century was as valuable as the procommunist literature. “You’d have a hard time finding a dissertation adviser, an interested publisher and a receptive hiring committee,” Bauerlein said. “Your work just wouldn’t look like relevant scholarship and would be quietly set aside.”

Eventually, it is not about a liberal or conservative victory, but about fostering an impartial atmosphere, which facilitates students in forming independent opinions, rather than advocating the left to be right (pun intended).

Being a journalism student means aspiring for objectivity, but it’s also a well- established fact that preferences sneak through. That is why; it is a matter of great concern if a leftist culture is being promoted in academic institutions.

In order to instigate a genuine debate about this issue it’s advisable to engage the liberals. However, if according to Tierney, liberals really do feel that there is a lack of conservatives in the field because they are ‘too dumb to get tenure’, then we have a problem.