it’s not uncommon these days among
certain media outlets to see headlines
about comments made by professors that
denigrate conservatives we’re here
politicians talk about liberal bias as
if this was an established fact in
academia I hear stories from my own
students about their parents and their
neighbors who joke about their college
attendance and cautioned them against
liberal indoctrination so it’s a
political scientist and college
professor I think about this notion a
lot and how valid the criticism is but I
also think that we can’t have a good
discussion about liberal bias unless we
first clarify what we mean by these
terms so first when someone alleges bias
presumably this means that they think
what’s going on in the classroom it’s
somehow not representative of what’s
happening outside of the classroom this
is not as straightforward as it seems
I’ll give you one example the 2016
election slightly more people voted for
Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump
but just as many people didn’t vote at
all so does that mean that we get
political apathy or feelings of disgust
with the candidates or
disenfranchisement equal footing with
the views of the two major parties or a
sizable minorities of Americans denying
climate change or evolution does this
mean that we should give those
viewpoints serious consideration I think
not so I propose that when someone
alleges bias they mean that the
distribution the viewpoints that are
represented in the classroom
somehow systematically deviate from
those held by educated and civically
responsible citizens out in the
quote/unquote real world what we mean by
liberal is a bit more difficult
most people tended to find it very
narrowly in terms of policies and
candidates pro-choice supportive of gun
control
Bernie grows but alas sophisticated work
on ideology suggests that it is much
more complicated than that people do not
weigh the alternatives and choose aside
instead we are a liberal or conservative
of who we are the things that we value
and even our biology in psychology one
of the most common models of personality
is called the big five and it says that
everybody in this room we can classify
your personality along these five
dimensions the first of these dimensions
is called openness to experience people
who score highly on this dimension are
very intellectually curious they seek
out new experiences and they like to try
new things
people who score low on this dimension
are creatures of comfort they like this
familiar and they find fantasy
uninteresting or perhaps downright silly
a second of these five dimensions is
called conscientiousness people who
score high in this dimension are very
organized they like planning and they’re
highly self disciplined and people who
score low on this er quite the opposite
you can probably already guess which one
is related to liberalism and which one
is related to conservatism there’s also
evidence that conservatives and liberals
have different cognitive styles for
examples conservatives tend to score
more highly on what’s called need for
closure
this is another psychological concept
some people just like having answers any
answer because they really like to avoid
uncertainty and ambiguity and other
people actually seek that out there’s
even research showing that conservatives
are more sensitive to threats they
identify negative information more
quickly they tend to spend more time
dwelling on it and even the areas of the
brain that process it exhibit higher
activation than among the brains of
liberals but the view of ideology that I
prefer is one that emphasizes that
really any society is just a big group
for example American citizens and we
have basic group needs we need food we
need shelter we need water and we need
protection from the threats of outside
groups such as Isis as a member of this
group which do you care more about
protecting that group from these outside
threats or providing for the group and
making sure that people feel comfortable
both are critical to the survival and
success of a group but entail very
different orientations it makes a lot of
sense that if you care more about
protecting the group that you would be
highly sensitive to threats that you
would want firm and easy answers and
they can be planning ahead or if you
care more about protecting this group it
makes sense that you would be open to
new experiences and new possibilities be
seeking out new sources of food and
shelter perhaps even allies among other
groups my point here is not to make you
choose one particular perspective of
ideology over another but only to show
you that it is a lot more complicated
than most people think so with these
definitions in mind is there liberal
bias in academia using the more narrow
common definition the answer looks like
yes when we compare surveys of faculty
compared to the population at large the
proportion of self-identified liberals
is much higher than outside but even
using this more psychological broader
definition I would answer that yes the
bias is actually built-in let me read
you from our own institutions mission
statement Fisher engages individuals in
lags of intellectual inquiry
professional integrity and civic
responsibility where diversity and
service to others is valued and
practiced College is designed to expose
students to a diversity of viewpoints
foster intellectual curiosity and at
Fisher and many other liberal arts
colleges help others through tolerance
and service so yeah there is a liberal
bias in academia but we need to
distinguish between the two because this
latter bias is towards openness to new
ideas of diversity of viewpoints and
difficult questions without clear
answers it’s systemic it’s by
it’s built into these institutions of
higher learning and I think any college
professor worth their salt would argue
that it’s imperative to the mission but
I also don’t think that’s what most
Americans are thinking about when they
levy accusations of bias against
academia and and indeed it is this
former bias that is not inherent to the
mission and it leaks out a commentary
body language and tone this leads me to
my next question doesn’t matter herpy
wholesale converting students to leftist
causes and candidates to go back to the
2016 election again exit polls showed us
that 49% of college grads voted for
Hillary Clinton 45% for trump if we
focus on weight specifically a group
that got a lot of extra attention this
particular cycle the numbers actually
slip 45% for Clinton 49% for Trump this
is of course anecdotal but rigorous
studies also failed to uncover much
evidence of liberal brainwashing one
study that interviewed thousands of
students across dozens of colleges found
that any shifted liberalism over the
four years was perfectly in line with
shifts in the population at large
another study that interviewed students
when they were in high school and
followed them beyond into their 30s and
40s found that the differences between
college grads and non college grads in
terms of liberalism was entirely due to
the fact that liberal students were more
likely to go to college in the first
place in general the political
socialization that happens in colleges
have bounced through peers not through
professors sorry professors
so our can’t you know our students being
converted to these cause that’s
wholesale no but I argue that the bias
matters and other important ways and
I’ll give you three here today first we
know that diversity improves outcomes
whether that’s coming up with innovative
ideas quality decision making even
financial returns at companies and we
talked a lot about racial ethnic gender
diversity economic diversity of
religious diversity political diversity
has almost always left off this list and
this matters for the quality of
interactions in the classroom when
having a conversation about gun control
it’s really helps to have a student
who’s experienced gun crying in her city
neighborhood and a student who’s from a
rural area and goes hunting on the
weekends when talking about the minimum
wage it helped to have a student who is
putting himself through college and can
speak about the difficulties of living
off such a wage as well as a student
whose family owns a small business and
is worried about keeping the doors open
if the minimum wage were to be increased
so this lack of diversity affects the
quality of our classroom instruction and
discussions and it also affects our
research agendas in political science
one of the most common measures of
racial attitudes is called racial
resentment and it includes questions
such as these Irish Italian Jewish and
other minorities works their way up
blacks should do the same without any
special favors agree with this statement
bumps you up with snot on the racial
resentment scale but if you’re a
conservative sitting in this audience
right now you can probably already tell
the problem with these questions because
that doesn’t do a good job of
differentiating between somebody who
holds negative attitudes towards African
Americans and somebody who’s a principle
of conservatism and doesn’t believe that
that’s the role of government as it
turns out the racial resentment scale
does a much better job
racially hostile liberals than it does
conservatives in general conservatism
has long been linked with measures of
prejudice but almost always the targets
of this prejudice are left-leaning
groups such as blacks what researchers
expand their definition and look at
other targets it turns out liberals can
be just as prejudiced towards
frightening groups such as Christians
and there’s other ways that this liberal
bias affects the research pipeline
experiments have shown that conservative
proposals are less likely to be deemed
suitable for publication or even
accepted by IRB the institution that is
responsible for judging the ethics of
studies involving human subjects and
weighing the cost of benefits to society
third perception could be reality
anti-intellectualism and fake news are
on the rise and it is more critical than
at any point in our recent history to
seek out experts to separate facts from
fiction and to think quickly about how
we know the things we know in order to
remain a source of expert truth the
ivory tower needs to be transparent
about its own biases so now what if I’ve
convinced you that liberal bias is real
and at least in some forms have negative
consequences what is to be done I offer
three suggestions today they’re mostly
geared towards faculty but I think they
provide insights for students parents
and any citizen who’s concerned about
the legitimacy of higher education today
first is disclosure when I was a
master’s student I took a class on
prisons and the professor told us on day
one that he was a major advocate for
rehabilitation programs in fact he had
published dozens of papers on it at the
end of semester we had to write a paper
defending a particular goal of prison
and that could be incapacitation
deterrence or force rehabilitation being
the obstinate person I am I
to defend incapacitation most everybody
on the class wrote about rehabilitation
I didn’t find on the paper but at least
I knew I was getting into and I think
that this makes a lot of sense for
faculty who have strong views and know
that they’re going to be voicing them in
the classroom tell your students you
have nothing to hide here and then also
tell them that their counter points are
welcome as well second use what I call
the opposite test it’s the analogy
applies would you allow your students or
yourself to make the same claim without
any opposition to borrow an unfortunate
phrase from Hillary Clinton for example
would you find an acceptable if the
student said that half of all Obama
voters are deplorable would you find it
acceptable if a student said that the
democratic party only cares about black
people or as one student told me his
professor said on November 9th of last
year would you find it acceptable if you
said you hope to mama got shot such
sweeping generalizations are empirically
dubious and such over-the-top rhetoric
is not only inappropriate but not really
should be modeling for our students my
third suggestion is the one that I most
closely tried to adhere to and that is
to be a data warrior to go back to my
example of gun control when you look at
the literature it actually suggests that
it’s not very effective but that can
lead to a really interesting discussion
about why not including the role of
federalism and perhaps the inability of
a single state to tackle gun crime or
how legislating based on the outliers
that are mass shootings may not be the
most effective approach or thinking
about the minimum wage governmental
surveys tell us that roughly half of all
minimum wage workers are teenagers that
doesn’t mean that teenagers don’t need a
livable wage but at least some
proportion of them are kids who just
wanted money for fun spending or his
parents told them to go get a job these
facts provide critical context
students and armed them to have quality
discussions outside of here so in some I
hope that you think the cop that liberal
bias is a real issue in college and I
hope that we take it seriously if I
haven’t convinced you I would at least
say that the psychological research
suggests that dismissing or outright
silencing counter views is not a good
way to convert a student it’s not a good
way to bring them to your side but I
won’t see my job as one of recruitment I
see it as one of enlightenment and
liberalism does not happen not the
weight on truth or on goodness so let’s
be honest about our biases and let’s
tell our students that the psychological
liberalism that we’re trying to instill
is real and has great purpose but the
policy liberalism is up for debate thank
[Applause]
certain media outlets to see headlines
about comments made by professors that
denigrate conservatives we’re here
politicians talk about liberal bias as
if this was an established fact in
academia I hear stories from my own
students about their parents and their
neighbors who joke about their college
attendance and cautioned them against
liberal indoctrination so it’s a
political scientist and college
professor I think about this notion a
lot and how valid the criticism is but I
also think that we can’t have a good
discussion about liberal bias unless we
first clarify what we mean by these
terms so first when someone alleges bias
presumably this means that they think
what’s going on in the classroom it’s
somehow not representative of what’s
happening outside of the classroom this
is not as straightforward as it seems
I’ll give you one example the 2016
election slightly more people voted for
Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump
but just as many people didn’t vote at
all so does that mean that we get
political apathy or feelings of disgust
with the candidates or
disenfranchisement equal footing with
the views of the two major parties or a
sizable minorities of Americans denying
climate change or evolution does this
mean that we should give those
viewpoints serious consideration I think
not so I propose that when someone
alleges bias they mean that the
distribution the viewpoints that are
represented in the classroom
somehow systematically deviate from
those held by educated and civically
responsible citizens out in the
quote/unquote real world what we mean by
liberal is a bit more difficult
most people tended to find it very
narrowly in terms of policies and
candidates pro-choice supportive of gun
control
Bernie grows but alas sophisticated work
on ideology suggests that it is much
more complicated than that people do not
weigh the alternatives and choose aside
instead we are a liberal or conservative
of who we are the things that we value
and even our biology in psychology one
of the most common models of personality
is called the big five and it says that
everybody in this room we can classify
your personality along these five
dimensions the first of these dimensions
is called openness to experience people
who score highly on this dimension are
very intellectually curious they seek
out new experiences and they like to try
new things
people who score low on this dimension
are creatures of comfort they like this
familiar and they find fantasy
uninteresting or perhaps downright silly
a second of these five dimensions is
called conscientiousness people who
score high in this dimension are very
organized they like planning and they’re
highly self disciplined and people who
score low on this er quite the opposite
you can probably already guess which one
is related to liberalism and which one
is related to conservatism there’s also
evidence that conservatives and liberals
have different cognitive styles for
examples conservatives tend to score
more highly on what’s called need for
closure
this is another psychological concept
some people just like having answers any
answer because they really like to avoid
uncertainty and ambiguity and other
people actually seek that out there’s
even research showing that conservatives
are more sensitive to threats they
identify negative information more
quickly they tend to spend more time
dwelling on it and even the areas of the
brain that process it exhibit higher
activation than among the brains of
liberals but the view of ideology that I
prefer is one that emphasizes that
really any society is just a big group
for example American citizens and we
have basic group needs we need food we
need shelter we need water and we need
protection from the threats of outside
groups such as Isis as a member of this
group which do you care more about
protecting that group from these outside
threats or providing for the group and
making sure that people feel comfortable
both are critical to the survival and
success of a group but entail very
different orientations it makes a lot of
sense that if you care more about
protecting the group that you would be
highly sensitive to threats that you
would want firm and easy answers and
they can be planning ahead or if you
care more about protecting this group it
makes sense that you would be open to
new experiences and new possibilities be
seeking out new sources of food and
shelter perhaps even allies among other
groups my point here is not to make you
choose one particular perspective of
ideology over another but only to show
you that it is a lot more complicated
than most people think so with these
definitions in mind is there liberal
bias in academia using the more narrow
common definition the answer looks like
yes when we compare surveys of faculty
compared to the population at large the
proportion of self-identified liberals
is much higher than outside but even
using this more psychological broader
definition I would answer that yes the
bias is actually built-in let me read
you from our own institutions mission
statement Fisher engages individuals in
lags of intellectual inquiry
professional integrity and civic
responsibility where diversity and
service to others is valued and
practiced College is designed to expose
students to a diversity of viewpoints
foster intellectual curiosity and at
Fisher and many other liberal arts
colleges help others through tolerance
and service so yeah there is a liberal
bias in academia but we need to
distinguish between the two because this
latter bias is towards openness to new
ideas of diversity of viewpoints and
difficult questions without clear
answers it’s systemic it’s by
it’s built into these institutions of
higher learning and I think any college
professor worth their salt would argue
that it’s imperative to the mission but
I also don’t think that’s what most
Americans are thinking about when they
levy accusations of bias against
academia and and indeed it is this
former bias that is not inherent to the
mission and it leaks out a commentary
body language and tone this leads me to
my next question doesn’t matter herpy
wholesale converting students to leftist
causes and candidates to go back to the
2016 election again exit polls showed us
that 49% of college grads voted for
Hillary Clinton 45% for trump if we
focus on weight specifically a group
that got a lot of extra attention this
particular cycle the numbers actually
slip 45% for Clinton 49% for Trump this
is of course anecdotal but rigorous
studies also failed to uncover much
evidence of liberal brainwashing one
study that interviewed thousands of
students across dozens of colleges found
that any shifted liberalism over the
four years was perfectly in line with
shifts in the population at large
another study that interviewed students
when they were in high school and
followed them beyond into their 30s and
40s found that the differences between
college grads and non college grads in
terms of liberalism was entirely due to
the fact that liberal students were more
likely to go to college in the first
place in general the political
socialization that happens in colleges
have bounced through peers not through
professors sorry professors
so our can’t you know our students being
converted to these cause that’s
wholesale no but I argue that the bias
matters and other important ways and
I’ll give you three here today first we
know that diversity improves outcomes
whether that’s coming up with innovative
ideas quality decision making even
financial returns at companies and we
talked a lot about racial ethnic gender
diversity economic diversity of
religious diversity political diversity
has almost always left off this list and
this matters for the quality of
interactions in the classroom when
having a conversation about gun control
it’s really helps to have a student
who’s experienced gun crying in her city
neighborhood and a student who’s from a
rural area and goes hunting on the
weekends when talking about the minimum
wage it helped to have a student who is
putting himself through college and can
speak about the difficulties of living
off such a wage as well as a student
whose family owns a small business and
is worried about keeping the doors open
if the minimum wage were to be increased
so this lack of diversity affects the
quality of our classroom instruction and
discussions and it also affects our
research agendas in political science
one of the most common measures of
racial attitudes is called racial
resentment and it includes questions
such as these Irish Italian Jewish and
other minorities works their way up
blacks should do the same without any
special favors agree with this statement
bumps you up with snot on the racial
resentment scale but if you’re a
conservative sitting in this audience
right now you can probably already tell
the problem with these questions because
that doesn’t do a good job of
differentiating between somebody who
holds negative attitudes towards African
Americans and somebody who’s a principle
of conservatism and doesn’t believe that
that’s the role of government as it
turns out the racial resentment scale
does a much better job
racially hostile liberals than it does
conservatives in general conservatism
has long been linked with measures of
prejudice but almost always the targets
of this prejudice are left-leaning
groups such as blacks what researchers
expand their definition and look at
other targets it turns out liberals can
be just as prejudiced towards
frightening groups such as Christians
and there’s other ways that this liberal
bias affects the research pipeline
experiments have shown that conservative
proposals are less likely to be deemed
suitable for publication or even
accepted by IRB the institution that is
responsible for judging the ethics of
studies involving human subjects and
weighing the cost of benefits to society
third perception could be reality
anti-intellectualism and fake news are
on the rise and it is more critical than
at any point in our recent history to
seek out experts to separate facts from
fiction and to think quickly about how
we know the things we know in order to
remain a source of expert truth the
ivory tower needs to be transparent
about its own biases so now what if I’ve
convinced you that liberal bias is real
and at least in some forms have negative
consequences what is to be done I offer
three suggestions today they’re mostly
geared towards faculty but I think they
provide insights for students parents
and any citizen who’s concerned about
the legitimacy of higher education today
first is disclosure when I was a
master’s student I took a class on
prisons and the professor told us on day
one that he was a major advocate for
rehabilitation programs in fact he had
published dozens of papers on it at the
end of semester we had to write a paper
defending a particular goal of prison
and that could be incapacitation
deterrence or force rehabilitation being
the obstinate person I am I
to defend incapacitation most everybody
on the class wrote about rehabilitation
I didn’t find on the paper but at least
I knew I was getting into and I think
that this makes a lot of sense for
faculty who have strong views and know
that they’re going to be voicing them in
the classroom tell your students you
have nothing to hide here and then also
tell them that their counter points are
welcome as well second use what I call
the opposite test it’s the analogy
applies would you allow your students or
yourself to make the same claim without
any opposition to borrow an unfortunate
phrase from Hillary Clinton for example
would you find an acceptable if the
student said that half of all Obama
voters are deplorable would you find it
acceptable if a student said that the
democratic party only cares about black
people or as one student told me his
professor said on November 9th of last
year would you find it acceptable if you
said you hope to mama got shot such
sweeping generalizations are empirically
dubious and such over-the-top rhetoric
is not only inappropriate but not really
should be modeling for our students my
third suggestion is the one that I most
closely tried to adhere to and that is
to be a data warrior to go back to my
example of gun control when you look at
the literature it actually suggests that
it’s not very effective but that can
lead to a really interesting discussion
about why not including the role of
federalism and perhaps the inability of
a single state to tackle gun crime or
how legislating based on the outliers
that are mass shootings may not be the
most effective approach or thinking
about the minimum wage governmental
surveys tell us that roughly half of all
minimum wage workers are teenagers that
doesn’t mean that teenagers don’t need a
livable wage but at least some
proportion of them are kids who just
wanted money for fun spending or his
parents told them to go get a job these
facts provide critical context
students and armed them to have quality
discussions outside of here so in some I
hope that you think the cop that liberal
bias is a real issue in college and I
hope that we take it seriously if I
haven’t convinced you I would at least
say that the psychological research
suggests that dismissing or outright
silencing counter views is not a good
way to convert a student it’s not a good
way to bring them to your side but I
won’t see my job as one of recruitment I
see it as one of enlightenment and
liberalism does not happen not the
weight on truth or on goodness so let’s
be honest about our biases and let’s
tell our students that the psychological
liberalism that we’re trying to instill
is real and has great purpose but the
policy liberalism is up for debate thank
[Applause]
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