good piece. but remember that guys like Haidt are still center left. Pseudotokens. And, the selection pool for hiring true conservatives will be hamstrung by having driven out or disincentivized true conservatives from graduate schools, post docs and junior faculty jobs for the past 20 years- the ones left have learned to be quiet amd closeted (e.g. hardly consrvative at all). They can do what Hamilton center at UF did, and hire old boomers from harvard into a retirement gig, but that too is only seating the kind that permitted this all to happen politely for decades. that is, a huge Selection Bias problem still exists, and will for a decade or so. as you noted well, Their recruiters could reach oit to some of us bona fide scholars and scientists with true conservatives credentials, but they are not doing that.
I hope you are right but I have not noticed the change you describe in faculty positions in the arts. Also, last fall at the Columbia Academic Freedom Council’s award event, faculty presented different perspectives than yours. I wrote about it here https://whiterosemagazine.com/the-inflating-cost-of-artistic-freedom/
Excellent article. I found myself in a similar position as a board member of a couple of higher-ed institutions. They wanted me to stay on because they "needed my voice", even though I'd be outvoted 28-2 on issues that I cared about.
I concluded that by staying on, I actually enabled them to avoid accountability by pointing to token conservatives like me. (Note that I'm only conservative in the world of higher ed. In the outside world, I'm a moderate.)
I found the first part of journey true, but left before seeing anything like the second part of your journey (2022). Just sat through meetings gritting my teeth at the intolerance.
There is nothing more important to our future than education… nothing. Sadly, the products of our education system are among the leading influences on our children, I.e., teachers. Among the many factors that indict the education system consider this one: a plurality of identified Antifa protestors are TEACHERS! Something I believe strongly is “education is far too important to be left to educators.”
I'm not anonymous because I am scared to say "hire more conservatives." I'm anonymous so I can document everything — the hiring scandals, the committee dysfunction, the administrative theater, the speech restrictions, all of it — with honesty and without retaliation.
More in the heterodox aisle than within the conservative label.
Your piece misses a key point; the shifting goalposts for those who are out of administration affects non-whites (or the non-"accultured" within any particular local University environment) differently, irrespective of political stances.
Disputes and grievances, rooted in substantive differences on standards applied to labeling excellence, are labeled as those emanating from crazy or unhinged faculty, and are characterized as unreasonable.
Your commentary, perhaps, similarly connotes those advocating for their basic human rights as firebrands who represent a danger to the system.
This isn't really a problem with DEI at a philosophical level. This is a problem with DEI at an executive, systemically actionable level.
Within academia, we are all in positions to gauge "merit", but the standards of Merit, and the opportunity the system affords to display those merits, is disparate at each rung of the faculty ladder rank, and those differences become vast at executive-leadership ladder ranks. The minority sub-populations able to climb those rungs are exactly those who are NOT firebrands, compliant and subservient to the point of harming the mission they hope to accomplish in academia.
In that implementation scheme, DEI does exactly the opposite of what was designed to do, and excludes those most deserving of taking on the mantles of leadership within academia....
good piece. but remember that guys like Haidt are still center left. Pseudotokens. And, the selection pool for hiring true conservatives will be hamstrung by having driven out or disincentivized true conservatives from graduate schools, post docs and junior faculty jobs for the past 20 years- the ones left have learned to be quiet amd closeted (e.g. hardly consrvative at all). They can do what Hamilton center at UF did, and hire old boomers from harvard into a retirement gig, but that too is only seating the kind that permitted this all to happen politely for decades. that is, a huge Selection Bias problem still exists, and will for a decade or so. as you noted well, Their recruiters could reach oit to some of us bona fide scholars and scientists with true conservatives credentials, but they are not doing that.
I hope you are right but I have not noticed the change you describe in faculty positions in the arts. Also, last fall at the Columbia Academic Freedom Council’s award event, faculty presented different perspectives than yours. I wrote about it here https://whiterosemagazine.com/the-inflating-cost-of-artistic-freedom/
Excellent article. I found myself in a similar position as a board member of a couple of higher-ed institutions. They wanted me to stay on because they "needed my voice", even though I'd be outvoted 28-2 on issues that I cared about.
I concluded that by staying on, I actually enabled them to avoid accountability by pointing to token conservatives like me. (Note that I'm only conservative in the world of higher ed. In the outside world, I'm a moderate.)
I found the first part of journey true, but left before seeing anything like the second part of your journey (2022). Just sat through meetings gritting my teeth at the intolerance.
Chose wisely, as at UVa after an investigation by the Dept of Ed the UVa administration buried 234 DEI hires under different titles.
There is nothing more important to our future than education… nothing. Sadly, the products of our education system are among the leading influences on our children, I.e., teachers. Among the many factors that indict the education system consider this one: a plurality of identified Antifa protestors are TEACHERS! Something I believe strongly is “education is far too important to be left to educators.”
Chose wisely, as at UVa after an investigation by the Dept of Ed the administration buried 234 DEI hires under different titles.
You're anonymously telling conservatives that it's safe to come out of the closet?
I'm not anonymous because I am scared to say "hire more conservatives." I'm anonymous so I can document everything — the hiring scandals, the committee dysfunction, the administrative theater, the speech restrictions, all of it — with honesty and without retaliation.
"more than a decade"? This began- and has been entrenched- for many decades. 60's activism didn't come from nothing or merely the Vietnam war.
I’m curious if your research/scholarship in your field(s) of expertise were held back by your heterodoxy viz university power and politics?
Did you get the job?
More in the heterodox aisle than within the conservative label.
Your piece misses a key point; the shifting goalposts for those who are out of administration affects non-whites (or the non-"accultured" within any particular local University environment) differently, irrespective of political stances.
Disputes and grievances, rooted in substantive differences on standards applied to labeling excellence, are labeled as those emanating from crazy or unhinged faculty, and are characterized as unreasonable.
Your commentary, perhaps, similarly connotes those advocating for their basic human rights as firebrands who represent a danger to the system.
This isn't really a problem with DEI at a philosophical level. This is a problem with DEI at an executive, systemically actionable level.
Within academia, we are all in positions to gauge "merit", but the standards of Merit, and the opportunity the system affords to display those merits, is disparate at each rung of the faculty ladder rank, and those differences become vast at executive-leadership ladder ranks. The minority sub-populations able to climb those rungs are exactly those who are NOT firebrands, compliant and subservient to the point of harming the mission they hope to accomplish in academia.
In that implementation scheme, DEI does exactly the opposite of what was designed to do, and excludes those most deserving of taking on the mantles of leadership within academia....