The Politically Correct University

AEI recently released a fine compendium volume The Politically Correct University, edited by Robert Maranto, Richard E. Redding, and Frederick M. Hess, featuring an excellent slate of essays and contributors: here’s a sampling:
Do take a look; there’s much of worth here:

– “The American University: Yesterday, Today – and Tomorrow”
James Piereson
– “Linguistics from the Left: The Truth about Black English That the Academy Doesn’t Want
You to Know”
John McWhorter
– “Groupthink in Academia: Majoritarian Departmental Politics and the Professional Pyramid”
Daniel Klein & Charlotta Stern
– “Left Pipeline: Why Conservatives Don’t Get Doctorates”
Matthew Woessner & April Kelly-Woessner
– “The Vanishing Conservative – Is There a Glass Ceiling?”
Stanley Rothman & S. Robert Lichter
– “Campus Speech Codes: Absurd, Tenacious, and Everywhere”
Greg Lukianoff
– “Why Political Science Is Left But Not PC: Causes of Disunion and Diversity”
James Ceaser
– “Political Correctness in the Science Classroom”
Noretta Koertge
– “Reforming the Politically Correct University: The Role of Alumni and Trustees”
Anne Neal
– “Where We’ve Come From and Where We Should Go: The Route to Academic Pluralism”
Stephen Balch
– “To Reform the Politically Correct University, Reform the Liberal Arts”
John Agresto

The essays on the political make-up of the faculty are an excellent tonic for recent conversation that there’s nothing odd about the absence of conservatives in academia. To provide even greater incentive, here’s an excerpt from Jim Piereson’s essay:

..As the diversity thrust loses steam, liberals and far-left groups on the campus will not be at a loss for new causes to absorb their attention and energy. The next iteration of liberal reform in the universities is likley to involve further steps to detach these institutions from the American polity in which they are embedded. We have already noted that the intellectual foundations of the modern research university are somewhat at odds with the philosophy of natural rights that shaped our national instiutions. The logic of liberalism points in the direction of the internationalization of the American university. We can already see fragments of this emerging trend in the banning of ROTC and military recruiters from college campuses in order to disassociate universities from American national policies. The enrollment of international students will receive greater emphasis in the coming decades which will further reinforce the trend. Academic programs in American government or in American studies will be increasingly de-emphasized on the grounds that they are parochial, in much the same way as programs in Western Civilization were de-emphasized in the past…

Author

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *