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THE VALUE OF IDEOLOGICAL DIVERSITY AMONG UNIVERSITY FACULTY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2021

Keith E. Whittington
Keith E. Whittington*
Affiliation:
Politics, Princeton University, USA
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Abstract

Conservatives in the United States have grown increasingly critical of universities and their faculty, convinced that professors are ideologues from the political left. Universities, for their part, have increasingly adopted a mantra of diversity and inclusivity, but have shown little interest in diversifying the political and ideological profile of their faculties. This essay argues that the lack of political diversity among American university faculty hampers the ability of universities to fulfill their core mission of advancing and disseminating knowledge. The argument is advanced through a series of four questions: Is it true that university faculty are not ideologically diverse? Why might it be true? Does it matter? How might it be fixed.

Keywords

higher educationideological diversityacademic freedomcampus free speechintellectual freedomprofessorsliberalismconservatism
Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , Winter 2020 , pp. 90 - 113
Copyright
© Social Philosophy & Policy Foundation 2021

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55 It is a different problem to consider whether the campus gates should remain open to those who operate entirely outside the context of disciplinary knowledge-seeking—that is, whether universities should robustly protect campus free speech as well as academic freedom. I will bracket that issue here, though I think universities should offer protection to both. Whittington, Keith E., Speak Freely (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018)Google Scholar.

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61 The UnKoch My Campus movement, however, shows how challenging even such positive projects can be. A left-leaning academia is inclined to resist efforts to foster more conservative teaching and scholarship even when such initiatives do not impinge on scholarship or teaching of existing faculty. Universities have an obligation to take care that donors of all sorts do not interfere with the autonomy of scholars on campus, but they also have an obligation not to impose ideological litmus tests on the sources or purposes of funds made available to a campus.