Sorry Dan, but I think you're wrong on this one. Read Mr. Horowitz' book and any fair minded person would realize someone with his history of activism, participation in events, etc. would be recruited actively by prestigeous universities. Exhibit A is the aforementioned Mr. Todd Gitlin, the epitome of a new left poseur who has played the Ward Churchill game for fun and profit.

Topcat,
Please note the minimum requirement: finishing the Ph.D. dissertation. Gitlin finished his at Berkeley, whence Mr Horowitz dropped out. Churchill is a weakling on this score, no better than Horowitz himself. So maybe when Republican fat cats start to endow Chairs in Embattled Conservative Minority (sic) Studies, Horowitz can find his place, too.

I always did find the phrase "Republican fat cats" amusing, in light of the everymen than ran on the recent Democratic presidential ticket; the Joe Lunchbox activist named George Soros; the 9-of-10 wealthiest Congressmen who are Democrats, etc., etc.

And the little weekend place in the Hamptons will run you more than the average union wage, I'll bet.

As to endowing such a chair, however, that actually ain't a bad plan; thanks, Liberal Prof, for the idea. I'll pass the word (and the hat) around at the next VWRC meeting and we'll see about it. ;)

Er, sorry, that's "VRWC" meeting. (Damn...liable to get drummed out now.)

topcat:
What the hell does a history of activism and participation in events(?) have to do with qualifying for a tenure-track position? What matters above all is your perceived contribution to scholarship in the field, and someone who professes that 'everything has been mined' clearly doesn't possess either the creative spark or pragmatic willingness to cater to the taste function of journal editors (in blind refeering processes) to make it in the field.

Yeesh, I can forgive most critics of the academy for clinging to a caricature based purely on speculation and conjecture, but Horowitz has zero excuse.

First, Mr. Drezner, your weblog is excellent.

Second, it is important to realize that the problem Horowitz is fighting against is real. The data is quite overwhelming:

http://portmcclellan.typepad.com/michaelbrandonmcclellan/2005/02/the_data_on_aca.html

Third, from a limited-government perspective, it is also important to realize the tactical error in Horowitz's method. The coercive power of state legislatures being used to remedy academic bias will likely only create a rallying cry for the left. The ivory tower will be deemed under assault from "right-wing radicals" and they will find major support in defense of "academic freedom". They will have an easily identifiable target in the form of overreaching legislatures.

There is a strong alternative in the "power of the purse."

Aside from Yale, Harvard, and a few others (schools with $10 billion endowments or larger)schools depend upon alumni donations for their survival. Indeed, even such well-endowed schools place a huge emphasis on alumni donations.

Those conservatives and others concerned with creating a marketplace of ideas would be far better served if they sought to educate and influence alumni donations based upon indicia of academic diversity.

As in, if you don't like it, make your donation conditional on the creation of some intellectual diversity in the economics or history department. If the school refuses to listen, take your money elsewhere. There are of course some collective action problems, but I'm, working on them.

Such is my modest proposal:

http://portmcclellan.typepad.com/michaelbrandonmcclellan/2005/02/update_on_the_m.html

Dan, you should read this interesting overview from Horowitz:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17895

The reason why he has recently taken up lobbying of legislatures was basic spinelessness (or fear?) on the part of University administrators, who he initially targetted.

I have taught Western Civ to classes as large as 600 people... In this situation, the bill of rights would be unworkable.

Forget issues of Democrat or Republican,
how would I respond to the student who, after lecture, defended the Nazi invasion of the former Yugoslavia? It was, she stated, "like a parade." Welcome and happy. She accused me of sullying the German people.

That is an extreme example, but in such a lecture class of this size, I have radical feminists, Ukrainian nationalists, opportunists looking to play the system, hardcore conservatives and liberals, Catholics defensive over the Vatican role in WWII, and Protestant students hot to score points against them. At one time or another over the semester I am likely to offend some or all...

I do not push my political views on my students. It seems odd to me, that Horowitz would (contrary to his usual opposition to lawsuits) encourage any or all of the above groups to sue me when they are displeased with the fairness of my teaching. Already there are arbitration boards set up to hear cases.

Why put this into the courts? It would only take one nut out of 600 to make my life miserable.

As far as I can tell, this bill is really about punishing academics, not improving education. If he wants more conservative teaching in the classroom, he should encourage more academic conservative writing. In my classes I use Fukuyama fairly regularly. He is rather dry, but his End of History is a true work of scholarship. I would love to teach more, but it needs to be written. Horowitz's writings don't even come close to the quality of readings that I would assign for my classes.

Topcat writes of "Mr. Todd Gitlin, the epitome of a new left poseur who has played the Ward Churchill game for fun and profit." As far as I know, this is absolutely unjustifed. Churchill defended the mass murder of his fellow citizens, and is accused of plagiarism and fraud. As far as I know, no-one has ever accused Gitlin of anything of the kind. My only experiece of Gitlin came when I debated him over Iraq, and I found him a civil interlocutor, and intellectually honest. That is not Churchill's M.O.

Can we focus more on the issue - leftist domination of colleges and curricula and lack of hospitality to conservative speakers (cut budgets, disruption, pies-in-the-face) and avoid personal attacks. Horowitz wouldn't be the least qualified person in academe if he were there.
Colleges are howling about this because they would have to create real diversity that's not just skin deep.

Daniel and others mistake one factoid for reality - in other words, they're attacking a straw man.

Condider the fact that when Horowitz and Peter Collier were writing books as leftists, they were reviewed in the most prominant outlets and won all kinds of awards.

Since they've left for the right, they've been totally neglected.

Try rationalizing that!

"Mr. Horowitz has always wanted to be a scholar himself." Jacobsen

Lol

And yet, despite Jacobsen's penetrating insight (not to mention the fact she builds other presumptions still on this statement), Horowitz has not once applied for a job in academe. Where does Jacobsen's reporting end and the inspired, omniscient voice of the novelist begin?

You mean to tell me that David Horowitz is not properly credentialed for academia but Ward Churchill is?

re: his written materials: your arguments is simply vacuous. It is simply not the case that the only writings in liberal arts ugrad and grad courses are by people with phds. Shall I give you a list to demonstrate, or do you know the silliness of this argument? All of Horowitz' work for the 60s vanguard mags of the time are appropriate yet ignored. Why is that? His friends from the era are read, even if they aren't phds.

Mr. (Dr.?) Smoler's defense of Prof. Gitlin motivated me to check something out.

I was about to remind him, in my usual know-it-all way, that Gitlin was the infamous professor who, at a Columbia U teach-in, called for "a million Mogadishus" to befall us in the War on Terror.

Trouble is, I would've been wrong. According to the Columbia Spectator's report of the event, it was another professor who uttered those infamous words. Gitlin did attend, and was critical of the war (of course), but didn't quite cross over into Churchill territory.

A Google search for "Todd Gitlin Million Mogadishus" reveals that Gitlin has been linked to the term repeatedly by various conservatives, including Mr. Horowitz.

It's not a terribly big deal (the general point still stands, that this is the sort of tripe being spread by leftist profs) but Prof. Gitlin's name ought to be cleared.

It does irk me to stick up for one of these guys, but facts are facts.

Ah, almost forgot to link. As the Benihana commercial says, come see for yourself:

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/03/27/3e82ec7193097?in_archive=1

Gitlin was at the anti-Iraq war demonstration, on the platform with fellow "liberal" prof (de Genova?), the latter being the prof that hoped for a million Mogadishu's. That, and only that, is what Horowitz and his website has represented. See this, also this.

i go to a very left wing school in NYC. Once when Sen. Clinton came to speak there was a large student protest, they thought she was to far to the right. Even though I am fairly libreal i am treated like a far right consertive by many of the staff and students. It is not that i agree with what Bush says but i can understand why someone would be on his side of an issue. The teacher runs a class can have the biggest impact. A student in my culture class can say that most soliders who were in vietnam burned down villiages with zippos, which she claims were given out by the army for that purpose. This passes, the teacher nods her head and moves on. Yet when I say that i am against hate speech and hate crimes laws i have to defend my views in front of the whole class. When someone comments on how not interacting with gay people can lead some to have the wrong views, i am called on to offer a response. Telling the class that i have known a gay person very well my whole life, (myself) the phrase self loathing is used. At this point the only effect that the far left stundents have had on me is to push me to the right.

I am a conservative and I teach economics part-time at a local two year college. Out of 250 faculty, you can count the (admitted) conservatives on one hand. The Leftists that dominate and control the hiring decisions are never going to allow a conservative a full-time position and won't knowingly hire conservative part-timers It has nothing to do with academic writings/papers and has everything to do with the abuse of power and intolerance of opposing ideas. Horowitz is completely on target.

May I propose a simple solution? Outlaw tenure and let everyone compete as is done in the real world. I see no reason for academics who survive by the grace of the taxpayer to be exempt from the same market economics that provide income for those same taxpayers. Civil service and tenure are the primary reasons why academia and government are ineffecient and totally resistant to reform. So long as the dead wood is protected, no half measures, like those proposed by Horowitz, have any chance to effect any reform.

For what it's worth, Horowitz denies that he aspired to be a "scholar" in his introduction to the article, and says the statement is an invention of the author.
Horowitz can be a bit intense, but arguing that the academy would not oppose this initiative if it were brought by someone else is simply absurd.

The real solution to the left-wing educator problem is in market forces. After all, if their faculty is 90% left-wing and they admit sub-standard students because of their color how good a school can they be?

If no one gives to those schools, no one goes to those schools, no one hires from those schools, and not one calls professors fron their schools as experts on TV they WILL find a way to change tenure or not.

OR go out of business.

I have exchanged e-mails with Todd Gitlin.

He is not rabidly anti-war and admits there may be some validity to the pro-war side. At least that is how he dealt with me.

Drezner:
" Could someone who's a friend of Horowitz please take him aside and point out that not even Harvard awards department chairmanships to people who drop out of Ph.D. programs when they conclude that there was, "nothing to research that was interesting anymore." "

Oh. You mean like Ward Churchill?

First, doesn't the liberal bias in academia has more to do with the combination of low salaries & free lifestyle than anything else? I mean, all else equal, aren't conservatives more likely to go into high paying jobs in law, finance, and business rather than hang out talking useless theory in the Ivory Tower. Likewise, I don't see too many "lefties" fighting for jobs at Goldman-Sachs.

Second, the tenure process is a lot about one's research...and research in the social sciences is sadly often a case of: let's find a case of X-->Y, then come up with a theory that predicts or explains it, and then publish these "findings" as if they'd happened in reverse order.

Hence with no science involved, it all boils down to politics....which should be easy for a political scientist like Dan to explain...right?

jprime:

Actually, on the Street, Goldman is known as a pretty lefty bank - not in a Ward Churchill kind of way but rather in a friends of Bill kind of way.

I always did find the phrase "Republican fat cats" amusing, in light of the everymen than ran on the recent Democratic presidential ticket; the Joe Lunchbox activist named George Soros; the 9-of-10 wealthiest Congressmen who are Democrats, etc., etc.

And of course, the recent Republican ticket, which had one son of a former President and 2 extremely wealthy guys was a dramatic example of everymen. Not to mention that one of those guys got wealthy at least partly through family connections, while the other had a pretty incompetent record at a big company, but still raked in millions. [ Whereas, at least Edwards earned his money himself]

And for every George Soros, the Republicans have Mellon Scaife's and Steve Forbes (you remember, that ordinary man who represents the great American dream of inheriting wealth).

LOL, "Everything had been mined," he explains. There was "nothing to research that was interesting anymore.". That's comical. Seriously, anyone who even thought of grad-school and/or a subsequent tenured-track position, should automatically be able to realize why Horowitz is an idiot.

"...not in a Ward Churchill kind of way but rather in a friends of Bill kind of way."

Holdfast,

Quite correct and exactly the point: regardless of pay or prospects, few lefties I know want to get up at 6am, dawn suit & tie, and go work on spreadsheets in a cubicle for 15 hours a day. Sure Goldman Sachs is more liberal than others but, as you observed, not as liberal as those being attacked by Horowitz.

Nor do many conservatives I know have much patience for the low salaries, low prestige, and seemingly aimless career of generating stacks of unread papers on philosophy, english, linguistics, etc.

uh_clemNor do many conservatives I know have much patience for the low salaries, low prestige, and seemingly aimless career of generating stacks of unread papers on philosophy, english, linguistics, etc.

Right. Most of the conservatives I know opt for low salaries, low prestige, and a seemingly aimless career of working at minimum wage in the service sector.

Ken Hahn and others who think "outlaw tenure" is a "simple" solution:

While I can almost imagine some idiotic state legislator undoing the tenure system for BigState U, do you really think it is appropriate to make tenure illegal?!!! Last time I looked, Dan's employer is a private school, and tenure is something they grant on the basis of what is involved in competing for labor in the academic market. In principle, I suppose you could only give federal funds to schools that had no tenure system, but you're proposing to limit the kinds of contracts that consenting adults can agree to. Perhaps you think that the "to death do us part" part of the wedding vows should be dropped too? After all, despite the availability of divorce, some people stay in bad marriages because they entered into these agreements.

The above is based on your simple-minded assertion that this would actually be a good idea. If you really want the what goes on at universities to be micromanaged by politicians and you want junior faculty to be even more terrorized by administrators, then I suppose it is. Looking at the actual history of the Ward Churchill affair, it seems to me that part of the reason he got tenure and promotion is that people at CU didn't stand up to the dean (at least two departments did, but Communications caved) in spite of being protected by tenure.

uh_clem,

you clearly need to start hanging out with a better class of conservatives!

(...kidding, of course)

The important thing to remember about Ward Churchill is that he was tenured in the department of Ethnic Studies. Not to bash any particular field as being terribly weak, but my experience is that such fields, like Peace Studies and Ethnic Studies, don't get half as much respect as something like Math or English or History. The comparison, therefore, is pretty senseless.

Horowitz complains that his books aren't discussed in academia.

I don't think that's true. The Free World Colossus (subsequently reissued as From Yalta to Vietnam) is often used as an example of revisionist Cold War history. The irony is that if anyone else wrote it, Horowitz would support the lawsuit of an offended anti-communist patriotic student if it was put on a required reading list!

"Horowitz tells Jacobson later in the article that someone should have made a movie of his life. In other words, he comes across as a vainglorious know-it-all, absolutely convinced that he's right about everything."

Say it ain't so!

I suppose as long as a 70 year old man's chief focus in life is to incite and outwit college students, he might as well be on the academy payroll.

The important thing to remember about Ward Churchill is that he was tenured in the department of Ethnic Studies.

The important thing to remember about Ward Churchill is that he's completely irrelevant. He has no followers or influence; his only function is as a human punching bag. A straw man in the flesh, so to speak.

Not to bash any particular field as being terribly weak, but my experience is that such fields, like Peace Studies and Ethnic Studies, don't get half as much respect as something like Math or English or History

Actually I (and I voted for Kerry, incidentally) don't have any trouble saying that departments like Ethnic studies, Women's studies etc. tend to be absurdly weak. These departments do often do good work, but the standard seems to be lower than other departments. I didn't know that English got much respect either ...

On the other hand, i agree that Ward Churchill was and is a complete non-entity.

Marsh wrote:

"And of course, the recent Republican
ticket, which had one son of a former
President and 2 extremely wealthy guys
was a dramatic example of everymen."

But here's the difference. The Republican
Ticket didn't PRETEND to be 'everymen'.

Just like Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity/
Bill Bennet etc. etc. etc. don't PRETEND
to be un-biased.

The issue here is arrogance, hubris,
lack of authenticity, hypocrisy and
condescension. MSM and Academia hate
the internet because it allows those of
us hoi poloi to easily check things out
for ourselves.

(Having to go to the library to actually
read books is somewhat inconvenient,
don't you know?)

So the Elites treat blogers just as the
one, true Catholic Church treated petitioners
of the Protestant Reformation.

"departments like Ethnic studies, Women's studies etc. tend to be absurdly weak. These departments do often do good work, but the standard seems to be lower than other departments."

Let's also remember that these departments are in their infancy (ok, maybe adolescence). It takes time to build a canon and to let the discursive process produce relevant and workable standards. As you say, they often do good work. If they can survive the reactionary onslaught waged by those who believe they oughtn't exist in the first place, and if they can survive the idiocy of some of their own (de Genova, Churchill, et al), they will develop standards comparable to the more established disciplines.

I think the more important point in which party is the party of "fat-cats" is the relative contribution size.

Democrats get the vast majority (>75%) of their contributions from a handful of super rich people,unions & lawers groups, in multi-million dollar doses.(The Dean campaign somewhat reversed this trend) Republicans get >75% of their contributions from individuals in amounts of $100 or less.

This is why the Dems freaked when their unlimited soft money was cut off. With a max hard money total of $2000 per candidate & (I believe) $14000 total per contributor, they could never keep up in the hard money game. Which is why the Moveon.orgs of the world had to do their campainging for them.

PS for the record I am not an enthusiastic Republican supporter, but more of what I call a "lesser evil Republican"

Admittedly, having to legislate a heavy-handed code of basic civility and equity at a university is not an ideal solution...

But that trumps the unwillingness of the professoriate to acknowledge the existence of a problem. They resemble nothing so much as the drunkard who reacts with obscenties to those trying to pry the car keys from his hands.

Universities might consider policing the emontionally immature or disturbed and the obnoxiously unprofessional political zealots on the faculty. it's not like no one knows who these characters are - their behavior is often notorious. Sometimes, legendary. That might remove 90 % of the groundswell.

I met Horowitz once during college. My personal opinion, at the time and today, is that he is an activist and is drawn to the excitement of activism. I suspect it was this and not a lack of interesting research topics that drove him from graduate studies. The prospect of sedentary academic research was likely suffocating. Complaining about not being in academia might be a useful foil for his current undertaking, but I doubt he seriously desires a place in academia, all protests to the contrary.

"Mr. Horowitz has always wanted to be a scholar himself."

In Rhetoric 101, don't you learn that this is a fallacious argument? It doesn't matter if it is a small child that points out the emperor has no clothes if, because of it, the rest of the people watching the parade begin to consider the possibility.

Hey Dan, hang in there!!! Turn in your packet, and don't think about it after that. And quit reading articles like that one in Chronicles - don't let it give you any ideas. People like me don't want to see any more than your bad-hair picture (thanks anyway).

At least you're at an institution that tenures conservatives once in a while! If my school were any further left, we'd fall into the Pacific...

Democrats get the vast majority (>75%) of their contributions from a handful of super rich people,unions & lawers groups, in multi-million dollar doses.(The Dean campaign somewhat reversed this trend) Republicans get >75% of their contributions from individuals in amounts of $100 or less.

Definitely not correct for the last cycle. Democrats had traditionally relied on unions etc. do fund raising for them, just as Republicans had relied on business groups, but both relied heavily on grass-roots campaigns in the last cycle. Yes, the Soros'es of the world contributed to moveon's, but there were and are plenty of Repub billionaries (Scaife, Forbes) who have their pocketbook open for the Club for Growth and others.

I think the more important point in which party is the party of "fat-cats" is the relative contribution size.

Equally important might be whom the "fat-cats" vote for. Most data we have indicates that people making over 100K voted for Bush over Kerry by around 10 points. Admittedly over 100k is not really a sign of a fat cat in many areas, but its still in the top 10% of the population income wise.

Lets presuppose for a moment that there is significant bias against conservatives in the academy. I don't agree with this proposition and I don't think the published data supports it, but lets take this as a starting point. A relevant question is whether or not Horowitz's proposed solution will help correct this putative situation. I'm a physician and whenever looking at a novel therapy, you have to consider both probable benefits and side effects. If the former are modest and the latter are significant or even potentially significant, then forget it. How much impact on diversifying faculty would Horowitz's approach have. Well, much less than he and his supporters believe. A fact which seems to escape general notice is that the majority of faculty at large universities are in the natural sciences or allied fields. Those of you associated with large public or private institutions of higher education just need to tally the number of faculty associated with your Engineering school, your med school, your nursing school, your school of public health, your allied health professions, and then add the faculty in basic science depts like chemistry, biology, physics, etc. This comes out to a clear majority of the faculty. As some prior posts have shown, appointments and tenure decisions are made on the basis on contributions in your field. In the natural sciences, ideological positions of the kind under discussion play no role and you can never infer someone's political preferences from material used for promotions and appointments. As recent surveys have shown, however, scientists and those in allied fields are overwhelmingly liberal in political views. Lets say that the Horowitz approach was implemented and depts like Political Science, Economics, etc., came to be 50/50 split in left/right orientation. Unless you imposed a formal ideological means test on ALL appointments and promotions, something that would be theoretically antithetical to the Horowitz "Bill of Rights", you'd still end up with an overwhelming liberal predominance in the natural sciences areas and predominance of liberal faculty members. Simply put, the Horowitz approach won't work and its clear lack of feasibility is good evidence of his lack of familiarity with the academic world.
What about the potential deleterious consequences? As commented by Prof. Gitlin, there is a real danger of improper political interference from state legislators, among others. In Florida legislature, for example, there was a Horowitz inspired bill introduced to allow civil actions against faculty by students. The legislator introducing the bill specifically mentioned the teaching of evolution as a target of such actions. Something like this could be incredibly destructive and it needn't just be applied to attack faculty of liberal views either.
The Horowitz proposal is simply a bad idea, even if you accept his arguable claims about bias against conservatives in the academy.
As for Prof. Drezner's anxieties about promotion, he should try to think about it this way. In most occupations, your promotion and job retention rests on the opinion of your supervisor. In other words, a single person has the predominant voice in your destiny. In academic life, your future rests in the hands of not one, but several people, usually with considerable experience in these matters. The criteria for appointment and promotion are generally well understood and known in advance. Most appointment and promotion decisions are usually reviewed by more than one committee and there are generally well defined procedures for appeal and further review. No system run by human beings is perfect (otherwise Ward Churchill wouldn't be a tenured faculty member at a fine university) but the academic appointment and promotions system is a lot better than most.

"Engineering school, your med school, your nursing school, your school of public health, your allied health professions, and then add the faculty in basic science depts like chemistry, biology, physics, etc. "

How many of those professions are not funded to a large extent by government or government decree. Med School, nursing school, school of public health and allied head professions are receive substantial funding by the exploding Medicare program.

Even hard sciences are affected be research grants from governments and corporate clients. Try being a biology professor and not believing in evolution.

There is a reason that professors overhelmingly veer toward the Democrratic Party. It makes them important when they don't have to answer to anyone else by government.

Excellent post by Roger who is correct Horowitz's solution will not do what it advertises. In fact, nothing can bring the liberal/conservative faculty ratio in line with that of the population at large without destroying the University. The worst part of this crusade, however, is that it distracts from the many problems with Univeristies. Some of these problems have to do with run-away costs, but the worst are the lack of attention placed on teaching undergraduates. Even though I disagree with them sometimes, I must admit that FIRE is an effective and probably necessary organizaqtion. The approach of FIRE (publicity combined with judicious filing of lawsuits) is much more effective and respectful of core academic values.

Once again, barely veiled testimony that the Fourth and Fifth Estates, reporters and academics, of the post-Enlightenment era, are proffering their presumptive, insinuating "authority" using the syntax and forms which are reminiscent of the most stereotypical versions of the Enlightenment's First and Second Estates. Avoidance, denial, bristling indignation, ad hominem dismissiveness, solipsistic and patronizing insistencies that all is well; guardians of the epistemological gateway turning away all who fail to conform; a clerisy of thin-skinned, authorizing agents.

Jacobsen's "knowing" divination of what Horowitz has always desired - despite the fact he's never applied for a job in a formal academic environment - is merely one reflection of the charming solipsisms amply on evidence herein.

Nope, no problem here folks, move along, not to worry, we're in charge and all is well.

Tim, responding to your somewhat confusing post.
There is no question that people receiving government largess are not going to be sympathetic to libertarian arguments, hence, less likely to be conservatives. Unfortunately, this simple point obscures a related but much more important point. Its not just that scientists and academic engineers receive government support that makes them anti-libertarian, its the fact that government support of basic and applied research really works. Mentally translate yourself back to 1950 to think about what the world is like without extensive academic biomedical research. Do you want to live in a world where the only antibiotics are penicillin and sulfa drugs (the development of the former subsidized by the British government), where there are no joint replacement surgeries, where 1 out of 8000 general anesthetics administered directly kills the patient, where there are not good treatments for Parkinson's disease, and where all children with acute leukemia die painful deaths? This argument applies to many, many fields of modern life, not just medicine. If you want the benefits of modern science and technology, you have to have a mechanism for basic science research and technology development, and that mechanism is inevitably going to involve large scale government subsidy of scientific research.

"Lets presuppose for a moment that there is significant bias against conservatives in the academy. I don't agree with this proposition and I don't think the published data supports it, but lets take this as a starting point." Roger Albin

Surely it would have been more interesting, not to mention more informative, to link to a couple of the empirical studies which all too plainly point in the opposing direction and then explain why you believe them to be misleading.

"A relevant question is whether or not Horowitz's proposed solution will help correct this putative situation."

Again, referencing the studies, the stats, will better help reveal the putatively putative nature of the initiative.

"How much impact on diversifying faculty would Horowitz's approach have. Well, much less than he and his supporters believe."

An enviable position to be in, possessing knowledge about future events, it makes short work of any tentativeness or doubt.

One could continue in this vein with notable ease.

Whether or not Horowitz's legislative and other initiatives comprise the solution can certainly inform the overall debate. That attempts to subvert or deflect the debate in toto, often unctuously and with suspect authority, are so often on evidence reflect a ploy, not a serious attempt to acknowledge the evidence and engage. Too, this is not at all an issue wherein the weakest link in the argument is attacked, after which the debate as a whole is dismissed with no more ado.

Vide, Students for Academic Freedom.org, also No Indoctrination.org.

I go to, literally, the most "Republican" school in the country. Even here, however, you can't openly espouse Conservative political view around most of the new professors. They've brought in new people from around the academia, Berkley, NYU, etc., and the new professors and administrators reflect it. Once the older professors retire/die off, this place is going to turn out just like the rest.

Tim, you can't be a biologist and not believe in evolution because evolution is one of the fundamental principles of biology. It's the unifying principle along with DNA->RNA->protein.

Ted, the Republican ticket didn't try to pretend to be "everyman"?

I generally classify creating an accent that no one else in your family has as a type of affectation that is done to get people to ignore your Connecticut Yankee roots and think of you as a "good ol' Texas boy." Remember, back in 1988, before GWB had the Texas patter down, he lost a House race to an opponent who labeled him a rich Northern elitist.