Politics in the Professorate and the Professor Watchlist

There is a major problem of a lack of viewpoint diversity on college campuses. In 2014, liberal professors outnumbered conservative professors 4 to 1 in the United States overall, 28 to 1 in New England, 6 to 1 in the Far West, and 3 to 1 in the Plains and Southeast (Abrams, 2016). Elliot Kaufman (2016) wrote of the lack of viewpoint diversity on college campuses in “Hotbeds of Groupthink: The Shrinking Viewpoint Diversity on Our College Campuses” in National Review, and reported that Democrat professors outnumbered Republican professors 11.5 to 1. Within this disproportionate context, interesting social phenomena occur.

Professor Watchlist is a new website that recently launched. An offshoot of Turning Point USA, it states as its mission “to expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advances leftist propaganda in the classroom.”

Coleen Flaherty (2016) wrote about the new Professor Watchlist in “Being Watched” in Inside Higher Ed. An officer of the AAUP was quoted as stating “The monitoring of classrooms for an outside organization which arrogates itself the prerogative of determining accuracy from what is reported to it…can only inhibit the process through which higher learning occurs and knowledge is advanced.” Such an attitude contests free speech and implies a lack of utility for established after-market teacher rating systems such as Ratemyprofessor.com. The theme is that ideology congruent with the dominant group in the academy is worthy, opposing ideas are unworthy, and the judgment of the merit of an idea comes from above in the status hierarchy, not below. The overwhelming sentiment is that a paternalistic academy will decide, not a free market of ideas.

John Warner (2016) wrote about why the new Professor Watchlist is not something to worry about in “Why I’m Not (Super) Worried About That Professor Watchlist” in Inside Higher Ed. The article demonstrates a lack of connection to a large portion of university students. The article, including the comments section, is a great example of how a conservative student’s efforts, in this case Charlie Kirk, are dismissed as being inferior. “When the interest fades (as it will) and the project fails to have much impact (as I hope), I predict Charlie Kirk will not keep it up because Charlie Kirk does not actually believe in this, except as a way to receive approval, to feel that belonging. Ultimately, though, it’s not enough. A life defined by who your enemies are isn’t going to work.” From Warner’s perspective, Charlie Kirk’s free speech is the problem, not that of liberal professors. In essence, Mr. Kirk was individually shouted down by yet another professor. Take a look at the subtitle of that article, which accuses Kirk as being motivated against something. I suspect that Mr. Kirk, who shares the perspective of many conservative students, believes in plenty but is tired of being marginalized and shouted down in his classrooms. Free speech is tricky. The perspective of Warner seems to be that if you don’t like the idea, discredit the messenger, indeed in this case to question the utility of a young man’s life (“My hunch is that Charlie Kirk is not driven by ideology…but by approval...A life defined by who your enemies are isn’t going to work.”) That is a strong statement for a professor to direct towards a 21 year old. It had not occurred to me to take the idea that Mr. Kirk developed (Professor Watchlist) and look up his (Kirk’s) background to see if the idea (Professor Watchlist) had any merit. That is far too much of an elitist strategy for me to take to undermine an idea. The persuasion principle of authority, after all, is one of the fundamental principles of persuasion to watch out for (Cialdini, 2006).

The Executive Team of the Heterodox Academy (2016) condemned the Professor Watchlist in a statement. Laudable, but this is an example of being out of touch with conservative students and faculty. Conservative students and faculty have been marginalized in the ivory tower. I agree with the Heterodox Academy that such a watchlist does not facilitate collegial discourse. Indeed, this watchlist is a response to events such as the bias response teams and trigger warnings that have covered many campuses and predominantly silenced conservative but not liberal discourse. For conservative students, speaking in class already registers you on the informal watchlist in the predominantly liberal academy. For conservative professors, offering their perspective does the same. The idea of a watchlist is similar to the informal blacklisting that occurs for conservative faculty. While there may be unpleasant implications of a Professor Watchlist for liberal professors who stifle viewpoint diversity, free speech is a double edged sword and conservative professors have felt the sharp edge of blacklisted ideology for many years. Shields and Dunn (2016) described this in detail in Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University. Note that in their extensive study of conservative faculty, anonymity was the only way to get participants because of the ramifications of being a public conservative professor in academia.

What are the implications of the professorate being out of touch? George Will (2016) laid out the implications of an overwhelming liberal academy in his article “Did Academia Help Elect Donald Trump?” in National Review. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author noted: “Institutions of supposedly higher education are awash with hysteria, authoritarianism, obscurantism, philistinism, and charlatanry.” Living as a conservative professor inside of the academy, I can see elements of those but disagree that such language describes the majority of academics, at least in my experiences. That being said, it is an uncomfortable time to be a conservative professor, given the recent U.S. political tensions and an ideological minority position within the academy.

The Professor Watchlist will be useful only to those conservative students who are interested in what professors they will avoid taking for their own personal reasons, and hopefully will not lead to targeted harassment. Unfortunately, it is a mild glimpse for progressive liberal professors into the day to day life of conservative professors in a close-minded academy that on most days does not value ideological diversity, on its best days does, and on its worst (all too common lately) days actively suppresses it.

Nearly a century ago, this boiler served as the foundation of a university's temperature regulation. Now it lies abandoned in a nature preserve on university property.

Source: Robert Mather