Speaker blasts campus biases

Classrooms across the country lack political diversity, a Santa Clara University professor of economics said during a lecture at UNC on Monday night.

The College Republicans sponsored Daniel Klein’s talk on the ideology of faculty in the social sciences and humanities in hopes that students would come to believe their claims that the campus has a liberal bias.

“Over the past year I’ve talked to a lot of Republicans and Democrats about the balance in classrooms, and we all came to the conclusion that all the professors were of the same ideology,” said Jordan Selleck, chairman of College Republicans.

“I think it’s common knowledge of the professors and their political views. (Klein’s) scholarly statistics prove this.”

Klein’s research examines the University of California-Berkeley and Stanford University and shows that on those campuses, there are eight professors who are Democrats for every one Republican.

“Republicans are being systematically eliminated from these institutions,” Klein said.

And he said he does not think universities will alleviate the problems in the near future.

“I don’t think (universities) are trying,” he said. “I think they’re all pretty much in denial about it being a problem. They don’t want to hire more Libertarians and conservatives.”

Klein also spoke about his research examining the stances professors at six different institutions of higher education take on political issues.

Democrats tend to say that they don’t always follow the party line and that their party itself is diverse, but Klein said his research shows that this is not true. He presented graphs to his audience showing that Democrats adhere to ideology on most issues.

“There’s a left and then there’s non-left, and there is not a lot of diversity in the left,” he said. “Not only do (liberal professors) dominate, but they dominate with a pretty narrow tent.”

Klein suggested using affirmative action to diversify academic departments. When professors apply for a job, they should check a political ideology box, he said.

Klein also suggested creating new partisan departments. Non-left faculty could come together on campus, create a department and hire more faculty members who share their political views.

Klein said he does not think that either of these ideas are likely to be implemented, but he said university administrators still can try to create a more diverse academia.

By the end of his lecture, Klein said he wanted students to realize that a lack of diversity in academia is a problem at many universities.

“I want students to realize that its a general culture problem,” he said. “I hope students get a better understanding that it’s a policy issue; it’s not about being Democrat or Republican. We need more realism about the depth of the problem and the difficulties in trying to change it.”

He stressed that universities make a big impact on American society.

“Academia is a big part of our culture,” he said.

“Even if we can’t change the composition of the faculty, awareness is an end in itself — it helps us to understand the culture around us.”

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.