CONSERVATIVE activists are on the march, determined to expose hotbeds of liberal influence wherever they find (or even suspect) them. Their latest target is higher education, one of the few corners of American life where liberal ideas still hold sway.
Indeed, several recent studies have confirmed that Democrats greatly outnumber Republicans -- by ratios as much as 7-to-1 -- on many university faculties. This revelation has caused outrage in conservative quarters, where it is seen as evidence of liberal manipulation, and worse.
Leading the charge is David Horowitz, a former student leftist who is now president of the right-leaning Center for the Study of Popular Culture. According to Mr. Horowitz, there has been a "successful and pervasive blacklist ... of conservatives on American college campuses" that can only be rectified by the intervention of state legislatures and boards of trustees. He has called for the enactment of an "Academic Bill of Rights" to protect the interests of conservative faculty and students.
Other conservatives make similar claims. Thomas C. Reeves, of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, for example, has insisted that "conservatives are discriminated against routinely and deliberately" in faculty hiring, making some highly qualified candidates virtually "unemployable" on highly respected campuses.
These are unexpected arguments to hear from conservatives, since they usually deny that disproportionate statistics can be taken as proof of discrimination. When it comes to employment discrimination or affirmative action, conservatives will blithely insist that the absence of minorities (in a work force or student body) simply means that there were too few "qualified applicants." And don't bother talking to them about a "glass ceiling" or "mommy track" that impedes women's careers. That's not discrimination, they say, it's "self-selection."
Conservatives abandon these arguments, however, when it comes to their own prospects in academe. Then the relative scarcity of Republican professors is widely asserted as proof of willful prejudice.
Of course, there are other possible explanations. Perhaps fewer conservatives than liberals are willing to endure the many years of poverty-stricken graduate study necessary to qualify for a faculty position. Perhaps conservatives are smarter than liberals, and recognize that graduate school is a poor investment, given the scant job opportunities that await new Ph.D.s. Or perhaps studious conservatives are more attracted to the greater financial rewards of industry and commerce.
