See label Academic Freedom for more and the latest at: Video: Dave Barry, Pullitzer Prize-winning author, censored at Marquette University. What does Dave have to say?
Obama spoke about more open mindedness while our universities only invite liberals to speak at commencement addresses and censor conservatives.
Last year, the Press-Citizen reported that the University of Iowa's professors are overwhelmingly registered Democrats. The Department of History did not even have one Republican on its faculty. The College of Law had one (among more than fifty tenure-track professors), but he was hired more than 20 years ago.
To date, concerns about this imbalance have focused on the implications for students: Does political bias skew what they learn?
Three recent cases in Iowa, however, have raised other, equally troubling concerns:
• The risk of viewpoint discrimination in faculty hiring and tenure decisions and
• An appalling lack of intellectual and political diversity among professors.
Such conformity can chill dissent on campus and discourage those with different views from pursuing careers in academia.
Three disturbing cases
• In 2005, Iowa State University denied professor Guillermo Gonzales tenure in part because his research and writing allowed for the possibility of an intelligent force to explain the creation of the world. Gonzales had published widely in his field and had excellent student evaluations. The tenure committee admitted his work's implications for "intelligent design" antagonized them.
Shouldn't all views be included, especially if job performance was stellar?
Would the same situation be tolerated if the "tables were turned"?
I believe this point is valid regardless of your personal views on "intelligent design." Even staunch opponents (and there are opponents in both political parties) should embrace intellectual diversity in academia.
• In 2007, the University of Iowa College of Law had two openings for Instructors in its Legal Writing Program.
The two finalists included a self-described "off the charts liberal" who "hated Republicans" but who had never practiced law, nor published any works and was in his first semester of law school teaching.
The other was Teresa Wagner, who had taught previously at George Mason University Law School, had practiced and had published numerous works, including two edited books of essays and several legal briefs -- one to the United States Supreme Court. But Wagner was a known conservative.
The law school hired the liberal, not Wagner.
• Also in 2007, Mark Moyar, a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard and Cambridge universities, as well as the author of a book on Vietnam before he even began graduate school -- with a second book forthcoming -- was passed over in Iowa's History Department for a candidate who had published no books and attended lower tier schools.
Moyar is a Republican who defends the Vietnam war.
Questions raised
What is going on? A few obvious questions come to mind.
• First, how can our universities espouse and instill the value of diversity when departments are so politically lopsided?
The Board of Regents at the University of Colorado recently addressed this question and ended by passing a resolution encouraging its state universities to pursue intellectual as well as cultural diversity.
Does Iowa need such a measure?
• Second, we must at least consider if faculty members are overwhelmingly liberal because they discriminate in hiring against those who hold opposing views. If so, we have serious First Amendment issues to face -- that is, do we really have freedom of expression and inquiry? Or might we face termination, or a refusal to hire, if our opinions are at odds with those who hire and fire?
The numbers alone point to a chilling effect: How many aspiring academics will join the Republican Party, or advocate its principles, if they know how politically skewed hiring faculty are and when the price could be the end of their careers?
Obviously, professors have a right to their views. But those same professors must never impose political litmus tests in hiring or the granting of tenure.
Such a practice would be a gross abuse of power. The prospect that secure the salaried like-minded especially is unseemly now, when millions of Americans have experienced layoffs and unemployment is high. A career in academia should be open to any qualified individual, regardless of her political leanings.
Enforcing non-discrimination laws
Wagner now is the plaintiff in an employment discrimination lawsuit against the UI College of Law. Given the numbers on party affiliation there, one wonders if the hiring signals also are simply put: No Republicans need apply.
Moyar is calling on Iowans to enforce our anti-discrimination laws. I'm with Moyar. It's time we examined hiring practices at our state universities. Iowans of all political stripes deserve it.
Ask yourself one question -- and please ask and answer it honestly: Would this same situation be tolerated in Iowa City or Ames if the "tables were turned" on the left?
It is time for the Iowa state Board of Regents to pass an intellectual diversity resolution or the Legislature should consider intervention.
