Why are most top colleges liberal?

[TomServo]

<p>Taking “liberal” in its modern American sense, meaning “left-wing,” then I’m reminded of this quote by former left-winger Thomas Sowell:</p>

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Too often what are called “educated” people are simply people who have been sheltered from reality for years in ivy-covered buildings. Those whose whole careers have been spent in ivy-covered buildings, insulated by tenure, can remain adolescents on into their golden retirement years.

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<p>He would know, he was an economist at Brandeis, UCLA, etc. Another relevant Sowell quote:</p>

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The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.

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<p>Academia is an ideal job for a leftist. Results don’t matter, so compensation has nothing to do with ability, except the ability to attract grant money. And as anyone can tell you, the allocation of grant money has very little to do with results.</p>

<p>Which leads directly to another reason why universities are so monolithically left-wing: virtually every professor is a de facto government employee. By that I mean even profs at private institutions rely on handouts from the government, this is where most research funding comes from. So it is in academia’s interest to have a bigger government spending more money. The more “problems,” either real or imagined (disease, poverty, social programs, pollution, etc.) the more “justification” for spending tax-payer money on research. Think I’m making this up? You aren’t reading faculty newsletters and newspapers, this is the modus operandi.</p>

<p>Also, as for “more education correlates with being more liberal,” this is wrong for two reasons:

1. it’s based on a very broad statistics, where a year as an undergrad studying poetry counts the same as a year in a PhD program studying nuclear physics
2. the licensing/masters requirements of many liberal-friendly jobs like social worker and teacher (liberal-friendly because results don’t matter and pay is based on seniority and politics) artificially inflate the number of liberals with “higher levels of education,” IF you consider getting a masters in education as “education.” I don’t.
3. it treats “liberal” and “conservative” as part of a one-dimensional spectrum. Even a two-dimensional spectrum like that political quiz website is rather limited. You may find an ardent libertarian economics PhD considered a “liberal” for being an agnostic gay marriage supporter. You may find a Ron Paul style right-winger considered “liberal” for being anti-war and pro-immigrant.</p>

<p>Also, a lot of “conservatives” are scared of academia because they’re worried they won’t get anywhere because of their views. Sometimes I’m terrified of being “outed” as a libertarian Christian but I wear my religious t-shirts anyway. I know another guy who was upset that he was outed as a Republican. He’s the smartest guy in my school, triple-majoring in math, cs, and physics, and like me plans to get a PhD in physics. So you have the discouragement incentive going on. Which is a vicious cycle, because faculty begets faculty.</p>