5 ms·

> Conservatives have been basically purged from academia over the last 30 years, Any citations on this?

WarmWash 4mo ago
Sure https://www.aei.org/articles/partisan-professors/ https://www.aei.org/articles/partisan-professors/ I'd be shocked to find anyone surprised by this.
- jasonlotito 4mo ago
  That doesn't show they were purged. There are many reasons their numbers declined.
  - WarmWash 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - jasonlotito 4mo ago
      So you admit you were lying. Gotcha.
      - WarmWash 4mo ago
        There are not many reasons for climate change, it is in fact just humans. That should be obvious.
        anon84873628 4mo ago
        Ok, so we establish that "Climate change could seem to have many causes, but educated people know that human activity is the proven cause of the majority of the change." And now you have another situation where "there could be many causes for the change X". And you think that because Climate Change followed that pattern above, X must necessarily have only one real cause, and that cause is your preferred pet theory. Does not sound like a convincing argument.
        defrost 4mo ago
        Let's just talk about the recent (past 500 years) change in the insulation properties of the planet's atmosphere. It's been in a constant burbling flux that has many factors, fires, volcanoes, etc all contribute to the steady level of churn. The substantial change away from baseline is well recorded, tied back to sources by isotopes, and has a single cause - carbon dioxide by products from the combustion and release of previously sequestered carbon sources. There's no doubt about that - there are multiple atmospheric libraries of gases from various parts of the world to back that up. The data source sets for atmospheric makeup and ocean thermoclines are deeply tied into Cold War nuclear test monitoring and watching enemies, not some hippy dippy eco friendly new age hand wavyness.
        anon84873628 4mo ago
        What in my comment makes you think I'm disputing anthropogenic climate change? It's about the pattern of logic you are applying. You seem to think that because Climate change is a messy topic with one real explanation, every other messy topic must also have a single true explanation. No, it doesn't work that way
        jasonlotito 4mo ago
        Except we weren't talking about climate change. We were talking about you lying. You said one thing, and the link you provided did not support your claim. If you make a claim, and the thing you say supports it does not support it, kinda sounds like lying. You trying to make this about climate change just proves even further that you know you are a liar.
    - esarbe 4mo ago
      That human industrial activities are the primary direct causation of the currently observed climate change is a scientific fact, proven beyond any reasonable doubt. What you show is that there are not many conservatives in academia. The reason for that is manifold. It could be that they are forced out. It could be that their views are changed with higher learning and turn progressive. It could be that conservatives self-select to not go into academia. Pointing that out is not hand-waving.
      - Levitz 4mo ago
        When we are talking about a context in which affirmative action and diversity statements were normalized it absolutely is hand-waving
        esarbe 4mo ago
        No it's not. If scientific investigation shows that there are many causes that have a relevant impact on "A", then saying that "A has multiple relevant and possible causes" is not hand-waving. It's stating the fact. Hand-waving is to pearl clutchlingly throw out vague terms like "affirmative action" and "diversity statements" without properly stating what the mechanism is supposed to be and without providing any evidence that it is relevant in the last. You know, polemic tribal whistle-blowing like you are doing. That's hand-waving.
        Levitz 4mo ago
        >vague terms like "affirmative action" and "diversity statements" And this is circling the wagons. Sorry but I can't believe someone who is intellectually honest is capable of writing such thing. You are either blatantly ignorant on this matter (and shouldn't be talking about it at all) or taking me for a ride. It's preposterous that I have to explain how requiring a document in which you state allegiance to leftist ideals has an impact on the political makeup of admissions. I don't have enough frontal lobe damage to take you seriously.
  - xdennis 4mo ago
    > That doesn't show they were purged. There are many reasons their numbers declined. Fun fact, what you're arguing is actually one of the reasons Charlie was murdered. He notoriously said that the Civil Rights Act was a mistake. He specifically referred to Title VII which states even a neutral policy can be racism if it produces disparate impact[1] in practice. That is, if a neutral policy results in fewer black people being hired, that's evidence of racism. Charlie disagreed with that. It's fun to see leftists argue the same when it comes to discrimination against right wing or centrist academics. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact
    - anon84873628 4mo ago
      Well, a key difference is that race is an intrinsic immutable attribute, and political views aren't. The paradox of tolerance is real. And more practically, it's impossible to guarantee representation of all viewpoints because there are an infinite number of them.
      - defrost 4mo ago
        > that race is an intrinsic immutable attribute Not to those familiar with the history of the US Census racial classifications, given the number of times the categories shifted and changed it seems more than a little opinionated.
        anon84873628 4mo ago
        Ok fine, let's call it "ethnicity" then. Would you and your sibling care to comment on the actual point of the parent comment thread?
        defrost 4mo ago
        > fine, let's call it "ethnicity" then. Ethnicity is mostly stable for most individuals, sure, but it too is hardly immutable - people do and have changed their countries, social cultures, and daily language usage- even to the point of struggling to think and talk in their primary birth languages. > care to comment on the actual point of the parent comment thread? Ahh, that "Charlie" (Kirk) had opinions, that US science is in chaos, that US use of the phrase "leftists" is always grating, that a two party Hotelling's law cluster feck inevitably resulting from US style elections is inadequate to politically represent a large population? There's a lot going on here; one thing at a time is that race being an "an intrinsic immutable attribute" is all manner of horseshit.
- mullingitover 4mo ago
  [dead]
- javascriptfan69 4mo ago
  What if its just self selection? Conservatives spread propaganda about woke universities -> conservative kids are less likely to go. Do this for decades and you end up in the situation we're in. Either that or conservatives are just stupider and less likely to be academics; which is, in my opinion, more likely than your hypothesis about grand conspiracy.
  - cosmicgadget 4mo ago
    And it's more than the self selection force of conseratives being too frightened that college will change their worldview. Take a liberal and a conservative with equivalent postgraduate degrees. Now offer them their choice of a faculty position or a C-suite career track. Based on the values that define their respective ideologies, is it a coin toss for which path either chooses?
  - anon84873628 4mo ago
    Or even that the categories are shifting. People who hold perfectly reasonable classical Conservative viewpoints are now excluded from the Republican party. An institution failing to shift more right doesn't make it biased.
  - Levitz 4mo ago
    What if it's not that? Let me give you a hint: the concept of DEI statement to apply for a position exists
- cosmicgadget 4mo ago
  I don't think there is surprise that higher learning is associated with progressivism. I think the surprise is that someone believes its indicative of a giant conspiracy to exile conservative professors.
  - try_the_bass 4mo ago
    > I don't think there is surprise that higher learning is associated with progressivism. This is such a wildly elitist take. There's nothing intrinsically progressive about education, and to just declare so as fact is an excellent example of the exact kind of hostility that keeps non-progressives from being at home in higher education. > I think the surprise is that someone believes its indicative of a giant conspiracy to exile conservative professors. Is it really surprising that people who disagree with someone's politics would let that bleed over into their assessment of that person's professional abilities? We literally see this everywhere! People use a person's politics to discredit other aspects of their being all the time. Conservative professors are a rare breed in academia because non-conservatives in academia make it a very hostile workplace environment.
    - cosmicgadget 4mo ago
      > just declare so as fact is an excellent example of the exact kind of hostility that keeps non-progressives from being at home in higher education. My friend, I simply stated a conclusion that is very commonly accepted, including by conservatives (hints: populism, religion, gender roles). You're welcome to dispute it but instead you declare it 'hostile'. If conservatives think this is offensive then I'll add that to the list of reasons they seem to avoid scenarios where their viewpoints are challenged (because that's how academia works). > Is it really surprising that people who disagree with someone's politics would let that bleed over into their assessment of that person's professional abilities? It certainly can. That's a long way from a coordinated conspiracy. And there are layers of insulation like wanting talent regardless of personality and avoiding legal issues. > Conservative professors are a rare breed in academia because non-conservatives in academia make it a very hostile workplace environment. Like stealing their lunch or lighting them up in a reply-all or what are we talking about here? Note I'm not freaking out that you "just declared something as a fact".
- titzer 4mo ago
  FTA > The lack of diversity among professors is problematic for both education and research, ostensibly the overriding purposes of universities. I basically did a spit-take here. Lack of diversity is suddenly--and only--a problem when it doesn't include conservatives. The funny thing is that racial and cultural diversity is higher amongst faculty than the general population. For decades America has attracted the brightest and highest-achieving college students and researchers from around the world, and those people eventually get faculty positions and advance their careers. It has gotten to the point that we hear people (usually conservatives) complain that some fields are dominated by non-white people. And shock, as it turns out, American conservative viewpoints are actually a minority in the world. If higher education were actually representative of world population, 1/5 would be Chinese, 1/5 would be Indian, 1/5 European, and only 1/20 would even be American. If we were generous and say that half of America is conservative (it's not), then only 1/40 would be an American conservative. Most people in the world are not American conservatives. This is just a fact. They say that reality has a liberal bias. For the record, I don't believe it has a liberal bias, because American liberalism is just a weird grab bag of outposts on the cultural war front, but reality absolutely does not support a rightwing view. We hear conservatives whine and moan about diversity exactly when it suits them, and we've all seen just exactly how they feel about diversity.
amanaplanacanal 4mo ago
More likely that conservatives turned liberal once the right went all in on anti-intellectualism. Of course the real question is: what does conservative even mean any more? The joining of Falwell and Reagan fucked both conservatism and evangelical Christianity.
- Windchaser 4mo ago
  Yep, it's at least partly this. I watched a lot of "moderate" academics become "liberal" after Trump's first election. If you're a scientist by principles and a moderate by political views, and the right-wing party comes out in opposition to science, well, it's fair that you might then join the "pro-science party". Being pro-science becomes a liberal position. So it's not that conservatives were "purged" from the ranks of academia.
datsci_est_2015 4mo ago
It’s a pretty commonly repeated theory amongst far right / reactionary “thought leaders”. They call it the “Long March Through the Institutions”. I think the comment you were responding to was ironically referencing it.
- WarmWash 4mo ago
  It's not especially a "right wing theory" anymore than climate change is a "left wing theory" https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/conservative-professors-dei-initiatives/682944/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/conservati...
  - datsci_est_2015 4mo ago
    You misunderstand, the idea of the “Long March Through the Institutions” is that innocent conservative intellectuals are the victims of a central, coordinated campaign for them to be expelled from academia in order to transform academia into an institution that serves leftwing agendas. It’s an explicit rejection that such a transformation could occur naturally, and can fairly be considered a conspiracy theory by the mainstream specifically because it meets Barkun’s criteria for conspiracy theories: - nothing happens by accident - nothing is as it seems - everything is connected as well as the lack of a smoking gun.
    - WarmWash 4mo ago
      I don't really buy that idea, but like the one black guy at the Country Line Dance, you get the strong vibe you are not in the right place, and kind of just want to leave, regardless of how people are upfront treating you.
      - datsci_est_2015 4mo ago
        Yeah you may not believe it personally but there are definitely many in the reactionary right who do. It’s not difficult to find their forums.
      - 4mo ago

Sure https://www.aei.org/articles/partisan-professors/ https://www.aei.org/articles/partisan-professors/ I'd be shocked to find anyone surprised by this.

jasonlotito 4mo ago
That doesn't show they were purged. There are many reasons their numbers declined.
- WarmWash 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - jasonlotito 4mo ago
    So you admit you were lying. Gotcha.
    - WarmWash 4mo ago
      There are not many reasons for climate change, it is in fact just humans. That should be obvious.
      - anon84873628 4mo ago
        Ok, so we establish that "Climate change could seem to have many causes, but educated people know that human activity is the proven cause of the majority of the change." And now you have another situation where "there could be many causes for the change X". And you think that because Climate Change followed that pattern above, X must necessarily have only one real cause, and that cause is your preferred pet theory. Does not sound like a convincing argument.
        defrost 4mo ago
        Let's just talk about the recent (past 500 years) change in the insulation properties of the planet's atmosphere. It's been in a constant burbling flux that has many factors, fires, volcanoes, etc all contribute to the steady level of churn. The substantial change away from baseline is well recorded, tied back to sources by isotopes, and has a single cause - carbon dioxide by products from the combustion and release of previously sequestered carbon sources. There's no doubt about that - there are multiple atmospheric libraries of gases from various parts of the world to back that up. The data source sets for atmospheric makeup and ocean thermoclines are deeply tied into Cold War nuclear test monitoring and watching enemies, not some hippy dippy eco friendly new age hand wavyness.
        anon84873628 4mo ago
        What in my comment makes you think I'm disputing anthropogenic climate change? It's about the pattern of logic you are applying. You seem to think that because Climate change is a messy topic with one real explanation, every other messy topic must also have a single true explanation. No, it doesn't work that way
      - jasonlotito 4mo ago
        Except we weren't talking about climate change. We were talking about you lying. You said one thing, and the link you provided did not support your claim. If you make a claim, and the thing you say supports it does not support it, kinda sounds like lying. You trying to make this about climate change just proves even further that you know you are a liar.
  - esarbe 4mo ago
    That human industrial activities are the primary direct causation of the currently observed climate change is a scientific fact, proven beyond any reasonable doubt. What you show is that there are not many conservatives in academia. The reason for that is manifold. It could be that they are forced out. It could be that their views are changed with higher learning and turn progressive. It could be that conservatives self-select to not go into academia. Pointing that out is not hand-waving.
    - Levitz 4mo ago
      When we are talking about a context in which affirmative action and diversity statements were normalized it absolutely is hand-waving
      - esarbe 4mo ago
        No it's not. If scientific investigation shows that there are many causes that have a relevant impact on "A", then saying that "A has multiple relevant and possible causes" is not hand-waving. It's stating the fact. Hand-waving is to pearl clutchlingly throw out vague terms like "affirmative action" and "diversity statements" without properly stating what the mechanism is supposed to be and without providing any evidence that it is relevant in the last. You know, polemic tribal whistle-blowing like you are doing. That's hand-waving.
        Levitz 4mo ago
        >vague terms like "affirmative action" and "diversity statements" And this is circling the wagons. Sorry but I can't believe someone who is intellectually honest is capable of writing such thing. You are either blatantly ignorant on this matter (and shouldn't be talking about it at all) or taking me for a ride. It's preposterous that I have to explain how requiring a document in which you state allegiance to leftist ideals has an impact on the political makeup of admissions. I don't have enough frontal lobe damage to take you seriously.
- xdennis 4mo ago
  > That doesn't show they were purged. There are many reasons their numbers declined. Fun fact, what you're arguing is actually one of the reasons Charlie was murdered. He notoriously said that the Civil Rights Act was a mistake. He specifically referred to Title VII which states even a neutral policy can be racism if it produces disparate impact[1] in practice. That is, if a neutral policy results in fewer black people being hired, that's evidence of racism. Charlie disagreed with that. It's fun to see leftists argue the same when it comes to discrimination against right wing or centrist academics. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact
  - anon84873628 4mo ago
    Well, a key difference is that race is an intrinsic immutable attribute, and political views aren't. The paradox of tolerance is real. And more practically, it's impossible to guarantee representation of all viewpoints because there are an infinite number of them.
    - defrost 4mo ago
      > that race is an intrinsic immutable attribute Not to those familiar with the history of the US Census racial classifications, given the number of times the categories shifted and changed it seems more than a little opinionated.
      - anon84873628 4mo ago
        Ok fine, let's call it "ethnicity" then. Would you and your sibling care to comment on the actual point of the parent comment thread?
        defrost 4mo ago
        > fine, let's call it "ethnicity" then. Ethnicity is mostly stable for most individuals, sure, but it too is hardly immutable - people do and have changed their countries, social cultures, and daily language usage- even to the point of struggling to think and talk in their primary birth languages. > care to comment on the actual point of the parent comment thread? Ahh, that "Charlie" (Kirk) had opinions, that US science is in chaos, that US use of the phrase "leftists" is always grating, that a two party Hotelling's law cluster feck inevitably resulting from US style elections is inadequate to politically represent a large population? There's a lot going on here; one thing at a time is that race being an "an intrinsic immutable attribute" is all manner of horseshit.
mullingitover 4mo ago
[dead]
javascriptfan69 4mo ago
What if its just self selection? Conservatives spread propaganda about woke universities -> conservative kids are less likely to go. Do this for decades and you end up in the situation we're in. Either that or conservatives are just stupider and less likely to be academics; which is, in my opinion, more likely than your hypothesis about grand conspiracy.
- cosmicgadget 4mo ago
  And it's more than the self selection force of conseratives being too frightened that college will change their worldview. Take a liberal and a conservative with equivalent postgraduate degrees. Now offer them their choice of a faculty position or a C-suite career track. Based on the values that define their respective ideologies, is it a coin toss for which path either chooses?
- anon84873628 4mo ago
  Or even that the categories are shifting. People who hold perfectly reasonable classical Conservative viewpoints are now excluded from the Republican party. An institution failing to shift more right doesn't make it biased.
- Levitz 4mo ago
  What if it's not that? Let me give you a hint: the concept of DEI statement to apply for a position exists
cosmicgadget 4mo ago
I don't think there is surprise that higher learning is associated with progressivism. I think the surprise is that someone believes its indicative of a giant conspiracy to exile conservative professors.
- try_the_bass 4mo ago
  > I don't think there is surprise that higher learning is associated with progressivism. This is such a wildly elitist take. There's nothing intrinsically progressive about education, and to just declare so as fact is an excellent example of the exact kind of hostility that keeps non-progressives from being at home in higher education. > I think the surprise is that someone believes its indicative of a giant conspiracy to exile conservative professors. Is it really surprising that people who disagree with someone's politics would let that bleed over into their assessment of that person's professional abilities? We literally see this everywhere! People use a person's politics to discredit other aspects of their being all the time. Conservative professors are a rare breed in academia because non-conservatives in academia make it a very hostile workplace environment.
  - cosmicgadget 4mo ago
    > just declare so as fact is an excellent example of the exact kind of hostility that keeps non-progressives from being at home in higher education. My friend, I simply stated a conclusion that is very commonly accepted, including by conservatives (hints: populism, religion, gender roles). You're welcome to dispute it but instead you declare it 'hostile'. If conservatives think this is offensive then I'll add that to the list of reasons they seem to avoid scenarios where their viewpoints are challenged (because that's how academia works). > Is it really surprising that people who disagree with someone's politics would let that bleed over into their assessment of that person's professional abilities? It certainly can. That's a long way from a coordinated conspiracy. And there are layers of insulation like wanting talent regardless of personality and avoiding legal issues. > Conservative professors are a rare breed in academia because non-conservatives in academia make it a very hostile workplace environment. Like stealing their lunch or lighting them up in a reply-all or what are we talking about here? Note I'm not freaking out that you "just declared something as a fact".
titzer 4mo ago
FTA > The lack of diversity among professors is problematic for both education and research, ostensibly the overriding purposes of universities. I basically did a spit-take here. Lack of diversity is suddenly--and only--a problem when it doesn't include conservatives. The funny thing is that racial and cultural diversity is higher amongst faculty than the general population. For decades America has attracted the brightest and highest-achieving college students and researchers from around the world, and those people eventually get faculty positions and advance their careers. It has gotten to the point that we hear people (usually conservatives) complain that some fields are dominated by non-white people. And shock, as it turns out, American conservative viewpoints are actually a minority in the world. If higher education were actually representative of world population, 1/5 would be Chinese, 1/5 would be Indian, 1/5 European, and only 1/20 would even be American. If we were generous and say that half of America is conservative (it's not), then only 1/40 would be an American conservative. Most people in the world are not American conservatives. This is just a fact. They say that reality has a liberal bias. For the record, I don't believe it has a liberal bias, because American liberalism is just a weird grab bag of outposts on the cultural war front, but reality absolutely does not support a rightwing view. We hear conservatives whine and moan about diversity exactly when it suits them, and we've all seen just exactly how they feel about diversity.

amanaplanacanal 4mo ago

More likely that conservatives turned liberal once the right went all in on anti-intellectualism. Of course the real question is: what does conservative even mean any more? The joining of Falwell and Reagan fucked both conservatism and evangelical Christianity.

Windchaser 4mo ago
Yep, it's at least partly this. I watched a lot of "moderate" academics become "liberal" after Trump's first election. If you're a scientist by principles and a moderate by political views, and the right-wing party comes out in opposition to science, well, it's fair that you might then join the "pro-science party". Being pro-science becomes a liberal position. So it's not that conservatives were "purged" from the ranks of academia.

datsci_est_2015 4mo ago

It’s a pretty commonly repeated theory amongst far right / reactionary “thought leaders”. They call it the “Long March Through the Institutions”. I think the comment you were responding to was ironically referencing it.

WarmWash 4mo ago
It's not especially a "right wing theory" anymore than climate change is a "left wing theory" https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/conservative-professors-dei-initiatives/682944/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/conservati...
- datsci_est_2015 4mo ago
  You misunderstand, the idea of the “Long March Through the Institutions” is that innocent conservative intellectuals are the victims of a central, coordinated campaign for them to be expelled from academia in order to transform academia into an institution that serves leftwing agendas. It’s an explicit rejection that such a transformation could occur naturally, and can fairly be considered a conspiracy theory by the mainstream specifically because it meets Barkun’s criteria for conspiracy theories: - nothing happens by accident - nothing is as it seems - everything is connected as well as the lack of a smoking gun.
  - WarmWash 4mo ago
    I don't really buy that idea, but like the one black guy at the Country Line Dance, you get the strong vibe you are not in the right place, and kind of just want to leave, regardless of how people are upfront treating you.
    - datsci_est_2015 4mo ago
      Yeah you may not believe it personally but there are definitely many in the reactionary right who do. It’s not difficult to find their forums.
    - 4mo ago