Professor Jonathan Turley Reacts to News About Lack of Republican Profs at Yale
“universities have been effectively cleansing their ranks of Republicans and conservatives”
We mentioned the report in a previous quick take. Professor Turley reacts below.
From his website:
Study: Yale No Longer Has a Single Republican Professor Across 27 Departments
Yale has finally achieved liberal nirvana. According to a recent report from the Buckley Institute, there is now not a single Republican found across 27 of 43 departments at Yale University. In a nation roughly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats (with a slight advantage to the GOP), only 3 percent are Republicans across all Yale departments.
In comparison, roughly 83% of faculty are registered Democrats or primarily support Democratic candidates.
The Buckley Institute’s report looked at Yale’s undergraduate departments, as well as its School of Management and Law School.
The report is hardly surprising. In my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss these arguments to justify the current levels of intolerance and orthodoxy in higher education.
As we have discussed for years, universities have been effectively cleansing their ranks of Republicans and conservatives.
Many departments no longer have a single Republican faculty member in this academic echochamber.
A Georgetown study found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools — almost identical to the percentage of Trump voters found in the new poll.
There is little evidence that faculty members are interested in changing this culture or creating greater diversity at schools. In places like North Carolina State University, a study found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 20 to 1.
Not long ago, I had a debate at Harvard Law School with Professor Randall Kennedy on whether Harvard protects free speech and intellectual diversity.
Kennedy rejected the notion that the elite school should strive to “look more like America.”
It is not just that schools like Harvard “do not look like America,” it does not even look like liberal Massachusetts, which is almost 30 percent Republican.
The Harvard Crimson has documented how the school’s departments have virtually eliminated Republicans. In one study of multiple departments last year, they found that more than 75 percent of the faculty self-identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.”
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Comments
Colleges and universities have been using “Diversity Statements” for nearly 20 years now. The main purpose of these statements is to weed out all conservatives and Republicans and any moderates who don’t swallow the progressive doctrine. So it’s obvious that there won’t be any Republicans or conservatives hired.
I arrived at Yale College in 1971 as a liberal and graduated as a conservative. Kingman Brewster was the university’s president, and he told my freshman class that the college’s mission was to teach us how to think critically (he must be rolling over in his grave now), and he encouraged us to participate in “bull sessions” during which we students would freely exchange and debate ideas. What an exciting four years! We may not have had the best social life, but I believe we had the very best intellectual life. Yale has changed, and I don’t know the remedy. I fear the trend toward ideological education in public schools and the current dominance of Marxist thinkers in our leading liberal arts programs, at Yale and elsewhere, create a huge impediment. I plan to think about it some more. Any ideas?