In this persuasive study, University of British Columbia sociologist Gross tackles the politically hot topic of whether there is a liberal bias in the professoriate of American universities. His findings will comes as a surprise to few: “onservatives often portray the academy as a bastion of liberalism” and “they are essentially correct.” For the past two centuries, the trend in higher education has been toward a more secular, liberal-oriented learning environment, and the predominance of liberal arts and humanities curricula predisposes to a liberal-oriented professoriate. Not surprisingly, certain academic disciplines conform to type more than others: “the social sciences and humanities contain the largest number of radicals; the social sciences, the humanities, and the natural sciences the largest number of progressives; and applied fields like business and engineering more conservatives.” In his most novel analysis, Gross attributes the perpetuation of a liberal professoriate to the fact that “liberal college students are apt to see becoming a professor as something that fits with their political identity.” The book builds significantly on the work of predecessors, blending statistical analyses with studies of professors whose political orientations defy simple “liberal” or “conservative” categorization. Though the book sometimes bogs the reader down with minutiae, it offers a thoughtful riposte to ad hominem attacks on contemporary universities as hotbeds of radicalism. (Apr.)
The question is not whether college professors are liberal… The much more interesting question is why college professors are liberal, and sociologist Neil Gross has studied it for years. His results are worth considering… Gross is at his best when he’s explaining his surveys and experiments and using them to evaluate competing theories of professors’ liberalism—and fortunately, he spends a lot of time doing that. Readers will gain a nuanced understanding of the subject, and conservative readers in particular will find many interesting nuggets here.
National Review - Robert Verbruggen
Neil Gross’s work is crucial for anyone who cares about higher education and who also cares about the facts.
[Gross] registers clearly the overwhelming ideological slant of higher education… [His thesis] leaves conservative critics with a disarming irony, though: The more critics expose liberal indoctrination and intolerance, the more they reinforce the image of academia that makes young conservatives shun it.
Weekly Standard - Mark Bauerlein
In this engaging book, Neil Gross uses a dizzying range of evidence to take apart many common beliefs. He shows—among many other things—that professors are less liberal than pundits claim, that today’s younger professors are less radical than older ones, and that it is not so much that academia turns people liberal as that liberals are attracted to academia. The book cements Gross’s reputation as one of the most interesting sociologists of his generation.
Neil Gross’s Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care? enters the ongoing debate about the position and role of the academy in American life at a high-stakes moment… Until now, the characterization of a staunchly liberal professoriate has annoyed progressives and disturbed conservatives, while remaining a curiously underexamined trope in American political life. As Gross’s study shows, it is a product of long-standing misguided assumptions and overdrawn conclusions about American academics’ politics. Gross offers an impressive range of hard social scientific data to soften the hyperbole and help set straight the terms of our debate.
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagenn Prospect
Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care? offers a thoughtful, rigorous, and readable study of the causes and effects of liberal attitudes among college professors. Reading this book gave me an entirely new way of thinking about the interactions between political views, social attitudes, and life choices. Gross deserves a wide hearing.
A major contribution to debates about the politics of academia. Neil Gross blends cutting-edge research with old-fashioned reason to explain the cultural and economic forces that send liberals into the professoriate. This is a smart, surprising, and important book.
Gross does what really good scholars do—namely, research, research, research. Through reflection on existing data and that gathered from studies of his own devising, he concludes that the liberalism of the academy is not nearly so pronounced as alarmists would like to believe, nor is it uniform.
PopMatters - James Williams
Neil Gross 's Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care? enters the ongoing debate about the position and role of the academy in American life at a high-stakes moment...Until now, the characterization of a staunchly liberal professoriate has annoyed progressives and disturbed conservatives, while remaining a curiously underexamined trope in American political life. As Gross's study shows, it is a product of long-standing misguided assumptions and overdrawn conclusions about American academics' politics. Gross offers an impressive range of hard social scientific data to soften the hyperbole and help set straight the terms of our debate.
American Prospect - Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen
Gross (sociology, Univ. of British Columbia) views the perception of political bias among academics as responsible for arousing conservative attacks. His work, based on extensive research, asserts that academic values are corrupted by the imbalance of faculty liberal views. His findings suggest that professors with liberal views work hard to promote objective analysis in their teaching and scholarship and that conservative intellectuals who fear radical faculty behavior target leftist academics to undermine confidence in the "liberal elite" and to further conservatism as a populist movement. He suggests that the idea that liberals choose academic careers and are shunned by conservatives is based on generalizations leftover from the radical Sixties, when campuses were viewed as the epicenter of liberal activity. VERDICT A sound analysis of the sharply partisan issue of political imbalance among university faculty. Integrating research methodologies that discredit the conservative criticism of higher education, Gross urges academics to take the issue seriously and to defend institutional integrity. Strongly recommended for readers interested in higher education issues and/or the current partisan political struggles in academia.—Elizabeth Hayford, formerly with the Associated Coll. of the Midwest, Chicago
Gross (Sociology/Univ. of British Columbia; Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher , 2008, etc.) examines the facts behind the conservative movement's oft-heard criticism of higher education: that American universities are, as presidential candidate Rick Santorum famously said, little more than "indoctrination mills" for the political left. Relying on years of research, the author confirms that conservatives are correct in their belief that many professors align themselves on the liberal spectrum, though he notes also that academia has far fewer radical professors in its midst than generally thought. While a mere 8 percent of professors self-identify as "radical," a recent study revealed that 62 percent of students believed the term accurately described their professors--proof of the conservative movement's ability to perpetuate the myth of the radical professor. Gross readily acknowledges that some conservative scholars may feel outnumbered in a university's social science department but that the professor's marginalized status is hardly any different than "progressives at some elite law firms." More interesting than academia's demographics, however, are the causes of these demographics. In short: What is at the root of liberalism in academia? Do liberal academics share a different value system than their conservative counterparts? Does self-selection play a role? To what extent does one's politics affect one's career path? And a related question: How can professors protect their academic freedoms in an environment so closely tied to the politicians who hold the purse strings? Gross examines all of these questions and more, often overwhelming readers with facts and figures that lead to somewhat nebulous conclusions. Its academic tone--while appropriate given the subject matter--reminds readers that an academic in academia produced it. While Gross' neutrality is admirable, his work's inability to open itself up to a wider audience risks confining a valuable debate to the primary players within it. A dense sociological report on the facts and falsehoods of the political leanings of professors.
