[WarmWash]

Trump is a populist doing populist things, including attacking the intellectuals.

Conservatives have been basically purged from academia over the last 30 years, which frankly was a pretty dumb "victory" to celebrate, because now they voted in a dumb gorilla that is just smashing things as revenge.

[MisterTea]

> Conservatives have been basically purged from academia over the last 30 years,

Any citations on this?

[WarmWash]

Sure

https://www.aei.org/articles/partisan-professors/

I'd be shocked to find anyone surprised by this.

[jasonlotito]

That doesn't show they were purged. There are many reasons their numbers declined.

[xdennis]

> 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

[anon84873628]

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.

[try_the_bass]

> race is an intrinsic immutable attribute

Is it?

Care you define who makes up the "white race"? Or any other overly-broad category that typically gets bandied about as "race"?

From my perspective, as someone who is flexibly categorized as "white" or "latino", depending on whatever is most convenient for the categorizer, "race" is a remarkable fluid label. Most people can't even agree on what "race" folks of mixed ethnic heritage actually are.

Race is a social construct. There's nothing intrinsic or immutable about any social construct.

[defrost]

> 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.

[jasonlotito]

u/xdennis You think it's a fun fact that Charlie Kirk died? Crazy.

> It's fun to see leftists argue the same when it comes to discrimination against right wing or centrist academics.

I didn't argue anything.

I made a point to say that the link did NOT show a purge happened. It's funny because you are supporting my comment by literally providing another link as if to admit that the original one didn't support the claim.

But hey, pretend I said stuff. You're the one who thinks CK's death was fun.

[cosmicgadget]

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]

> 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.

[frm88]

This is such a wildly elitist take

There is a reason why a lot of progressive ideas worldwide originated in and spread from universities, often time resulting in student revolts/rebellions. Throughout history, starting in 1202, academia was always a source for new ideas, usually non establishment: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Student_activism&...

[cosmicgadget]

> 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".

[try_the_bass]

> My friend, I simply stated a conclusion that is very commonly accepted, including by conservatives (hints: populism, religion, gender roles).

People commonly accept that God exists, too, all across the political spectrum. That doesn't mean he actually does exist, though. "Commonly accepted" does not mean "is true".

> 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.

No one in this thread is claiming a "coordinated conspiracy", just years and years of ever increasing political bias amongst faculty at universities in the U.S.

C'mon, implicit bias training is supposed to teach you about how the negative impacts of persistent, low-grade bias accumulate over time, right?

> 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".

Like not inviting them to conferences, social gatherings, networking opportunities, etc.

Again, decades of small bias add up. I mean, isn't that the entire thesis of things like "systemic racism"? Why would that not also be true in other areas?

Don't get me wrong, I believe theories like systemic racism have merit and are largely true. I just acknowledge that, if it's true that being black in America is an inherent disadvantage due to years of accumulated bias, it's probably also true that being conservative in academia is also an inherent disadvantage, due to the same mechanism.

All that being said, way to double down on the elitism!

[javascriptfan69]

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]

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]

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]

What if it's not that?

Let me give you a hint: the concept of DEI statement to apply for a position exists

[titzer]

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.

[datsci_est_2015]

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.

[logicchains]

The phrase wasn't concocted by the right wing, it's was coined by a left-winger as an explicit plan of approach: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_march_through_the_institu...

[magicalist]

> To extend the base of the student movement, Rudi Dutschke has proposed the strategy of the long march through the institutions: working against the established institutions while working within them, but not simply by 'boring from within', rather by 'doing the job', learning (how to program and read computers, how to teach at all levels of education, how to use the mass media, how to organize production, how to recognize and eschew planned obsolescence, how to design, et cetera), and at the same time preserving one's own consciousness in working with others.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a German student activist's definitionally anodyne proposal to engage with society and barely referenced in the decades since has probably been coopted more than a little to concoct a new boogeyman for the right wing.

[datsci_est_2015]

Yes, often one wing of political thought leaders will adopt terms and ideas from the other wing to serve as a foundation for their theories. I never suggested that the term itself was invented by someone on the right, merely that it’s a term widely used to describe the very specific idea of a calculated political effort to expel conservatives from academia. Ironically, Rudi’s ambitions were much more grand than simply transforming academia, he wanted to transform society.

Anyway, what you presented is not a “gotcha”, despite the fact that I’ve heard it a million times when engaging with right wing “intellectuals”. It’s still a conspiracy theory.

[WarmWash]

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/conservati...

[datsci_est_2015]

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]

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.

[intuitionist]

The people you’re talking to don’t understand why you would ever want to have the Wrong Kind of Person around an institution as sacred as the university

[datsci_est_2015]

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.

[amanaplanacanal]

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]

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.

[enugu]

Sure, but isn't the response worse than the problem? When intellectual standards are abandoned (as opposed to correcting a specific bias), discourse degrades into mindless anger, conspiracies and leaders who defraud their own supporters.

Given the money available to conservatives, why haven't they been able to setup vibrant universities, films, art etc. The point here is not to blame conservatives, but push the analysis of the cause to something deeper than just saying that the opponents have all the power.

[lovich]

Conservative views are very anti science, look at their consensus on climate change. Of course the universities were going to be mostly liberal.

Like at their core conservatives are against change, that’s the “conserve” part of their name and science is a process that constantly updates our understanding of reality.

[thinking_cactus]

I think conservatives don't really know what they are, and that's a big problem. I think Sagan discussed this. Like science is a pretty well established "institution" dating back centuries. Intellectualism dates back kind of as far back as humanity, almost every large civilization I can think (that left records) of had strong intellectual presence (including Greeks, Romans, etc.).

I'm not even critiquing any particular cultural stance. But I think it's possible and important to critique anti-intellectualism and specially denialisms specially in things that are actually important and threatening to society -- simply because of greed, most of the time. Let's not fool ourselves, climate change denialism isn't like a random cultural thing they chose to deny, it's specifically because of connections to coal, oil and gas industries.

If things are bad, you should want to know what will be the consequences and what can be done to mitigate things. In fact, I think denial tends to create some reactionary behavior from the left as well, sometimes leading to overblown claims around climate change. All of this leads to increasing polarization.

Slowing down cultural change is perfectly fine (as long as it's respectful of well established things like human rights), cosplaying a farmer is fine, whatever. Or being an actual farmer, or living outside of a big city, etc.. What's not fine is actively denying important scientific facts, being hypocritical (and, largely, stupid) in their positions: for example, farming tends to use very high tech equipment and methods, seeds, and so on; I'm sure most farmers enjoy most technological development, treatment against cancers, all sorts of diseases; computers, the internet, etc.. You can't at the same time want progress in cancer treatment and other conditions and want to cut funding to health sciences. And so on. I am willing to even entertain say technological regression. I don't love every technological change we've been through. But at least be consistent, you can't advocate to stop wearing clothes and want to live in the arctic.

Also, culture should be, carefully yes, questioned. It's not because it's cultural that it should stay frozen forever. People who want their culture completely frozen forever are dangerous to human progress and flourishing (I imagine most people wouldn't find ancient practices of human sacrifice, or say medieval torture practices nice and acceptable today). Being careful and well-reasoned is a completely different thing, and something conservatism could stand for instead.

[etchalon]

Conservatives views are not anti-science, so much as they are a demand that science only be allowed to answer certain questions, and only answer those questions in specific ways.

[lovich]

That is anti science. It’s just faith based dogmatism. You also see it with conservatives calling belief in the scientific process being able to produce knowledge being called scientism like it’s just faith based.

They literally look down on the idea of updating your previous beliefs.

[logicchains]

Liberal views are very anti-science on race. Some famous professors even lost their positions just for adopting the statistically correct position that the majority of the difference in outcomes between races is accounted for by IQ, which is mostly immutable after childhood, not some societal conspiracy against certain races.

[tptacek]

Which famous professors would those be? This is an active research area, with papers published year-round.

[jayGlow]

James Watson the guy who discovered DNA was stripped of honorary titles based on comments related to race and IQ. there was a lot of discussion about that recently when he died.

[tptacek]

Before I reply, let me ask: is that your best example?

[jayGlow]

Does he not meet the criteria of a famous professor?

[lopsotronic]

"just for adopting . ."

OK, I'm really sorry, but "just for adopting" is doing some heavy lifting here.

Watson's other greatest hits: worries about Big Black Dicks; melanin injections as boner pill; what I call "The Cunning Chinaman"; and a whole bucket of others.

Taken in sum: it turns out you can be asked to leave a private club if you are being an asshole.

To clear the air, as a card carrying liberal (even a !gasp! Socialist) I don't necessarily reject empirical racial differences based on genetics. Maybe even for "intelligence", for whatever good that does ya, since "intelligence" lacks anything like a quantitative definition.

But I also think that - if they're even present, which is by no means certain - these are not significant differences. Structuring your entire society around quantitative racial differences, from a strictly utilitarian standpoint, is not enough juice for the squeeze.

But, well, the juice isn't the point, is it?

It's the squeezing - the ability to brutalize your citizenry, to purge Unmanly Virtues like "empathy" or "introspection", to be always prepared for violence - the squeezing, being able to squeeze, is what is important. And the fastest way to do that is convince a bunch of people that other people aren't people. Europe tried that, a few years ago. You might remember that it did not go well. A lesson America never really got. Maybe someday we'll need to learn the same damn thing the same way, except instead of B-17s and Red Army Sex Crime we get to enjoy thermonuclear weapons. Come back Ivan. All is forgiven.

[tptacek]

I mean I like to hold my cards closer to my vest than this, but if we're just going right at it:

(1) He wasn't a practicing scientist.

(2) He wasn't fired for making scientific claims, but rather for saying things like "I'm pessimistic about Africa".

(3) He didn't do any research in behavioral genetics, psychometrics, or molecular genetics; his authority in the discussion was "famous science guy".

(4) He lost an honorary and, later, an emeritus position, in which his role was not "scientist" but rather "spokesperson for a scientific organization". I wouldn't want him for a spokesperson either, any more than I'd want Ibram X. Kendi or, maybe closer to the mark, Elijah Mohammed as my spokesperson.

James Watson was closer to Donald Sterling than to Galileo.

[pickleRick243]

Not a Nobel prize winner (his advisor was though), but Stephen Hsu was a fairly high profile case. I remember watching a 2008 Google lecture of his on YouTube in 2019 and wondering- wow, the kind of research people could present a decade ago. Lo and behold...

[tptacek]

This is closer, but again:

(1) Lost an administrative position, retained his tenured academic position.

(2) Did not practice in the space. As I understand it, he got jumped for appearing on Stefan Molyneaux's show (Molyneaux is a proud, open white nationalist, though that was not as obvious at the time) and saying he was agnostic about group differences.

The key thing here is, again: Hsu doesn't publish in this field. He himself loudly pointed this out! He's a physicist, not a geneticist or a psychometrician/quant psych.

From what I can tell, the mob attack on Hsu was not well founded. It's not my claim that there haven't been brigaded attacks on academics; there obviously have been. Rather: it's that the scientists who actually practice in this field and actually publish results continue to do so, largely without drama. "Group differences" in "intelligence" (or proxies like EA) are not verboten in academia.

There's an example of a scientist who published on group differences and lost his job, but that example won't do the work this thread hopes it'll do; he was fired for good reason.

[etchalon]

"Liberal views" are not anti-science on race. "Liberal views" tend to reject the reductionism and selectivity of "race science" that points to arbitrarily defined measurements like IQ as being the sole explanation for things we can easily prove have multiple better, non-arbitrary explanations.

Bluntly, racists have decided IQ measurements mean they're not racist instead of wondering whether IQ, as a measurement, is itself racist.

[bencorman]

Race science is just about the apex of pseudoscience. Academics haven't rejected it because it doesn't mesh with their liberal politics, they've rejected it because it's junk.

[esarbe]

Watson's comments are not based in scientific fact. First of - there is no such thing as a "race". Putting people in classes based on the colour of their skin is ludicrously simplistic, ignoring the incredible genetic diversity in the human genome. There's simply no viable scientific concept that is able to capture the features that "race" is supposed to capture.

Secondly there's no strong argument that links larger population groups genetic makeup to intelligence - that's what Watson claimed and what's so infuriating; it's plain racism. There's an inherited component in intelligence - that much is right. But population groups have enough diversity that this does not have a statistically relevant impact on these groups as a whole.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/james-watson-s...

[platevoltage]

For real. We are doing race science on HN?

[etchalon]

Turns out racists love tech news too.

[akerl_]

Are we just ignoring all the major societal factors that happen to children before and during childhood?

[Windchaser]

Yeah, I recall that average Irish citizens and Irish immigrants were measured to have pretty bad IQs around a century ago. This changed with improvements to nutrition, health, less alcoholism, and education.

So the research shows that IQ is not purely innate. And this is, at this point, rather old research.

[datsci_est_2015]

Simple people are drawn to simple models of the world. IQ is an extremely simple model.

[anon84873628]

Funny how Conservatives are always so big on the free market, except when no one wants to buy their ideas.