Why Aren't There More Conservative Profs?

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, a recent study conducted by professors Matthew Woessner and April Kelly-Woessner (the former politically conservative and the latter politically liberal) discusses why universities seem overloaded with left-wing professors. Apparently it’s not some conspiratorial moonbat bias against right-wing thinkers. Rather, conservative scholars don’t appear to drawn to the ivory tower.

The Chronicle's article, “Conservatives Just Aren't Into Academe, Study Finds,” offers an overview of the project's findings, but you can read Woessner and Kelly-Woessner’s paper, titled “Left Pipeline: Why Conservatives Don't Get Doctorates," here. The researchers have moved on to investigate whether “professors indoctrinate students by expressing a political ideology in the classroom [for this study] The Woessners surveyed 69 political-science classes in the fall of 2006 and again in the spring of 2007 and asked 1,603 students about their ideology at the beginning and at the end of each course” (Chronicle of Higher Ed). Considering the near-hysteria we've witnessed inthe past few years over what constitutes "academic freedom," and what viewpoints, if any, are being "suppressed," Woessner and Kelly-Woessner's conclusions should prove provocative--as should David Horowitz’s response--whatever the outcome.

As an aside, while I don't agree that moderate or right-wing points of view are necessarily suppressed in academia, I do agree that such perspectives are, as a general rule, unpopular and some instructors and students dismiss or ignore conservative students' articulations--but is this the same as suppressing? Not unless those conservative students are told to shut up or ship out.

Of course, I've not witnessed anti-conservative treatment directly, but conservative students have shared their experiences of feeling isolated with me, and I feel for them.

I will say that it's often assumed that because you're at university you're somehow invested in a liberal-leaning ideology, and I have experienced this directly--an assumption that, for example, I support Hillary Rodham Clinton or that I resent the Current Occupant (as Garrison Keillor addresses GWB). I won't reveal whether either of these is true, because that is beside the point, which is that, as an academic, I must be liberal.

I will also add that I've encountered several conservative profs who insisted on the righteousness of their own positions. For example, the community college physics instructor who decided to spend (nearly) an entire fifty minute period railing about abortion's immorality. Or the political science instructor who posited that an aristocracy is necessary to maintain order amongst the "mobs" (yes. I swear he said "mobs"). Granted, in my experience, these folks are relatively few in number--and as anecdotal evidence, it ain't worth jack. I'll just wait for Woessner and Kelly-Woessner to publish their findings for some "real" facts.