Monday, October 15, 2007

Intellectual Diversity

27-0 at the University of Iowa
Diversity is for Democrats.

It’s not the score of a Hawkeye football game. It’s the number of Democrats versus the number of Republicans in the University of Iowa history department, and it has Iowans in an uproar. So, too, do charges published by Mark Bauerlein that left-wing bias has influenced the department’s hiring process. In response to the revelations, department chair Colin Gordon announced that the department had committed no wrongdoing, and neither he nor the university has expressed any concern about the total absence of intellectual diversity. Rarely have the hypocrisy and mendacity of academia been so thoroughly exposed as in the history department’s damage-control campaign.

Professor Gordon contended that the history department cannot discriminate against Republican or conservative job applicants because it does not know the political ideology of applicants. But the University’s own hiring manual states that search committees must “assess ways the applicants will bring rich experiences, diverse backgrounds, and ideology to the university community.” So they are obligated to understand applicants’ ideology, and to make sure not to overlook people with differing ideologies....

Unfortunately, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity proved unwilling to enforce the university’s policies on either equal opportunity or diversity.


If the lies and hypocrisy weren't so blatant, you could almost feel sorry for the poor sops for feeling like they had to protect themselves in this way. But the arrogance and disregard with which they conduct themselves is beyond belief.

Hat tip to NewAlert (see blogroll at left).

3 comments:

Ellen K said...

And this is surprising because....? I would be that if you did a poll of most large state schools you would find the faculty of most of the liberal and fine arts were liberal, radically so. And the only center for conservatism would probably be the engineering school. Medical school students don't have time to be political and law students will only go whatever direction gets them the most money.

Darren said...

That stats aren't surprising, EllenK, but the arrogance and shameless lying can *still* surprise me.

I know, I'm naive. I still believe in the concept of shame.

Ellen K said...

Shame is an outmoded conservative concept. If you don't believe in anything except humanism, then why believe that anything humans do or create could be shameful. Such is the state of humanity in this century.