On The Right In The Land Of The Tenured Left

[Richard]

Something to consider when thinking about venturing into the labyrinthine corridors of the often nebulous world of higher education.

Richard's $.02

Part 1 of 2.

On The Right In The Land Of The Tenured Left
Harry Stein, Minding The Campus, 27 May 2009

What acid rain is to our irreplaceable forests, lakes and streams, leftist dogma is to American higher education. In every corner of the land, it has turned once-flourishing departments of English and history into barren wastelands where only the academic equivalent of cockroaches can thrive. Its corrosive poison - infantile anti-Americanism, hatred of capitalism, scorn for ideological pluralism - spreads far beyond the narrow confines of its source, polluting popular culture, public education, the very laws under which we live. Absorbed in sufficiently high doses, it is morally and intellectually fatal.

While the mind-boggling damage done to higher education by multicultural activists, diversity-mongers, and all-around leftist jerks is a subject very much on the minds of conservatives, liberals seem truly not to care. More precisely, they actually regard it as progress. Shakespeare elbowed aside by Maya Angelou? Hey, education's got to change with the times, just like the Constitution. Mandatory sensitivity training for incoming freshmen to instill appreciation of transgendered persons? What kind of monster has a problem with sensitivity? Conservative students getting charged with hate speech for daring to take on affirmative action or women's studies zealots? Exactly - that kind of monster. Even the occasional report in the mainstream press of epidemic ideological conformity on the nation's campuses fails to elicit a reaction. So what if, as the Washington Post reports, 80 percent of faculty in America's English literature, philosophy, and political science departments describe themselves as liberal and a mere 5 percent as conservative - with ratios of eighteen to one at Brown, twenty-six to one at Cornell, and sixteen to one at UCLA - or that a study after the 2004 election showed that the Harvard faculty gave John Kerry thirty-one dollars for every dollar donated to George Bush, with the ratios rising to forty-three to one at MIT and three hundred to one at Princeton? (And you think when someone gets around to a comprehensive analysis of the 2008 campaign donations, that will be any less lopsided?) For liberals, the only important question remains what it's always been: How can I get my kid into one of those places?


Frankly, it beats me why anyone would opt for this world of punishment. But they seem to have their reasons. Take my friend Garry Apgar. I met him in the late Seventies, while working on an English-language newspaper in Paris. Garry was a Vietnam vet studying art history at the Sorbonne under the G.I. Bill. His goal in life was to teach art history at the college level, and in 1980 he returned to the States to pursue it. He went to Yale, got his Ph.D. Things seemed to be going splendidly. Yet somehow his academic career never panned out. He never landed a full-time academic post. Eventually, the financial stress threatened his marriage, and he ended up teaching high school French.

What happened? A few things - but very high on the list is the fact that, though the opposite of combative, Garry is a conservative, and makes no attempt to hide the fact. "I was always a conservative - ab ovo, from the egg," Garry says, "and at first I really didn't think it would be a problem." Indeed, his dissertation, on a little-known eighteenth-century Swiss artist
named Jean Hubert - he'd been drawn to the subject by his interest in Hubert's neighbor and most frequent subject, Voltaire - won him a coveted Kress Fellowship; it was subsequently published, in French, in a handsome and amply illustrated edition. Garry received particular notice for his original research on the project, unearthing long-forgotten letters and other archival material, drawing hitherto unknown connections between people, "all the stuff that's now pooh poohed by cutting-edge scholars concerned with deconstructionism and all that."

In brief, he appeared well launched. Out of Yale, he got a job teaching at a small northeastern college. (He asks I not use the name because he's "still got friends there, and it's not a great school; if you had a pulse and money to pay, you got in.") After a year, he was up for an open tenure-track position. But then... the job was offered to someone else, a woman less credentialed and clearly less qualified. It turned out that he'd had the misfortune of breaking into the field just as things were turning dramatically worse for people of the wrong gender (male), hue (white), and sexual orientation (what, until a few years earlier, would have almost everywhere have been categorized as "normal").

For his part, all Garry knew was that what had happened was not remotely fair. So, after thinking it over, he did the unthinkable: He complained. All these years later, he can only shake his head at his naivete. "The corruption argument never gets you anywhere. Either they're so ideological they genuinely don't see it, or they're so cynical they don't care. It's like thinking you're going to embarrass Claude Rains in Casablanca. Not that he hadn't been warned.

His old advisor from Yale, herself a committed feminist, "yelled at me on the phone. 'Don't contest this,' she said. 'If you know what's good for you, you'll just withdraw and walk away.' I mean, there was this implied Mafioso threat. But she was right. I got a reputation as a troublemaker." He pauses. "The fact is, if I'd been a woman and lodged such an accusation, it would've scared them to death. Even if I'd been totally wrong, they'd have either given me the job or a fat settlement. But as a white male, and a known conservative, I was dead." Nor, obviously, was he helped by his choice of specialty, eighteenth-century European art. "It's not exactly trendy. There's not much room there to get in gay theory." He laughs. "Though I suppose there are those who would try."

After that, there were a string of one-year visiting professorships - at the University of Delaware, Brown, and Princeton, plus a year in Lyon, teaching in French - but never another tenure track job. "I kept applying," he says, "but I kept getting aced out by a woman or a minority. The system is medieval, a culture of powerful, interwoven alliances - gays and lesbians and straight Marxists and feminists - and they do the recruiting and hiring. They'll find a zillion excuses to obscure the real reasons: 'the scholarship's a little flimsy,' 'it's not a good fit,' or whatever they want. There's no alliance of straight conservatives, or even old-fashioned, open-minded liberals."

Along the way, he saw fools and incompetents getting ahead by the boatload, and cronyism that would have embarrassed Boss Tweed's Tammany Hall, as well as more fear than he saw as a Marine back in Vietnam. "In my field, in particular, there was open contempt for straight people - they'd be off handedly referred to as 'breeders.' This is the milieu you're in as a conservative - or just as a reasonable person. It was like being in the old Soviet Union. You had to be constantly vigilant about what you said and to whom you said it. The only way to express yourself honestly was by samizdat."

So why did he put himself through it for so long? "What can I tell you?" he offers rather sheepishly. "I love teaching, even if doing it means climbing into a playpen full of angry, infantile narcissists."

(cont'd)

[Richard]

Part 2 of 2

On The Right In The Land Of The Tenured Left

The Cold War historian Ron Radosh started on the opposite end of the political spectrum from Garry, but he too was done in, and far more publicly, by what, on the modern campus, is that most dangerous of traits: intellectual honesty. Having come of age on the left, he was persuaded by extensive research that iconic victim Julius Rosenberg was in fact guilty of the espionage for which he'd been executed, and said as much in a 1983 book, The Rosenberg File, that he co-authored. He expected a vigorous dialogue on the subject; instead, he found himself almost universally condemned by his colleagues for daring to write such a thing at all. "They'd have nothing to do with me," he says. "I wasn't an honest researcher. I was a traitor to the cause. I was at a conference not long afterward and Paul Buell, a leftist historian I'd known for years, walked away when I went to say hello. Later that night, I saw him in the empty lobby, and he said, 'Now I can say hello to you, because nobody's watching. But, seriously, you are a running dog of imperialism.'" Radosh laughs. "There was this other woman from Hofstra, Carolyn Eisenberg, who came up to me and said, 'I just want you to know you used to be one of our heroes and models, but you've betrayed us all; what you did was horrible.' At that, she started crying."

To these and innumerable others in his field, Radosh has remained a pariah ever since: "It never ends. They don't forget. As a result of that, I was blackballed, could never get any other really good job." He cites one episode as especially telling, an interview with the entire history faculty at George Washington University. "They didn't even bother to pretend. There was no discussion of my credentials as an historian, or my writing, just my politics. It was: 'Why are you right-wing?' and 'Why do you write these books saying these victims of McCarthyism were guilty?' Around the table they went, one after another condemning me for my politics.I ended up getting two votes from the whole department." Moreover, says Radosh, surveying the academic scene, he sees no prospect of things getting better any time soon. "I was looking recently at the annual catalogue of the Organization of American Historians, the branch that specializes in U.S. history, and it was like reading the names of the Communist Party annual conference. One hundred percent left-wing and anti-American. Every paper was about class and gender and the oppression of women by the patriarchy."

Stephen H. Balch, president emeritus of the National Association of Scholars, a group of conservatives in academia who came together in the Eighties to fight the scourge of political correctness on the nation's campuses, confirms that assessment. "We imagined," he writes of the group's founding, "that the grown-ups on campus only needed to be reminded of their responsibilities to put things right. After all, how could serious scholars permit higher education to descend into speech codes, racial quotas, and political indoctrination? Or preside over the trashing of the core curriculum, Western civilization, and the American founding? "Boy, were we naive! Today we have Ward Churchill, Sami Al- Arian, the Duke 88, as well as entirely 'postmodernized' academic programs and university requirements, devoted to ensuring that students, who may know little else, know loads about diversity, feminism, global warming, the failures of capitalism, and the hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson."

So the horror stories keep on coming, only now the protagonists are a new generation of conservatives. "I really never believed it could be this bad," admits a young conservative historian named Mark Moyar, on the job market for five years and still looking. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard, with a doctorate from Cambridge and a highly regarded book to his credit, at this writing he has been turned down for nearly two hundred tenure-track jobs. "I mean, I figured there'd at least be jobs for the token conservative, so that if I worked hard and did a really exceptional job, I'd slip in. At this point, it's just bizarre - especially seeing the caliber of people who are getting hired. In place after place, the Baby Boomers in senior positions demand total and absolute ideological conformity and, if anything, the younger scholars who came up under their tutelage are even worse."

It is surely a vast understatement to say that Moyar's book hasn't exactly helped. Entitled Triumph Forsaken, it argues that the Vietnam war was not only winnable, but should have been won. Then again, who knows?

How do the tenured radicals who run liberal arts departments justify this state of affairs? "We try to hire the best, smartest people available," explains Robert Brandon, the chairman of Duke's philosophy department. "If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire."

Can this sinking ship be turned around? Probably the most reckless bookie wouldn't take that bet. Still, if anything’s worth that old college try. . .

Recent years have seen at least one encouraging development: the success of the James Madison Program in American Ideals at Princeton. Created in 2000, under the direction of Robert George, the school's McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (and presumably the one in that three hundred to one ratio), the Madison Program focuses on American constitutional law and Western political tradition. As Stanley Kurtz observes, with the University of Chicago having lately dropped the ball, "Princeton is rapidly becoming the key quality alternative for producing a new generation of conservative intellectuals."

What's key is that George raises independent funding for the program, insulating it from the pressures that the well-organized campus left would surely otherwise bring to bear to undermine it. In this sense and others, Madison has been a model for conservatives at other institutions seeking to establish similar free-thought zones. To date, no fewer than ten such oases of intellectual pluralism are either going concerns or in the works, at such schools as Brown, Georgetown, NYU, Boston College, and the University of Colorado; the conservative Manhattan Institute, through its Veritas Fund, has given $2,500,000 to help them along. True, it doesn't sound like much -- not in contrast to the hundreds of schools turning out graduates who've never met a liberal dogma they didn't like; or, more to the point, thought to question. But if there is to be a rebirth of academic freedom, look for those programs -- and new ones to come -- to produce its leaders.

http://www.mindingthecampus.com/orig...f_th.html#more

[Ret10Echo]

Thanks for the post Richard,

As my child approaches college age, I am acutely aware of the issue on campuses and in classrooms across the U.S.

I have begun compiling a list of schools that I will most definately NOT be providing my conservative dollars to....and the list is somewhat lengthy. On the other hand the list of schools that have a worldview similar to mine is much easier to manage.

Of course that is no guarantee of who will be behind the podium. But I will make as well "educated" a decision as possible. I would urge others to do likewise and avoid sending your child to some liberal puppy-mill.

Money talks.

[Plutarch]

Excellent article, thank you.

It is sad how many people don't realize that there are alternatives to the liberal state run schools.

I would highly recommend Grove City College to anyone looking for a conservative, well rounded education for their child.

They do not accept any federal funding, and are therefore free from the PC nonsense.

They are a well respected university, and at 19k a year for tuition, room and board, and a student issued laptop and printer ( which they can keep ), they are hard to beat.

It is also one of the most beautiful campuses in the nation.

I know several people who have attended here, and they had nothing but good things to say about their time there.

My niece is entering high school next year. I have already told her that if she is able to get into Grove City, that I will pay her tuition. ( I cringe at the thought of her attending college in Seattle )

Here is a link to the school's website, if anyone is interested.

http://www.gcc.edu/index.php

[swpa19]

To orient the readers of this thread Grove City is located in NW Pa. and, is one of the few Colleges at least around here that still adheres to good old fashioned Christian Principles.

I have already told her that if she is able to get into Grove City

This statement is very correct. Attendance to Grove City is not a gimme. It has quietly become one of the most prestigious conservative colleges in the east.

[Sigaba]

A few months ago, I got reacquainted with a professor over coffee at Peet's. Maybe it was the caffeine. In mid sentence he started laughing. With a grin, he said "Had you been born ten years earlier, you might have had a chance [to get an academic job]." I shared in the laugh. It was definitely the caffeine.

So when I read a piece like Mr. Stein's, some of it resonates--not just because of the caffeine. Still, his essay would have greatly benefited from a higher level of due diligence. Instead, he leaves several noticeable stones unturned to the detriment of his analysis of the political environment in the Ivory Tower today. Examples follow.

While the mind-boggling damage done to higher education by multicultural activists, diversity-mongers, and all-around leftist jerks....

Is it prudent to position scholars influenced by post-structuralism or post-modernism at the same end of the political spectrum as liberals and leftists? The exceptionally bitter fights today among leftist scholars and their postmodernist-minded colleagues suggest the answer is "no."

Take my friend Garry Apgar....His goal in life was to teach art history at the college level....

What happened? ....

For his part, all Garry knew was that what had happened was not remotely fair....."They'll find a zillion excuses to obscure the real reasons: 'the scholarship's a little flimsy,' 'it's not a good fit,' or whatever they want. There's no alliance of straight conservatives, or even old-fashioned, open-minded liberals."

In the academic world where tenure track professorships are the goal, it is PUBLISH OR PERISH, not "teach or perish." While we are given Mr. Agpar's side of the story, there is no discussion of how frequently professors who fail to publish find themselves on the outside looking in.

I worked for one such historian. Her focus was on torture in early modern France. Her students adored her. Her colleagues admired her. But being well liked, articulate, and possibly brilliant did not stop her department from denying her tenure for not pulling her weight by publishing more. (Nor did the fact that the department had recently selected for the first time a woman to be the chairperson help.)

Similarly, the historian mentioned in this post's first paragraph has won ten teaching awards, including the American Historical Association Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentorship Award for Undergraduate Teaching. Indeed, he is now tasked with training all (not just his department's) graduate students to work as teaching assistants. Yet, because it is PUBLISH OR PERISH, he has not been promoted in twenty-eight years. Such are the rules of the game.

And as for his "zillion excuses," that number speaks for itself.

The Cold War historian Ron Radosh ... Paul Buell, a leftist historian .... Carolyn Eisenberg, who came up to me and said, 'I just want you to know you used to be one of our heroes and models, but you've betrayed us all; what you did was horrible.' At that, she started crying."

To these and innumerable others in his field, Radosh has remained a pariah ever since: "It never ends. They don't forget. As a result of that, I was blackballed, could never get any other really good job." He cites one episode as especially telling, an interview with the entire history faculty at George Washington University. "They didn't even bother to pretend... Moreover, says Radosh, surveying the academic scene, he sees no prospect of things getting better any time soon. "I was looking recently at the annual catalogue of the Organization of American Historians, the branch that specializes in U.S. history, and it was like reading the names of the Communist Party annual conference. One hundred percent left-wing and anti-American. Every paper was about class and gender and the oppression of women by the patriarchy."

Three issues present themselves here. If, as Radosh suggests, the scholarship of the Cold War is so skewed to the radical left, what accounts for the fact that dominant forces in the field remain H.W. Brands and John Lewis Gaddis? (A picture of Professor Gaddis and two notorious lefties is attached.)

Second, having witnessed a number of "job talks" at which a department's roster vets an applicant, it is, IMHO, unlikely that every professor present would dog pile on a candidate in the manner that Radosh alleges. In my experience, when an established scholar is the focus, the debate is most intense among like-minded scholars.* The fact that Ronald Spector (link) is still a member of GW's history department only adds to my skepticism.

Third, it is somewhat odd that a historian focusing on the Cold War would use the OAH as an example of the state of his field. Yes, the OAH's annual conference continues to emphasize more recent approaches to historical study (as does the American Historical Association's annual conference) but even so, topics revolving around the Cold War remain a focus of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR). The programs from SHAFR's annual meetings held since 2000 are available here. While one will note that many panels do focus on topics and methodologies that are fashionable today, one will also see that there was also plenty of discussion of traditional topics. I would point out that the nexus of diplomatic and military history still continues to get short shrift. (But I'm not bitter.)

Mark Moyar, on the job market for five years and still looking...

In assessing Mr. Moyar's career trajectory, Mr. Stein is over-reliant on Moyar's own account. What is missing?

First, a doctorate from Cambridge does not play well in the United States. Who ever advised him not to get his M.Phil at Cambridge and then his doctorate in the U.S. did the man a disservice. (Again, rules of the game.)

Second, competition for jobs among Americanists (historians specializing in the United States) remains brutal. A standing rule of thumb is that for every job opening, a history department receives 200 applications. When Moyar complains about being "turned down" for "nearly two hundred" tenure track jobs, readers are left to believe that this dynamic is just about politics and nothing to do with the fact that it is a buyer's market.

Third, Triumph Forsaken (2006, which is not, as Mr. Stein states, Moyar's first book) as well as Moyar's dissertation, published as Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism in Vietnam (1997, reprint 2007), are problematic as works of scholarly history. In Birds of Prey, Mr. Moyar relies on interviews with anonymous sources in both Vietnam and here in the States. While his commitment to the wishes and PERSEC concerns of his informants is laudable, the craft of historical research centers around verifiable information. Anonymous sources is the domain of journalism, not history.

Fourth, given the brawls that have centered around the historiography of the Vietnam War, Moyar's introductory comments as well as his numerous parenthetical asides (in the principal text as well as his end notes) are displays of poor situational awareness and substandard professionalism that suggest self-sabotage. Rather than presenting his scholarship in any number of scholarly contexts that set the stage for his marvelous contributions, Moyar launches broadsides against Harvard (students and faculty) as well as other scholars who have studied the war. Either Moyar was poorly served by those who should have known better or he failed to heed their advice. While exceptionally brilliant historians may prove the exception--Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese come to mind--historians generally wait until after they've demonstrated their preeminence for a couple of decades before they start burning their bridges.

Penultimately, there are Moyar's Listmania! postings on Amazon.com. Putting one's own works on three separate lists is a bit vain. Recommending Retribution by Max Hastings and Gallipoli by Robin Prior is hoping that potential readers are not regular readers of The Journal of Military History--both works failed utterly to inspire confidence in that journal's reviewers.

__________________________________________
*Reading threads in which TS and TR debate the relative merits of the 1911 or posts in which AFCHIC takes one of us civilians to the woodshed can give one a sense of what these discussions are like.