Professors and Their Politics

374 Pages·2014·2.935 MB·English

by  Gross, Neil, Simmons, Solon

Professors and Their Politics
This page intentionally left blank
Professors and Their Politics
Edited by
NEIL GROSS and SOLON SIMMONS
Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2014 Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2014
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Mary land 21218- 4363
www .press .jhu .edu
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Professors and their politics / edited by Neil Gross and Solon Simmons.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN- 13: 978- 1-4214-1334-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN- 13: 978- 1-4214-1335-8 (electronic)
ISBN- 10: 1- 4214-1334-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN- 10: 1- 4214-1335-3 (electronic)
1. College teachers— United States— Political activity. 2. College teachers—
United States— Attitudes. I. Gross, Neil, 1971–. II. Simmons, Solon.
LB2331.72.P77 2014
378.1'2—dc23 2013035780
A cata log record for this book is available from the British Library.
Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information,
please contact Special Sales at 410- 516- 6936 or [email protected].
Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials,
including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent
post- consumer waste, whenever possible.
contents
Introduction 1
part i the lay of the land
1 The Social and Po liti cal Views of American College
and University Professors 19
neil gross and solon simmons
part ii explaining professorial liberalism
2 Po liti cal Liberalism and Graduate School Attendance:
A Longitudinal Analysis 53
ethan fosse, jeremy freese, and neil gross
3 Nations, Classes, and the Politics of Professors:
A Comparative Perspective 82
clem brooks
4 Po liti cal Bias in the Graduate School Admissions Pro cess:
A Field Experiment 109
ethan fosse, neil gross, and joseph ma
part iii the student experience
5 The Eff ect of College on Social and Po liti cal Attitudes
and Civic Participation 135
kyle dodson
6 “Civil” or “Provocative”? Varieties of Conservative Student Style
and Discourse in American Universities 158
amy j. binder and kate wood
vi Contents
part iv formative periods
7 Naturalizing Liberalism in the 1950s 191
andrew jewett
8 Challenging Neutrality: Sixties Activism and Debates over
Po liti cal Advocacy in the American University 217
julie a. reuben
part v institutional change and its limits
9 Activism and the Academy: Lessons from the
Rise of Ethnic Studies 243
fabio rojas
10 Rationalizing Realpolitik: U.S. International Relations
as a Liberal Field 267
patrick thaddeus jackson
11 The Merits of Marginality: Think Tanks, Conservative
Intellectuals, and the Liberal Academy 291
thomas medvetz
Conclusion 309
Appendix. Sample Student Emails 315
References 317
Contributors 353
Index 357
Professors and Their Politics
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction
If journalists, op-e d writers, and reformers are to be believed, American higher
education is in crisis. True, college and university enrollments are at an all- time
high. But amid skyrocketing tuition costs, reports that undergraduates are
studying—a nd learning—l ess than in dec ades past, moral scandals around col-
lege athletics and executive pay, rising international competition, and the ap-
pearance of online learning technologies that call into question the traditional
faculty role, critics have been busy suggesting that the system has reached a
breaking point (e.g., Arum and Roksa 2011; Delbanaco 2012; Hacker and Driefus
2010; Taylor 2010). Public confi dence in higher education is down, as meas ured
by opinion polls, and it is in this context that a variety of proposals for reform
have been fl oated. These range from plans to overhaul the curriculum to calls for
more seamless transfer arrangements between community colleges and four-
year institutions, eff orts at increasing transparency around college pricing and
postgraduation job placement, and manifestos for a “revolution in global online
higher education” (Friedman 2013).
Politics is a subtext in many of these discussions. Critics and reformers on the
left argue that the root cause of higher education’s malaise is that colleges and uni-
versities have been remade by the forces of neoliberalism (Kleinman, Feinstein,
and Downey 2013; Kleinman and Vallas 2001; Newfi eld 2011; Rhoten and Calhoun
2011). Having adapted all too well to the market sensibilities that came to pervade
other social spheres beginning in the 1970s, institutions of higher education are
now said to suff er from a withdrawal of state support— which has required the
offl oading of operating costs onto students—f rom the embrace of low-r oad em-
ployment strategies, from too much willingness to bend to the whims of corpo-
rate donors, and from practices of “academic capitalism” involving the forging
of new and unsavory relationships between universities, science, and the knowl-
edge economy (Slaughter and Rhoads 2009). But it is not just the institutions