From Jonathan Turley.
If you want to understand why so many recent university graduates have such bizarre ideas and beliefs, this is a good place to start.
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For years, many of us have been writing about the decline in viewpoint diversity and the rise of an academic orthodoxy in higher education. It is one of the focuses of my new book, The Indispensable Right. Despite the calls for greater tolerance, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) just elected a new president who has been criticized for being overtly hostile to conservative viewpoints and candidates. Todd Wolfson, a Rutgers University anthropologist, is an ally for those who continue to oppose intellectual diversity in favor of ideological orthodoxy in higher education. Wolfson is the author of “Digital Rebellion: The Birth of the Cyber Left. “Given the hostile environment faced by conservatives, Republicans, and libertarians today, one would think that anyone contemplating this position would strive to project neutrality and tolerance. That does not appear to be the style of Professor Wolfson. In an August 8 statement, Wolfson responded to J.D. Vance’s criticism of higher education at the 2021 National Conservatism Conference. Vance objected to the universities being “very hostile institutions” and said that “we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.”Wolfson could have objected to the tenor of the rhetoric and defended the efforts to preserve pluralism and diversity of viewpoints.
Instead, he immediately fulfilled the stereotype laid out by Vance:
“With Vance, American Far-Right authoritarians have succeeded in elevating a fascist who vows to ‘aggressively attack universities in this country’ to within striking distance of their goal: the annihilation of American higher education as we know it.”
He added:
Vance’s labeling of professors as “the enemy” and his praise of Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán’s seizure of state universities as “the closest that conservatives have ever gotten to successfully dealing with leftwing domination of universities” are unambiguous. Should he and the dark-money funders backing him gain power, they aim to take control of American higher education and bend it to their will. Ironically, they would use fear and misinformation to turn colleges and universities into what the Far Right has for years falsely accused them of being: ideological indoctrination centers. …
While attacks on American higher education are nothing new, the scope of the Project 2025 blueprint for a Trump-Vance presidency offers a frightening glimpse into an authoritarian future that would transform American colleges and universities into thought-control factories by stifling ideas, silencing debate, and destroying autonomy. Project 2025 would roll back decades of progress on access to higher education, eliminate protections for LGBTQ+ students and sexual assault survivors, privatize student loans, end loan forgiveness, and, if we take its authors at their word, abolish the Department of Education entirely. We cannot afford to let this happen.
So in one statement, Wolfson not only officially opposed the Republican ticket as an existential threat to higher education but made defeating such views an objective of the organization.
There is not a single line recognizing the lack of diversity of viewpoints at most universities or polling showing that both students and faculty are now engaging in widespread self-censorship under administrators and academics like himself.
A survey conducted by the Harvard Crimson shows that more than three-quarters of Harvard Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty respondents identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Only 2.5% identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.”
Likewise, a study by Georgetown University’s Kevin Tobia and MIT’s Eric Martinez found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools. Notably, a 2017 study found 15 percent of faculties were conservative. Another study found that 33 out of 65 departments lacked a single conservative faculty member.
Some sites like Above the Law have supported the exclusion of conservative faculty. Senior Editor Joe Patrice defended “predominantly liberal faculties” by arguing that hiring a conservative law professor is akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism to teach at a university. So the views of roughly half of the judiciary and half of the country are treated as legitimately excluded as intellectually invalid.
Given this hostility, it is hardly surprising that polls show faculty and students are less comfortable discussing their views or values in higher education.
The study shows that 70 percent of students “believe that speech can be as damaging as physical violence.” It also shows the impact of speech codes and regulations with two out of three students reporting that they “self-censor” during classroom discussions.
Not surprisingly, Republican students are the most likely to self-censor given the purging of conservative faculty and the viewpoint intolerance shown on most campuses.
Some 49 percent of Republican students report self-censoring on three or more topics. Independents are the second most likely at 40 percent. Some 38 percent of Democrats admit to self-censuring.
These surveys and studies on the reduction of conservative or libertarian faculty show that the far left has achieved precisely what Wolfson describes as a successful effort “to take control of American higher education and bend it to their will.”
This was an opportunity for Wolfson and the AAUP to reassure the many conservative and libertarian students and faculty. In the face of dwindling numbers of conservative and libertarian faculty, they could have voiced a commitment to resist ideological agendas from either the left or the right. It was a chance to push back on the hyperbole while acknowledging that work must be done to regain the lost trust in academia, which is now at record lows.
Instead, Wolfson has doubled down on political language and orthodox policies. That could hardly come as a surprise for the faculty who elected him. Wolfson he wants to make AAUP “a fighting organization.”
Wolfson’s response is reminiscent of how the AAUP has solicited papers on conservative intolerance in higher education while omitting liberal intolerance. It was an almost laughable agenda given the purging or dramatic reduction of conservatives from most faculties over the last couple decades.
As my book discusses, the AAUP was once the bastion of free speech and academic integrity values. It opposed the invasion of politics into higher education. However, it has become captured by the same forces that have converted our campuses into intolerance spaces for many faculty and students.
Wolfson has been widely criticized for the move by AAUP to reverse its long-standing opposition to academic boycotts, a move that is viewed as targeting Israeli institutions. It is clearly part of his move to make AAUP even more of a “fighting organization” and he has insisted that “collective action of all sorts does not necessarily come into and undermine academic freedom.”
Wolfson’s election shows how the objections of so many at the lack of intellectual diversity and tolerance are having little impact on faculty. When elected officials threaten reductions in support, these same academics are outraged by the attacks on higher education. Many offer perfunctory commitments to intellectual diversity while doing little to achieve it. As shown here, they are continuing to maintain and expand the culture that is suffocating our scholastic programs on every level.
Here is his faculty bio:
“Todd Wolfson’s research focuses on the intersection of new media and contemporary social movements and he is author of “Digital Rebellion: The Birth of the Cyber Left” and co-editor of the forthcoming volume, “Great Refusal: Herbert Marcuse and Contemporary Social Movements.” Wolfson believes in the importance of engaged scholarship that leads to tangible action in the world, and to that end, he is a co-founder of the Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) based in Philadelphia, PA. MMP is an award-winning organization that aims is to use new media and communications to build a movement of poor and working people, united across color lines. MMP’s work has been supported by the Knight Foundation, Ford Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Media and Democracy Coalition, and Media Democracy Fund amongst others.”
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