Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on Smith v. City of Jackson could harbor language that affects universities in its treatment of conservative job seekers. The Court ruled unanimously, in an age-bias case, that plaintiffs do not need to prove deliberate bias on the part of employers, only that discriminatory policies harmed them.
It’s not hard to see how the principle of this ruling might apply to academic conservatives, given that the Court has already laid the groundwork for ideology to be considered a part of diversity on campus ? and considering the national “Well, duuuh” response to the Washington Post‘s article two days ago, “College Faculties a Most Liberal Lot, Study Says.” The study referenced may be viewed here. Its abstract:
This article first examines the ideological composition of American university faculty and then tests whether ideological homogeneity has become self-reinforcing. A randomly based national survey of 1643 faculty members from 183 four-year colleges and universities finds that liberals and Democrats outnumber conservatives and Republicans by large margins, and the differences are not limited to elite universities or to the social sciences and humanities. A multivariate analysis finds that, even after taking into account the effects of professional accomplishment, along with many other individual characteristics, conservatives and Republicans teach at lower quality schools than do liberals and Democrats. This suggests that complaints of ideologically-based discrimination in academic advancement deserve serious consideration and further study. The analysis finds similar effects based on gender and religiosity, i.e., women and practicing Christians teach at lower quality schools than their professional accomplishments would predict.
