Academic freedom means courageous thinking, not conformity to political whims | Opinion

Is it time for affirmative action for conservatives in higher ed? The New York Times recently reported that “about 60 percent of undergraduate teaching faculty identify as liberal or far left, compared with about 12 percent who identify as conservative or far right.” A few years ago, a survey of university administrators concluded, “Liberal staff members outnumber their conservative counterparts by the astonishing ratio of 12-to-one.”

This kind of data has led Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis and other conservatives to become champions of diversity by seeking to dismantle liberal hegemony on campus. DeSantis has said he is opposed to an agenda that seeks to “impose ideological conformity.”

This conservative diversity initiative reads the data as showing institutional bias and structural oppression on campus. The problem seems to be that liberals like to be around other liberals, so they hire other liberals. And conservatives are either discouraged from applying for academic positions, or don’t fit in if they get hired.

This kind of argument takes a page from the liberal playbook. Liberals often defend affirmative action programs based on claims about institutional bias and the need for diversity. Is preferential treatment of conservatives a solution, or part of the larger problem?

I think the bigger problem is that we see universities as sites of ideology and representation, rather than as places to pursue truth and develop knowledge. The right-wing assault on higher education is connected to the general mission creep in universities. We have lost sight of the focus on truth and knowledge as universities have become social clubs and athletic prep leagues, as well as mechanisms for social engineering and economic advancement. The modern university has become a focal point of social and political struggle because the university serves a social and political purpose that goes far beyond the project of pursuing knowledge.

Of course, there is some truth to the claim that struggles for power influence the world of ideas. This point has often been made by liberal intellectuals who study power and ideology in the writings of Marx, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Conservatives have caught on to this general idea. The conservative’s ideological critique of higher education would sound familiar to their liberal activist doppelgangers.

What’s missing here is any substantial claim about the fundamental purpose of education. If universities exist primarily to help people make money or gain access to power, then we ought to take account of the inequalities of our economic and social system. But if the point of a university is to cultivate knowledge for its own sake, then those other social concerns fade in importance. And if knowledge is power, rather than the other way around, then we empower our students by helping them learn to think.

Some liberals (and apparently some conservatives) may claim that there is no objective knowledge beneath the layers of ideology. This may make sense in a world of alternative facts and fake news, where science, medicine and journalism are politicized. Ours is a culture in which charismatic know-nothings get elected, and where influencers matter more than geniuses.

This is an ancient problem. Power and influence have always been at odds with wisdom and enlightenment. The mob killed Socrates for his unpopular beliefs. Something similar happened to Jesus. And Galileo was brought before the Inquisition.

And yet, Galileo was proved right. Truth exists apart from the trends, the tumult, and the threat of torture. But to discover the truth, we need liberty and discipline. Science, art, and philosophy unfold as a process of critique and correction that transcends ideology and which depends on freedom.

The University of Wisconsin system (where I used to teach) has a motto that explains the importance of academic freedom. The UW commits its faculty to a process of “continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.” The point is that knowledge results when we are free to sift and winnow.

On this model, professors are not influencers or activists. Nor are they propagandists or thought-police who seek to impose conformity. Rather, professors are supposed to be free and courageous thinkers. And on this model, universities do not exist to reinforce or disseminate an ideology. Rather, they exist to inspire critical thinking and the pursuit of knowledge.