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THE CAMPUS

By Bruce Gilley  August 29, 2017

L ooking forward to a lively annual conference of the American Political Science

Association, due to start this week in San Francisco, I proposed a panel on “Viewpoint
Diversity in Political Science.” After all, I thought, wasn’t the 2016 election a signal lesson in
the continuing relevance of diverse viewpoints in the American body politic?

My submission featured four of the most prominent political scientists in the country who Minding the Campus, the website written
have written on the issue of political diversity in the field. They included Joshua Dunn, mostly by courageous professors who choose
Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Colorado at to educate rather than proselytize students
Colorado Springs, whose co-authored 2016 book entitled Passing on the Right: Conservative to their world view, needs your help. Even a
Professors in the Progressive University has been a focus of the national discussion among small donation makes a big difference. Click
academics interested in the issue; and April Kelly-Woessner, Professor of Political Science here to donate now.
and Chair of the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Legal Studies at Elizabethtown
College, whose co-authored 2011 book The Still Divided Academy: How Competing Visions of
Power Politics and Diversity Complicate the Mission of Higher Education is the gold standard NOTABLE
on how to promote respectful political dialogue on campus.
Yes, the Public Rejects Victim
Quaint Notions of White Identity? Culture

Now, granted, every major conference receives far more submissions than it can accept. Still, Protests at the University of
I was surprised when the panel was rejected. I assumed that it had been bested by superior Missouri and Evergreen State College caused
panels submitted to the jointly-organized teaching and education sections of the conference. large enrollment declines, a sign that people
But when the official program came out, I could see that it was not. Instead, it was crowded turn away from the campus victimhood
out by APSA’s serious lack of political diversity. culture when they learn about its excesses.
So say sociologists Bradley Campbell and
Jason Manning in their new book, The Rise of

A total of 11 full panels or roundtables were accepted in the teaching and education sections.
Of these, 7 are on mainstream teaching topics. Another 4 were set aside for, shall we say, Victimhood Culture.
more politicized topics. One, entitled “Let’s Talk about Sex (and Gender and Sexuality)”, is on
how to restructure the classroom around ideas of being “genderfluid, transgender, or gender Free Speech Lawsuit Against UC
nonconforming.” Another, on “Tolerance, Diversity, and Assessment” will focus on how to use Berkeley Allowed to Proceed
administrative coercion to enforce various group identity agendas.
District Judge Maxine Chesney ruled on April
The third, called “Taking Advantage of Diversity,” will help scholars to understand why their 25th that the plaintiffs, Young America's
quaint notions of cutting edge knowledge are merely expressions of white identity. Another, Foundation (YAF), and Berkeley College
“Teaching Trump”, is composed of left-wing feminist scholars. Final score for political science Republicans (BCR), adequately alleged that
education at this year’s APSA conference: left-wing approaches to diversity and difference: 4; campus administrators applied broad “major
conservative or classical liberal approaches: 0. events” policies to suppress conservative
speech. This allows the suit over speakers At
The Holy Trinity of Leftist Grievance UC Berkeley to move forward.

For good measure, I looked at the entire conference program to see whether the Need a Space to Cry? Utah
preponderance of panels on left-wing approaches to diversity in the teaching and education Campus Has One
sections was to balance a lack of them elsewhere. I searched for panels on the holy trinity of
identity politics: sexism/feminism, racism/white privilege, and sexual A “cry closet” has been created on the
orientation/homo/transphobia. My best guess is that conference attendees will have a choice University of Utah campus so students
of 104 panels on these topics, in addition to the 4 in the teaching and learning sections. Just stressed out by nal exams can weep in peace
for laughs, I searched for panels on political, ideological, or viewpoint diversity. None. and hug various stuffed animals. Rules: no
bringing a friend along—solo sobbing only—
There are, of course, special sections controlled by conservative or classical liberal groups at and crying is limited to 10 minutes to make
the APSA conference. But as for the sections that are open to all submissions, they essentially way for waiting weepers.
fall into two groups: strictly empirical work or normatively left-wing ideas. Am I the only one
scratching my head? Yale Cops Argue Campus Is
Unsafe
I have worked with political scientists of an overwhelmingly left-wing bent for all of my
career, so I know that there is nothing nefarious in this. Indeed, this is a key finding of Yale University’s police union, eager to win a
Dunn’s Passing on the Right. Sometimes, conservative commentators on the academy write new contract, is arguing that the campus and
as if there is a vast conspiracy operating on campus. There is not. Most of my left-wing the city of  New Haven can be dangerous
colleagues in political science are reasonable and rational people who are aware of the places. It is handing out yers listing recent
importance of bringing a variety of political viewpoints into the classroom. When I asked the crimes and the slogan “Yale’s campus may not
section organizer why our panel was rejected, she genuinely seemed not to remember – not be as safe as you think.”
indicative of an intentional censoring of non-left-wing issues – and added: “I agree it’s an
important topic.”
No Rudeness Loophole in First
Amendment
So why the lack of balance? Despite the lip-service to the importance of viewpoint diversity,
asking an APSA organizer committed to the advance of left-wing viewpoints to take one for
A Fresno State professor, Randa Jarrar,
the right is like asking a glutton to forego ice cream. There are no practical means to translate
tweeted a reference to the late Barbara Bush
theory into practice. The eyes roll tiredly over proposals concerning viewpoint diversity but
as “a generous and smart and amazing racist
perk up excitedly at the sight of one, to cite another of the offerings at this year’s conference,
who, along with her husband, raised a war
“Disavowing Violence: Imperial Entitlements, From Burke to Trump (Fuck That Guy).”
criminal.” Joseph Castro, president of Fresno
State, said he might consider ring Jarrar in
Looniest End of the Academy
light of the “disrespect” exception to the First
Amendment. There is no such exception.
Indeed, for the looniest end of the left-wing academy, even the theory is hostile to viewpoint
diversity. They view the academy as a special zone of (left-wing) Truth that must be protected
against (right-wing) Falsehoods of the real world. Genuine pluralism, from this vantage, is a WRITE FOR MTC
cover for privilege and oppression. Why import such falsehoods into the charmed realm of
truth they have carved out with taxpayer’s money? Or more to the point, why go through the
pain, inconvenience, and potential disapprobation of importing falsehoods? I do not think
the teaching and education section leaders of this year APSA were of that sort. But the system
is heavily stacked against even a brief effort in the direction of idea pluralism. Why stick your
neck out to accept a panel on political diversity at a political science conference when, to cite
another of this year’s offerings, one can win kudos for accepting a panel entitled: “Pussies
Grab Back: Feminism in the Wake of Trump”?

Much has been written about the general problem of a lack of political diversity in political
science and its drift to the far left. The ratio of Democratic/left-of-center to Republican/right-
of-center professors in political science is variously estimated at around 15 to 1 nationwide, Interested in writing for us?
not counting moderates and centrist independents. In my home state of Oregon, I believe the
ratio is infinitely large because I do not know of a single Republican or conservative in our
Calling all professors, college newspaper
profession here (I am a swing voter and independent). APSA is not only indicative of this
reporters and editors who believe in diversity
worsening problem but, and here is the issue, a key cause of it and thus, potentially, a fulcrum
of thought as well as culture and ethnicity.
point for change.
Minding the Campus aims to expose today’s
single lane thought highway at today’s
It was not always this way. APSA was founded in 1903 to defend the ideal of impartial
universities and nd solutions to the growing
empirical inquiry. It’s constitution still declares that “the Association as such is nonpartisan.
monoculture of ideas that silences the
It will not support political parties or candidates. It will not commit its members on questions
contrarians. MTC also has a commitment to
of public policy nor take positions not immediately concerned with its direct purpose” of
due process and reports on how accusations
academic inquiry. For years, it upheld those ideals. Remarkably, APSA and political science
of sexual assault on campus can convict a
more generally survived the onslaught of illiberal radicalism, political correctness, and
student who was denied legal representation.
censorship of the 1960s, as John Gunnell of SUNY-Albany wrote in the association’s main
If you want to know more, please click here to
journal in 2006. APSA presidents well after that era included prominent conservatives like
read more.
Samuel Huntington of Harvard (1986-7) and James Q. Wilson of UCLA (1991-2).

The real problems arose when the graduate students of the 1960s and 1970s became tenured ARTICLE ARCHIVES
faculty and APSA executives. While political science and APSA were able to withstand an
assault on academic freedom and viewpoint diversity from illiberal students, they had no
Select Month
means to defend themselves when those illiberal students became the governors. From the
2000s, a string of such far-left scholars came into office as APSA presidents: they included
old-left scholars of class and socialism like Theda Skocpol of Harvard (served in 2002-3),
Margaret Levi of Washington (served in 2004-5), and Ira Katznelson of Columbia (served in
2005-6); and “new-left” scholars of racial and gender grievance such as Dianne Pinderhughes
of Notre Dame (2007-8), Rodney Hero of Berkeley (2014-15), and Jennifer Hochschild of
Harvard (2015-16). There is of course nothing wrong with a variety of positions being
represented in the APSA presidency. However, there was never any countervailing tendency.
The moderate leftists who took the helm between the growing frequency of radicals could do
nothing more than steady the ship before the next gale of fanaticism.

Under this new post-2000 leadership, APSA turned from being a fairly pluralistic and
professional-oriented body into a shock force for the latest thought liberations of the left. This
has been evident most clearly in the bevy of special task forces that have been commissioned.
One of these, on “Inequality and American Democracy” published in 2004, deserves special
attention because it was the point where APSA lost its credibility. The report claimed to have
uncovered “profound threats” to American democracy as a result of inequality, which was
reinforced by social programs that served mainly old white conservatives; indeed that
political scientists had reached a “consensus” that such a threat existed. Again, it was not the
radical leftism per se but the growing suggestion that only radical viewpoints were welcome
or even recognized in the discipline that rankled.

A Little Diversity? No Thanks

One political scientist, Robert Weissberg of the University of Illinois-Urbana, was allowed a
dissenting voice in a symposium on the report. He called the report a “professional
embarrassment” for its hysterical claims of what he called “an AARP coup d’état.” Putting
aside the possibility that “overeager interns absconded with APSA letterhead,” Weissberg
warned that professional political scientists who adopted an “overheated radical egalitarian
tone” of the report were not just, in his view, getting it wrong on American democracy. The
bigger problem was what it said about the state of APSA. The obliviousness of the report’s
authors to what a conservative, classical liberal or centrist would see as its “embedded
totalitarianism” might have been at least acknowledged if the 14-member task force had
included one or two non-leftists. “A little diversity, so to speak, would have saved
considerable embarrassment.”

Yet such diversity was, as it was becoming clear in 2004, precisely what was on the wane at
APSA. The new generation of political science faculty and APSA leaders no longer saw their
role not as engendering an appreciation and curiosity about the pluralism of the American
body politic and its institutions (as well as those abroad). Instead, APSA had become a key
citadel to storm and capture: “Transforming a discipline’s intellectual center of gravity is not
rocket science once the administrative apparatus is secure,” Weissberg wrote.

Today, APSA has become barely distinguishable from the Democratic Party and its far-left
wing. Its web page runs a constant stream of anti-Trump or anti-Republican news. This year,
it issued a statement supporting the anti-Trump “March for Science” held in DC in April and
another against the Executive Order on a temporary ban for travelers from several Middle
Eastern countries. It also felt the need to issue a Letter to Members after the 2016 election
(there was no letter issued after the 2012 or 2008 elections) saying the election had “cast into
sharp relief an array of issues” for political scientists. I used to think that’s what elections
were supposed to do.

Of course, for political scientists for whom every professional endeavor is a pitched battle for
social justice waged against the dark forces of tradition and privilege, the takeover of APSA is
just another point on the road to total victory. But, like Saigon when the Vietcong arrived,
they may find that others have abandoned the city, leaving them with nothing but a Pyrrhic
Victory.

The “boat people” fleeing APSA now include me. As it happened, this year’s APSA was on the
theme of political legitimacy, one of my major research areas. I proposed a methods
workshop on measuring legitimacy along with another scholar who, like me, has spent a lot of
time on data and measurement issues. It was accepted, but alas is now canceled as I have
chosen not to attend. I will continue to research, teach, and engage policy-makers about
legitimacy, but not at APSA.

Maybe this does not matter. As Weissberg noted: “Transforming the profession into scholarly
agitprop is lamentable, but hardly catastrophic in the grand scheme of things. At worst,
intellectual corruption will render APSA publicly irrelevant.”

But for that shrinking pool of political scientists for whom a vibrant and pluralistic
professional association still matters, it may be time for a reckoning. So here is my challenge:
make “political and viewpoint diversity” the theme for a future APSA annual conference.
Recognizing the problem is the first step on the road to recovery.

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Bruce Gilley
Bruce Gilley is Professor of Political Science and Director of the
Ph.D. Program in Public Affairs and Policy at the Mark O. Hatfield
School of Government at Portland State University, and President
of the Oregon Association of Scholars. His research centers on
comparative and international politics and public policy. His work
covers issues as diverse as democracy, climate change, political
legitimacy, and international conflict. He is a specialist on the
politics of China and Asia.

35 thoughts on “Why I’m Leaving the Political Science Association”

collin237 says:May 1, 2018 at 1:02 pm

The ideologies on both the Left and Right sides are both the bloviations of racially
obsessed white sophists. Universities don’t need “viewpoint diversity”. They need to
stop discussing so-called viewpoints at all. Universities are supposed to be shelters
for participating in the worldwide quest for truth and knowledge. They are supposed
to be places for the free exchange of honest, respectful, and well-informed ideas —
only!

Reply

Md Anisur Rahman says:April 25, 2018 at 10:07 am

Political science may be a science that deals with the systems of a presidency, and
conjointly the analysis of political activities, political thoughts, and political behavior.
It deals extensively with the speculation and follows of politics that are sometimes
thought of as decisive of the distribution of power and resources. Political scientists
see themselves that they’re engaged in revealing the relationships underlying political
events and conditions, which they arrange to, construct general principles regarding
the tactic the world of politics works.

Reply

Roger Hicks says:October 20, 2017 at 6:05 am

It is impossible for social and political scientists to view objectively the society they
themselves are totally immersed in and dependent on. They are like medieval
academics trying to understand the world, which they are only permitted to do within
the context of the prevailing ideology, from which they derive their own authority,
social status and privileges, which they can hardly be expected to be impartial about.

Church ideology provided the medieval context within which academics were
required to think, but having lost most of its authority and influence, they have now
turned to a modern, secular replacement, which was conveniently provided by
Nazism, or rather, by the understandable, but nevertheless extreme and pathological,
overreaction to it, especially by Jews traumatised by the Holocaust and passed on to
following generations.

Our moral compass is now “Inverted Nazism”, which is not just misconceived (as
overreactions to anything tend to be) but also blocks the only approach that can lead
to a realistic understanding ourselves, our society and situation.

Because the Nazis hijacked and abused, for their own evil purposes, the half-baked
ideas of social Darwinism, a taboo was made of applying Darwinian logic to human
being and society at all, despite this being the only way to acquire an even half-way
objective view.

Rather than make this comment even longer, here is a link to my blog, where I
elaborate on these ideas:

Reply

Adam says:October 12, 2017 at 11:20 pm

Standard move by white supremacist apologists these days (most famously used
outside of academia by Milo Yiannopoulos):

1) Publish article or supporting colonialism and by extension, its various evils: white
supremacy, genocide, ethnocide, slavery, theft, rape etc., or bashing liberal
emancipatory movements of the 20th century and the gains they have made for their
constituents: feminists, queers, people of color, immigrants, working class people etc.

2) Get rejected by an academic landscape that has undergone significant structural

changes because of said political emancipatory movements and has no more
tolerance for colonialism, white supremacy, ultra-conservatism etc. because it does
not want to be complicit in repeating historical evils.

3) Complain about how, in not supporting scholarship advocating for colonialism,

white supremacy, ultra-conservatism, etc., academia is no longer pluralist, i.e. that it
is intolerant of different “points of view”. Conveniently ignore the fact that for its
entire history, academic work has always been politically charged, and that barely
100 years ago, craniology and racial evolution were considered to be well respected
academic fields, and that now the pendulum swings the other way.

Karl Popper had done a brilliant analysis of this phenomenon and of people like you
in 1945, advocating for what Western democracies should build into their systems to
avoid falling back into fascism:

“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend

unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend
a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be
destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for
instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as
long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public
opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to
suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not
prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all
argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is
deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We
should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the
intolerant.”

– Karl Popper, ‘The Open Society & It’s Enemies’, 1945

You sir, threaten pluralism, you do not advocate for it. You espouse a position that
would diminish it in our society today. We will protect our pluralist democracy. We
will not tolerate the intolerant who threaten it. We will not tolerate you.

Reply

William MacKenzie says:October 11, 2017 at 5:15 pm

After reading all these comments, I’m glad I don’t have take a class from the
bloviating leftist ideologues who are so sure of the rightness of their thinking (if you
can call it that).

Reply

GRA says:September 24, 2017 at 12:26 pm

Just by several comments here I suppose this article was passed around in higher
education circles and triggered leftists; and outside of that, people who took one too
many red pills.

Reply

Seth Edenbaum says:September 19, 2017 at 2:41 pm

The academy is never diverse, and it’s never removed from politics; it’s conservative
by definition. It’s becoming polarized, within its limits, as the rest of political life has
become polarized. Those who call themselves leftists pretend that political
movements, civil rights or more, begin in the academy, and those who oppose them
claim that civilization itself is at risk.
It’s a tempest in teapot, terrarium: a bubble economy. The world moves on.

Claims of enlightened superiority are as absurd now as ever, yours included. And
calls for “viewpoint diversity” are now lead by the former elite.

Reply

Mario Mauro says:October 14, 2017 at 11:31 am

Of course the wordl moves on. But where to ?

Reply

Vernon Waters says:September 19, 2017 at 2:38 pm

The days of European colonialism are over. “White” people are a shrinking minority
in an ever more interconnected world that is increasingly uplifting the people
“whites” previously colonized with their exploitative racial caste system. Most of us
“white” people, along with most of humanity, want to move on figuring out how to
live together peaceably side by side with the rest of humanity. A few “white” people
want to reclaim myths of lost greatness. I suspect Gilley is one of them. All I have to
say to these “white” people is: the “white race” can’t afford you any more.

Reply

Eliu says:September 11, 2017 at 9:25 pm

lol you want to return to colonialism; you have no right to accuse others of
intolerance or fanaticism when you argue for the bloody subjugation of poorer
countries

Reply

Bob Smith says:September 11, 2017 at 9:21 pm

What a lame snowflake you are, Bruce. Your panel proposal gets rejected and you
then write a long tirade whining and crying on how the profession does not accept
your shitty viewpoints. “Viewpoint diversity” is not a value per se at all, especially in
the academia where the quest is for truth. If your viewpoint is straight wrong and
especially shitty, why should anyone listen to you? This is like applying to a
conference in cosmology arguing that the Earth is flat and then writing a long post
whining that your proposal was rejected.

Reply

Joshua says:September 16, 2017 at 1:00 am

Bob,

Your premise is flawed. Academia indeed involves the quest for truth. However,
an advantage of many viewpoints is (1) Someone with another view may point
out something that others miss, which need to be addressed. (2) Even if the
view is wrong, pointing out the error engages “intellectual muscles” that may
otherwise grow lazy. This is in fact critical to transmitting good ideas across
generations.

This very post demonstrates what I am saying. You are clearly wrong, and I very
much enjoyed the exercise of using my more expansive view to destroy your
rubbish argument.

Reply

Adam says:October 12, 2017 at 11:00 pm

Your argument is actually pretty disingenuous. To use the same analogy,
making an argument that the earth is flat when it has been conclusively
proven to be otherwise is one thing, and amounts to shoddy scholarship –
such a claimant, if they actually believed in their argument, should not be
surprised at being dismissed in the academy…perhaps they would be
better off hosting a television show or doing something else, but not doing
serious scholarly work. Arguing for the validity of both arguments, of the
earth being flat and the earth being a globe, is tantamount to reducing
academic research and scholarship to nothing more than opinion and
point of view.

However, to make the argument that not only is the earth flat, but that we
should all, as a society, debunk the proven evidence that it is a globe and
go back to believing it is flat, is not only shoddy scholarship, it is
dangerous scholarship.

TheInnocentNYC says:September 10, 2017 at 4:35 pm

I’m genuinely curious: what about the March for Science was “anti-Trump”?

Reply

Leo Bixby says:September 9, 2017 at 3:49 pm

It seems that Professor Gilley’s idea of “diversity” is based on having enough cranky
conservative’s – whom are inherently counter-revolutionary in every way – to
counter the growing leftist academic zeitgeist. Why is he not asking the question,
“why is there is a negative relationship between the increasing power of society’s
conservative forces and the power of Leftist forces?” If he was truly “objective” and
“empirical” (laughable notions to begin with) he would research the trend. In a time
like this, when real actually existing fascism is on the rise, his decision to drop out of
APSA say it all. He is another white, fragile, man who cannot handle the fact that the
more educated people become, and the more reflexive PhDs in every field become,
the more Left they become. He should just quit and go to work for one of the many
useless middle of the rode think tanks who would love to have him. Leave the
university to those of us trying to figure out how to actually counter fascism, capitalist
global oligopoly, and produce theory and praxis that HELPS PEOPLE!

Reply

Joshua says:September 16, 2017 at 1:34 am

Leo,

I’ll be blunt, the view that the Left now dominate universities because they’re
more educated is a dumb conceit. Many left theories are incredibly stupid, being
little more than elaborately rationalized hatred, envy and greed.

Oh, and fascism is a Left movement. Italian fascism had socialist roots, as did
the Nazi party (which was short for called the National Socialist German
Workers Party). Nazis were only characterised as “right wing” in the sense that
they were “to the right” of the Stalinists (but still, politically speaking, left wing).
A principal distinction between Stalinists and Nazis was that the Nazis were
“racial socialists” – kind of like the ironically-named Antifa goons of today.

Putting the “doubt quotes” around the words objective and empirical marks you
as an intellectual lightweight. Reality exists, and humans can and do engage
with it dispassionately. (And please don’t try “science is a social construct”
nonsense.)

Finally, attempting to dismiss Professor Gilley’s views because he is a “white,

fragile man” is both racist and sexist. (And please don’t try the self-serving and
intellectually bankrupt formula that “racism = prejudice + power” . Prejudice
can rot the soul of any person.)

Reply

Vernon Waters says:September 19, 2017 at 2:47 pm

“Many left theories are incredibly stupid, being little more than elaborately
rationalized hatred, envy and greed.”

Name one.

Vernon Waters says:September 19, 2017 at 2:48 pm

And not a historical one, a current one.

Reinhilde says:September 20, 2017 at 9:56 am

Nazi was Leftist just because it bears the name “socialist”??? Wow. Then
North Korea must be democratic too as it bears the name “Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea” . What a fascinating examination of politics!

Steven Taylor says:September 9, 2017 at 12:47 pm

“As it happened, this year’s APSA was on the theme of political legitimacy, one of my
major research areas. I proposed a methods workshop on measuring legitimacy along
with another scholar who, like me, has spent a lot of time on data and measurement
issues. It was accepted, but alas is now canceled as I have chosen not to attend. ”

This strikes me as a real shame. For one, if there is a problem with diversity in terms
of the political preferences of scholar participating, then voluntarily removing
yourself just unnecessarily adds to the problem.

Second, getting on the APSA program is difficult, as I have experienced in my 20+

career, so canceling is squandering an opportunity.

Third, don’t the rules preclude/limit being on the program more than once, and that
might explain why your teaching panel was not accepted? (I may not be recalling the
rules correctly).

Reply

Steven Taylor says:September 9, 2017 at 12:43 pm

“This year, it issued a statement supporting the anti-Trump “March for Science” held
in DC in April and another against the Executive Order on a temporary ban for
travelers from several Middle Eastern countries. ”

On the one hand, I can see an argument for not taking a stand on politics in any way.
On the other, is it not problematic to associated “pro-science” with “liberal” or being
“anti-conservative”?

And, for that matter, is the travel ban “conservative”?

Is Trump “conservative”?

Reply

SM says:September 1, 2017 at 5:36 pm

You’re one brave man, Prof Gilley.
Well done, sir.

Reply

Edward Crenshaw says:September 1, 2017 at 3:03 pm

You think it’s bad in Political Science…it’s been that way since the 60’s in Sociology.
And I don’t think “ideological blindness” is any excuse at all. These people are
supposed to be intellectuals, not ideologues. While sociology lacks the hubris of
putting “science” in its disciplinary name, it nonetheless prides itself on being
scientific and (of course) far too often fails to live up to that. At the recent meetings of
the ASA I came early to the room where I was to present (in other words, this was a
very random visit), and what did I hear…bitching and moaning about Trump dressed
up as “scholarship” (and no, I was not a big supporter of Trump…just tired of hearing
about how he undermines democracy, yada yada yada). This is why I rarely go to
presentations anymore…I already know what they’ll say!

Solutions? Other than efforts like this website, I have no idea. We’ve reached the
point of no return; the bias is now self-replicating and tribalism is the new coin of the
realm.

Reply

Ed Cutting says:August 31, 2017 at 9:42 am

What the APSA needs to remember is that if the Higher Ed Act isn’t re-authorized
this year, most of them won’t be receiving paychecks anymore. The problem with the
academy being virulently anti-Trump is that Trump might just veto it out of spite.

And then what?

How much more could Trump be hated? And would his supporters even notice, let
alone care?

Reply

Jozef Gabčík says:September 19, 2017 at 2:52 pm

Yes, authoritarians try to starve their opponents into submission (or cudgel
them). That is why it is impossible to live side by side with them.

Reply

Johann Amadeus Metesky says:October 8, 2017 at 11:44 am

In what moral universe do you have a claim on my assets?

You want financial support for your career? Go ask Tom Steyer or George
Soros, not American taxpayers. The fact that there is no market demand
for your ideas, that to exist you must be subsidized by involuntary taxes,
makes you akin to a parasite living off of a host. How dare the host take
antibiotics!

American taxpayers have no obligation to support you or your academic

work. The fact that such work may be ideological and agenda driven as
opposed to dispassionately pedagogical makes your demands on my
money even more offensive.

Fisht says:August 31, 2017 at 8:06 am

Unionized Public sector ctrl-left Indoctrinators are America’s most dangerous enemy.

Every single one of the Black Masked Communists roaming our streets was
purposefully created by the ctrl-left anti Liberty Teachers Unions..

Reply

Ariadna Scriabina says:September 19, 2017 at 2:56 pm

I look forward to the day when you are laughed at and removed from society.

Reply

Johann Amadeus Metesky says:October 8, 2017 at 11:48 am

At least you’re honest about your totalitarian goals.

W. James Young says:August 30, 2017 at 4:14 pm

Not what I would have expected, given your focus and your own (avowed) leanings.
Quite fair, and unfortunate. As my undergraduate training was thoroughly Straussian
(I was even in attendance at the 1985 APSA convention, in New Orleans), I wish I
could say that I was surprised, but our department was unique even in my
undergraduate years, now more than thirty years ago.

The Association is diminished by your exit, even if those in charge will probably
celebrate it.

B.A., with Honors in Political Science, 1986

Hampden-Sydney College

Reply

Tina Trent says:August 30, 2017 at 11:41 am

“The eyes roll tiredly over proposals concerning viewpoint diversity but perk up
excitedly at the sight of one, to cite another of the offerings at this year’s conference,
“’Disavowing Violence: Imperial Entitlements, From Burke to Trump (F*** That
Guy).'”

You may not find this sort of thing neither nefarious nor evidence of a conspiracy to
keep conservatives off campus, but as a social scientist, perhaps you should consult
employment statistics rather than try to Stockholm Syndrome your way to favor.
Ditto your peers. Their research on conservatives in academia is one giant pander.

Would you recommend to a graduate student that they conceal their conservative
politics in order to get a job? Responsibly, of course you would, if you were actually
trying to help that person get a job outside the handful of silly endowed posts set
aside for so-called “conservative” scholars — populated usually by malleable,
apologist libertarians.

And what does that tell you?

Your denial is utterly offensive to those of us actually driven from our fields. And no,
we did not imagine it.

Reply

Jozef Gabčík says:September 19, 2017 at 3:46 pm

Do you object to only the last 3 words, or the entire title/topic? The last 3 words
are unnecessary and uncivil, although far more civil, I would say, than many
declarations by Trump and his cadre. Regardless, the imperialist content of
Trump’s rhetoric is so bald-faced that anyone who claims not to recognize it is
either disingenuous or lacks the basic comprehension necessary for a college
graduate, let alone a graduate of a PhD program. It’s time for those who take
offense at this kind of thing to be more honest — to stop claiming that Trump
and his allies are not imperialist, colonialist, and white supremacist — they will
always say something to undermine your defense of them if you do that. Just
come out and admit that Trump, his allies, and his supporters, share a religious
faith in discredited early 20th century racial eugenics that were used to justify
the horrors of European imperialism and colonialism. It’s the truth after all —
just like so many of Trump’s supporters also have a religious faith that the earth
is a few thousand years old and that their “god” would never have allowed
anthropogenic global warming to happen, or even if he did, it’s a GOOD thing
and we should not in any way try to stop it. And just like so many Trump
supporters have a religious faith in magical “market solutions” always bringing
about the best and most moral social arrangements. White
supremacism/nationalism, Christian fundamentalism, and libertarianism are,
at this point in history, overlapping religions, and their adherents steadfastly
refuse to live side by side with those who do not share one, or preferably all, of
these faiths. Many on the far right DO admit this, that’s why many of them
make, wear, and sell T-shirts celebrating Pinochet’s night-time helicopter rides
for leftist dissidents (where they were thrown into the ocean), or Assad’s barrel
bombing of his citizens, and these people, their literature, and often their
clothing, suggest that similar ends are in store for anyone who is not white and
right-wing. That’s why National Review publishes articles suggesting we are
already in a “civil war” that must end with the left being “vanquished.” These
people are honest about what they believe and what they are going to do to
achieve it: a far right-wing, authoritarian whites only ethno-state in north
America. This is the dream of most diehard Trump supporters, let’s be honest
here.

Reply

Johann Amadeus Metesky says:October 8, 2017 at 11:51 am

That rant is like a Mad Libs from the leftist catechism.

Jack says:August 29, 2017 at 3:52 pm

Did Gilley really think APSA would take his panel proposal on Viewpoint Diversity
seriously?

Doesn’t Gilley realize that “universities” and academic conferences now exist to
promulgate left-wing talking points?

Has Gilley been living on Mars for the past decade?

Whenever I encounter a naif like Gilley (who actually holds himself out as an expert
on political legitimacy and public policy!), all I can do is shake my head. Since when
did we start hiring Pollyannas as poli-sci professors?

Frankly, even though I find their politics and their debasement of the university
risible, I prefer hardcore leftist ideologues to people like Gilley.

At the least the leftist ideologues know that modern universities have become de facto
indoctrination centers.

At least leftist ideologues know that Viewpoint Diversity is verboten in the modern
“academic” arena.

At least leftist ideologues know what time it is.

Reply

seltzeroriginal says:September 14, 2017 at 2:58 am

Your comment may be objectively true but misses the point and so is untrue in a
deeper sense.

There is an enormous strategic benefit in adopting the language that Gilley

does, and in presuming as true the conceits of ASPA. It does not hold itself out
to be a hard left organization. Instead it says it stands for a bunch of other,
reasonable things. So strategically the only way to deal with it is point to the
good things it says it’s about, and say “Now let’s actually do that.”

I assume you have no proposal for action at all. not an option for those who
want to do something slightly useful.

Reply

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