TJC Mention: Welcome to the Silencing of Dissenters
EXCERPT
I have done a series of research studies on the political imbalance in America’s universities. The higher-education institutions that most Americans believe have been established to encourage learning, curiosity, and thought now encourage the reverse. Ideological litmus tests via formalized DEI statements are the rule. Conservatives, libertarians, Christians, Republicans, and retired military personnel are not tolerated in many academic departments. If sunlight is the best disinfectant, the shade in the groves of academe is dense.
A few months ago, the National Association of Scholars on behalf of The Jefferson Council asked me to review the political affiliations of the faculty and staff at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. Research assistants at the NAS identified 2,384 usable federal-candidate-donation records from faculty and staff. The records covered six years or three Federal Elections Commission cycles, from 2017 to 2022.
We found that federal political donations from the faculty and staff at UVA go almost exclusively to one political party.
[. . .]
Grotesque imbalances have resulted not only in intolerance but also in complacency about the intolerance. University presidents congratulate themselves about the academic freedom they encourage while dissident professors and students are afraid to speak. The silencing of dissenters through ad hominem attacks has become normalized. Virtually every conservative and libertarian professor has by now either hidden their views, suffered an attack on his career, or been fired for ideological reasons.
To change an organizational culture is difficult if not impossible. Americans need to begin to consider whether reorganization and reform of established academic institutions, including one founded by Thomas Jefferson, may be necessary. As Jefferson wrote to William Stephens Smith, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”
Mitchell Langbert is associate professor of business at Brooklyn College.
