The Divided Academy

[Valin]

The Weekly Standard:

JON A. SHIELDS and JOSHUA M. DUNN

Aug 16, 2012

 

Social Science Research editor Jim Wright is fighting to save his professional reputation. Wright is under fire from fellow sociologists and left-wing bloggers for publishing an article in June by sociologist Mark Regnerus, which concluded that children of parents who had engaged in same-sex relationships fared worse than children from intact, heterosexual families. (Andrew Ferguson reported on the controversy in a July cover story for THE WEEKLY STANDARD.)

 

Conservatives contend that Wright and Regnerus are merely the latest casualties of the left’s hegemony in higher education. In truth, the social sciences and humanities are more tolerant of conservative perspectives than this scandal might suggest. There is, however, a growing divide between academic disciplines willing to tolerate a wide range of political perspectives and those, like sociology, increasingly in the business of punishing heretics and their accomplices. It will shape the future of American academia.

 

Shortly after Regnerus’s study was published, Wright confronted implacable critics who were convinced that he was at the center of a right-wing conspiracy—though Wright himself supports gay rights. Two hundred scholars signed a letter expressing concern over the very “integrity” of Social Science Research because it published Regnerus’s paper. The University of Texas, where Regnerus is an associate professor, opened an inquiry into his work to evaluate charges of scientific misconduct.

 

(Snip)

 

But this doesn’t mean that universities are uniformly intolerant of conservatives. Though a number of studies suggest that conservatives have a comparatively tough time making their way in the academy, sociology and literature are special cases. While conservative philosophers, economists, and political scientists engage controversial issues like same-sex marriage without disciplinary sanction, a sociologist such as Regnerus is hammered for publishing a study that merely skirts around the edges of the deeper moral issue. Regnerus even acknowledged that his findings suggest that marriage might help gay parents and their children by conferring so many of the benefits that marriage offers, especially stability.

 

As some fields continue to tolerate (though not always welcome) conservative scholars while others discipline and punish, the academy has become increasingly divided, though not by party politics. Instead, it is divided into those disciplines that are willing to tolerate and engage unpopular perspectives, and those that are illiberal denizens of groupthink.

 

 

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