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Dad and David Horowitz
By Roger W. Bowen
My father, a lifelong Republican, a retired businessman, a substitute teacher in his local school system, and, at eighty-four years old, chagrined to be acknowledging his debt to FDR for Social Security and to LBJ for Medicare, asked me recently about the accuracy of the claim that the vast majority of college and university professors are liberal. "Is it true," he asked, "that if I were to apply for a professorship, I would be rejected on grounds of my conservatism?" I had to tell him that he probably would not be hired, but not because of his ideology (he never finished his graduate studies). "Aha," he responded, "because of my age! University eggheads are ageists!" "No, Dad," I responded, "liberals tend to be as opposed to ageism as they are to sexism, racism, and other pernicious 'isms.'"
I wonder if he concluded that I intentionally omitted conservatism from the other pernicious "isms" I listed. I hope so, because conservatism is a different kind of "ism," one that has a respected philosophical lineage in American intellectual history, even if it has remained a minority voice in the academy.
Several reasons explain its minority status, and they have as much to do with the nature of conservatism as with the nature of the academy. The academy tends to attract learners who get excited by old ideas that can be reinterpreted in contemporary terms or by new ideas that question the legitimacy of accepted doctrine. In either case, conventional—that is, conservative—wisdom is challenged.
Too, the academic profession requires an intellectual openness to the unwholesome reality that human history has not always been kind to the plight of the weak, or friendly to their quest for greater rights. Liberals tend to see history as a gradual expansion of human rights promoting the common good, conservatives as a steady erosion of privilege undermining private benefit.
In the United States, these two contrasting views have found expression in partisan politics. Traditionally, Republicans and conservative southern Democrats (many of whom are Republican today) have resisted women's rights, civil rights, gay rights, and human rights, and have too often advocated for keeping intact the privileges of the wealthy and the powerful. For them, historical change is not progress, but insult. Individual freedom, for them, should always trump the common good. University faculty members—well read, historically aware, and sensitive to the plight of the powerless—tend not to support a political party that favors such values.
At the same time, as classic liberals, college and university faculty love argument, debate, and critical thinking, and they recognize that conservative voices are necessary to a lively intellectual atmosphere. My own experience in team teaching courses with conservative colleagues attests to students' preference for having vibrant (but collegial) debate in the classroom as encouragement for them to test competing propositions.
"Dad," I continued, "the academy needs conservatives, but I can tell you from experience that in interviewing you, the search committee would never ask about your ideology, any more than it would ask about your religion, your age, or your sexual orientation. It's inappropriate to ask. And, besides, because you would have submitted writing samples, the committee would already have a rough idea of the clarity of your thinking and the level of your expertise. Those qualities weigh heavily in making an offer of employment."
That professional approach to hiring is something that David Horowitz would end. Horowitz, of course, is a well-known, one-time radical leftist, who today proudly boasts of impeccable conservative credentials and whose Center for the Study of Popular Culture relies on donor support from conservative foundations. Horowitz has been proposing an "academic bill of rights" that would foist "intellectual diversity" on campuses, with the goal of reducing the presence of liberal faculty and increasing that of conservative faculty.
"I don't know if I like that approach at all," my dad responded. "What is to prevent some damned Communist Party member or religious zealot from trying to impose ideological balance in the future? I think I'd prefer liberals who are open to debate to ideologues who would end debate."
"What," I asked, "do you think about Horowitz's creating a group called Students for Academic Freedom that is encouraged to report on faculty whose liberal views make students feel uncomfortable?"
"We called them 'rats' in my day. Those students are in college, for crying out loud, so why wouldn't they speak up and challenge their professors views if they disagree with them?" he queried.
The conversation ended when he abruptly announced that he heard the mail carrier at the end of his driveway. "Gotta go. My Social Security check just arrived."
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