Jon A. Shields

Passing on the Right is an excellent examination of the role of political/cultural leanings and their role in university faculties. This is a far more balanced and nuanced appraisal than most screeds from those outside the academy, but that should be expected.

Some disclosure, I am left leaning (no party affiliation, too many immediately associate leanings with politics exclusively and it is often more cultural and social than pure politics, politics is simply where the cultural is often played out when the natural course runs afoul of those in control of the legislatures) and my time in academia was short and about two decades ago. That should give enough ammo to anyone who chooses to blame my opinions on how I lean rather than address them rationally.

I absolutely agree that there should be more conservatives in academia. Just as the research here indicates, liberal professors are not involved (on the whole, no doubt there is an exception or two) in indoctrinating their students. The conservative faculty I have been associated with also on the whole did not try to indoctrinate. The key is not to prohibit the opinions of the faculty from being included in a classroom situation but to make sure that it doesn't inhibit open discourse. It is the open discourse and exchange of ideas that improves society as a whole and makes each student a better person.

Universities have been liberal leaning for many, many years almost by definition. A liberal stance (not always embodied within specific liberals) is one open to change, debate and progress, thus learning new and conflicting ideas. A conservative stance is about mostly maintaining the status quo, minimizing and slowing change and avoiding the introduction of too much new information which does not contribute to those goals. So universities have usually been liberal (to the point where even the staunchest "political" conservatives on campus are quite liberal as far as their stance toward learning and open engagement). During periods of particular political conservatism universities are typically attacked as being anti-whatever.

So it makes perfect sense for universities to have a wide range of faculty. there is no such thing as a non-politicized classroom. One which masquerades as one is simply one which is content with the status quo and does not want open debate and exchange of ideas. Whether the professor is liberal or conservative, open discourse will make the classroom political, and the professor should not be prohibited from expressing their opinions and ideas. The hard part for some is how to do so without inhibiting the students. The presence of these various ideas across campus will lead to better debate and discourse in the political and cultural realms. There is a horrible lack of open debate currently, to the point where liberal and conservative become the only important signifiers and all of our other identities become subsumed under those two headings.

This volume does an excellent job of debunking some of the worst claims about academia while pointing out where changes need to be made. Hopefully this book will also lead some conservative undergrads and grad students to consider academia as a career, for both self-fulfillment and as a service to society. The liberal students are already doing so for the exact same reasons.

While I readily recommend this book to academics I would also highly recommend it to those outside academia who prefer to blame higher education for society's ills rather than actually think about the problems and find solutions. There is plenty here to engage anyone interested in the future of higher education or society as a whole.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (mais)