Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University 1st Edition

by Jon A. Shields (Author), Dunn Sr., Joshua M. (Author)

18 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0199863051

ISBN-10: 0199863059

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Few seem to think conservatives should become professors. While the left fears an invasion of their citadel by conservatives marching to orders from the Koch brothers, the right steers young conservatives away from a professorial vocation by lampooning its leftism. Shields and Dunn quiet these fears by shedding light on the hidden world of conservative professors through 153 interviews. Most conservative professors told them that the university is a far more tolerant place than its right-wing critics imagine. Many, in fact, first turned right in the university itself, while others say they feel more at home in academia than in the Republican Party. Even so, being a conservative in the progressive university can be challenging. Many professors admit to closeting themselves prior to tenure by passing as liberals. Some openly conservative professors even say they were badly mistreated on account of their politics, especially those who ventured into politicized disciplines or expressed culturally conservative views. Despite real challenges, the many successful professors interviewed by Shields and Dunn show that conservatives can survive and sometimes thrive in one of America's most progressive professions. And this means that liberals and conservatives need to rethink the place of conservatives in academia. Liberals should take the high road by becoming more principled advocates of diversity, especially since conservative professors are rarely close-minded or combatants in a right-wing war against the university. Movement conservatives, meanwhile, should de-escalate its polemical war against the university, especially since it inadvertently helps cement progressives' troubled rule over academia.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Jon Shields and Josh Dunn have produced our first reliable study of academic conservatives, who have found a more comfortable home at the university than many of us imagined. But they remain a slender minority, especially in the humanities and social sciences, which makes the academy a less educational place for all of us. I hope that this careful and eloquent book reminds my fellow liberals about the vital role that conservative professors can play in academic life, if we can open our minds to them."
--Jonathan Zimmerman, Professor of Education and History, New York University

"Technological revolutions, acute financial pressures, and deep cultural shifts undermining the traditional humanistic curriculum are forcing a profound rethinking and restructuring of American higher education today, about which the professoriate at its epicenter sometimes seems the least perceptive and prepared. In the midst of this protracted upheaval, Passing on the Right raises the difficult question of political ideology and its implications for academia's mission. It will only help higher education and the society that sustains it if this book is widely read and debated."
--Christian Smith, Wm. R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology, University of Notre Dame

"Why have most of the humanities and social sciences become political monocultures? Shields and Dunn have written the authoritative treatise, integrating all previous work in an accessible and fair-minded way, and adding in empathy - the rarely heard voices of conservative professors. All academics should read this book, as should anyone who wants to improve the scholarship, prestige, and public funding of the academy."
--Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

"Passing on the Right, although written by two self-described academic conservatives, rejects some common conservative critiques of academia-for example, that it is not hospitable to conservative professors, and that liberal professors are engaging in widespread ideological indoctrination of their students. On the other hand, the book marshals evidence and arguments that increasing the now very small numbers of conservative faculty members in the humanities and social sciences would enrich teaching and scholarship for everyone in the university community, and also benefit society at large. It challenges the champions of diversity to appreciate the important contributions that conservative faculty members-academia's least celebrated minority-can make to a truly liberal education."
--Nadine Strossen, Former President of the American Civil Liberties Union

"Robust and uninhibited intellectual inquiry should be at the center of the American Academy. As a revolutionary Christian I welcome more intense dialogue with my conservative brothers and sisters. This brave book helps us move toward this Socratic condition!"
--Cornel West

"I found this book subtle and thought-provoking throughout." --Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution

"Passing on the Right actually manages to be one of the most optimistic books on American higher education by conservative authors in recent memory." --The American Interest

"The interviews and supplementary survey on which the book is based yielded findings that are not only interesting, but vital to understanding the environments in which college students learn - and in which their own political identities are shaped."-- Inside Higher Ed

"[Shields and Dunn] have produced a clear-eyed and rational discussion of modern academia that steers clear of polemics and challenges the dogmas of both the left and the right. . . . [They] make a strong case for the importance of conservative voices in modern academia and for why conservatives should not abandon the field of higher education to the progressive left." --The Weekly Standard

"Passing on the Right does, in fact, venture into great detail to paint this portrait, sharing numerous interviews with anonymous conservative professors and providing research regarding the plight of the right-wing academic...This combination of empirical and anecdotal data provides an inside look on what it's really like to be a conservative professor--does holding such an identity mean facing discrimination and losing friends or does it mean being highly successful?

Shields and Dunn contend that the answer is both."
--Amber Athey, Campus Reform

About the Author

Jon A. Shields is Associate Professor in the Department of Government at Claremont McKenna College.

Joshua M. Dunn Sr. is Associate Professor of Political Science and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Government and the Individual at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs.

Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (March 31, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0199863059
ISBN-13: 978-0199863051
Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 1.1 x 6.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 18 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #762,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1504 in Philosophy & Social Aspects of Education
- #484 in Educational Philosophy
- #861 in Political Ideologies

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Jay

A Sober Analysis that Anyone Should Be Able to Appreciate

August 2, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

While there are an increasing numbers of books that try to gain popularity by being particularly provocative, thankfully this is not one of them. It’s a well articulated study that should be appropriate for any audience.

Although the book is carried out much like a study, it’s more interesting because of the interviews that are done with various professors throughout. While their identities are obfuscated, i.e., "A professor at a mid-western liberal arts college stated …", we get to hear an unfiltered (though always articulate) view from over one hundred different people. Some tell very personal stories, which are interesting. Some feel compelled to closely guard their political views from their coworkers, fearful of losing research funding, while others take no real issue with the contrasting political views of their peers.

In addition the candid interviews, the book spends a lot of time on aggregate metrics, retrieved from sending out surveys to many different professors. Naturally, this leads the book to spend some time untangling the "Right" as several separate groups ('fiscal hawks', 'social conservatives', 'libertarians', etc), whose opinions are views are sometimes quite antithetical to each other.

The premise of the book is a simple one, but the study that ensures is broad, spanning philosophy, politics and statistics. I think the author does a great job leading an interesting discussion, and that it’s one that everyone should find engaging.

2 people found this helpful

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The Professor

A Must Read for All wanting a teaching career

January 6, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Passing on the Right is about the problems conservatives have in academia dominated by liberal and conflict theorist (once called communist) professors. The survey and interviews included 249 what the authors called confirmed conservatives teaching in the social sciences and humanities, who with one exception, wanted to stay in the closet to protect their careers. This fact alone says a lot about the problem of intolerance in academia today. The authors also correctly noted that conservatives are not united by any common agreement except they oppose certain liberal ideas. The best definition of a conservative is a resistance to change society unless there exists good reason and the tendency not to jump on the latest politically correct notion. The authors included many case histories as well as data. One example typical of many was a Christian who had authored several books by prestigious publishing houses but, although he was fortunate to have a position at a small teaching college was unable to obtain a position at a major university (p. 122). Aside from this typical story, the book included a lot of horror stories such as degrees and tenure denied to otherwise highly qualified persons.

2 people found this helpful

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Michael W. Martinez

Thought provoking study that is even handed

August 25, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I was pleasantly surprised by this work. Well researched, with decent footnotes, it provided an excellent view of the employment and advancement opportunities for libertarian and conservative professors across many disciplines. While I feel they may be minimizing the impact a progressive environment has on conservative undergraduates (my PolySci experience at a state university in the 80s was definitely more adversarial), I appreciated the inquiry into how choosing a career and the roadblocks encountered vary among different disciplines. An excellent read

3 people found this helpful

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Florida Cracker

Good book - gave some insights as to whether or ...

August 13, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Good book - gave some insights as to whether or not hiring and workplace bias against conservative profs. is as bad as some say. I only wish that more community college instructors would have been queried. I do understand though, that the books is primarily concerned with the university level workplace. Happily, as a conservative community college instructor, I don't see too many cases of hostility against those of us on the right at my college.

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theottersden

_Passing on the Right_ made me think a lot harder than I normally do to imagine what it might like to be a conservative at many

April 19, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Although I'm an academic who is somewhere to the left of Bernie Sanders, I must say that this book is worth reading --perhaps even a must-read-- for those who are in higher education. Because I am now aware of how many conservatives may be cloaking their identities, I'm going to lead a campus-wide investigation to smoke them out of their caves (closets?). Seriously, the authors make many important points and I was surprised how often that I agreed or at least partially agreed w/ some of what they said. Unlike, say, Ben Shapiro's _Brainwashed_, which makes a ridiculous number of even more ridiculous claims about liberal professors, _Passing on the Right_ made me think a lot harder than I normally do to imagine what it might like to be a conservative at many universities and why a lack of intellectual diversity is problematic. The idea of "affirmative action" for conservative professors is, well, unrealistic but it would be nice to teach at and institution where each faculty member could simply present his/her views w/out students expecting him/her to be politically neutral about everything, as if that were a real possibility. The presence of more conservative professors on campus would make me feel less guilty about the extent to which my political convictions influence my teaching even when I try to minimize their influence. Easier said than done.

27 people found this helpful

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Bimbetta

Five Stars

December 25, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

A very good - and balanced - analysis of the status of non-left professors. A breath of fresh air!

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Amazon Customer

A "must read" for anyone involved in higher education.

May 9, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Outstanding book. The authors do a great job of detailing the challenges that the academy faces as a result of the insularity of higher education, and they make a strong case for de-politicizing higher education - especially the academic hiring process.

3 people found this helpful

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Knox Massey

Four Stars

June 8, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Great, well researched book. What the heck have our national universities turned into?

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