>> okay, we are going to get started, everyone. thank you for coming tonight. my name is eric eisenberg, director of the institute for public knowledge on behalf of the institute of public knowledge and public books, which is are very new web review publication, we are delighted to be here for the launch and panel discussion of neil gross' new book, "why are professors liberal and why do conservatives care?" this is a topic of great

sensitivity and interest to all of us here, but those of us who are interested in the politics of academia, where bradley turns out to be great difference of opinion as to simple things like whether in fact assessors are liberal and clearly there is disagreement about why professors have the kind of politics that they do have. neil comes to this is a partisan. he is not here to persuade you there's a right way the academy should be organized. he comes instead as a social scientist, really interested in trying to understand the situation and to explain how he got here as best he can. i am on record as having strong feelings on the book, so i should refrain myself from making strong editorial comment

about it more than i said already. what impresses me about the work is used cmi network and in a usual way. he's not believably careful about establishing with real certain teachers exactly where professors should be situated politically. he gets to the heart of the fundamental questions about where academics tend to stand on political issues, how we should think about it and how we should take about the culture and politics that places some people in a profession like the academy and other kinds of places. so if you have liberals why professors tend to be the bro, they say i'm not sure they are liberal, but if they say they are, they say they are liberal because liberals tend to be smarter.

of course, smarter people are attracted to the university or things like a very conservative company probably care a lot about money or you have some really different kind of values that orient the way you behave in the world and if you care about the last place you want to be added to university, so clearly that explains it. there's lots of chatter about why we have the university we have come away some people are attracted to jobs at why some are not. neil custer wrote this and offers an original and rigorous consistently surprising account of why the university looks the way it does. i'm not going to say to much more because we are going to start the night with neil himself will talk about the book for 50 minutes. and that we are in for a treat. we have an all-star piano of people to talk about neil's

work. first we have paul starr, professor of sociology at print and university and someone who is used to using social science to engage the biggest in a significant public debates of our time and often on explicitly political terms. he started a journal that really is about using rigorous thinking in the public realm to promote a liberal politics. so there'll be a fruitful exchange between neil and paul. and then we have nicholas lemann, the outgoing dean who will be at the institute for public knowledge, so we're getting a preview of what it's like to have nick around. next he was not shy about engaging public and political questions and people have a variety of viewpoints are exactly comes out. he's committed to an american so

journalistic objectivity that has taken strong political stances as well. nothing should prevent us from doing not wholeheartedly here tonight. i look forward to a terrific conversation. our panel tonight is not just for us in the room. also broadcast on cease or so i've the speakers to come speak at the mike and then i will moderate the questions afterwards i ask all of you would have a question if you could go to to make silly capture for everyone. without further ado company all, welcome. [applause] >> thanks very much for that nice introduction, eric. i want to take the opportunity to thank you in the institute of public knowledge for organizing this event and also to paul and nick for being here and offering what i'm sure will are to be decided maybe comments.

i mandate from eric is to spend a few minutes at the outset outlining the basic pieces of my boat so the discussion that follows on make sense to those of you who haven't read it yet. one way of understanding the book is understanding what it's not. over the last 15 years or so, much has been written about politics. on the right of all known david horowitz is a professor's 101 most dangerous academics in america, which listed the elections of prominent academic radicals and closer to the center refine the same efficiency of the world on your own time. and from the love, what's liberal about the liberal partner is quite third-party conservative charge of liberal bias in higher education. this is only a sampling. differences in politics and akamai site, these books are impassioned critiques or defenses of political trends are developments in higher education, real or imagined.

they aim to persuade those things need to be changed or nothing is changing. they are moral and clinical interventions. by the does not belong to the genre of writing. it's the same spectrum of issues that my interests are entirely of a social scientific nature is eric indicated by which the goal of the book is simply to provide the most and factually satisfactory answer akin to the two questions raised in the title, "why are professors liberal and why do conservatives care?" to make my way through matter that's accessible to those outside the field, there's a representative survey of more than 1400 professors teaching american colleges and universities were carried out back in 2006. this in-depth interviews and a research assistant and i connect it with 57 faculty members

teaching in sociology and economics, biology and engineering, political life stories and views of politics teaching and research. a survey of 1000 american adults simmons and i conducted on the legal issue and commission in the interviews in the same subject the 69 resident of wisconsin and colorado, and later controversies around professors in politics. i analyzed data from the general social survey, a large survey of american adults with determining what factors account for differences between professors and americans who sociologist jeremy free state downloaded longitudinal data from a large survey to identify political predict as the graduate school attendance. the connected field to test for political bias in the graduate admissions process of making american social science and interviewed prominent to this

and spend time in the archives tracing the history of attacks on the ivory tower. what did i find? first, although conservative claims of radicalism run amok in the academy are overblown, the american purpose there is quite. a variation abuse by field with a social scientist and humanities the most loved and applied fields like engineering and business to the rate. that having been said of the data indicates overall the professor rate is one of the most liberal major occupations in the u.s. and has been for decades. 9% of professors consider themselves on the radical left in some shape or form. 31% of academics can be placed under the banner of progressives and 14% on the center left. all told, between 50% and 60% fall somewhere in the left-hand side of the political spectrum

and large majorities of professors vote democratic in elections for national office. second, my research shows most professors are not out to indoctrinate kids politically. professors are split on whether they revealed their own orientation to students but most are intent on teaching students the content of their field with associated skills. muslim disciplines like some of those in the humanities that intellectual content itself can sometimes have a left bearing, highlighting issues of social justice and so on. even where this is the case, most endeavor to be open to competing student points of view third on the moderate why professors had been left i find that some of the leading areas of social scientists have limited explanatory value. when terry holds professors

claim us because it's in their class interests so. for example, if academics politically, personal and professional for the state to spend on higher education and planning for scientific research in this nightly to the democratic party. another theory points to the fact of educational experiences. to claim conservative students are out to make money and don't care about ideas for theory highlights the role of cognitive fact there is a personality. his modest empirical supports for some of these theories i find, not as much as advocates claim. at the same time, partly on the basis of the field experiment i mentioned a moment ago in which my colleagues and i send e-mails from fake liberal and conservative students to direct recent graduates of these invading programs asking about this.

liberals are overrepresented in academe because there's discrimination against conservative students callers. instead i argue self-selection based on occupational reputation plays a key role in explaining why professors tend to be liberal. for historical reasons the american producer began to develop a reputation for liberalism early in the 20th century. over time that reputation became institutionalized. if you're on the left, become a professor is something you might actually consider as you search it possibly were implicitly for a career path that alliance's identity. by contrast if you're a talented student on the right, chances are you would never contemplate a career in higher education. in this way, liberals are pulled into academia and conservatives are steered out in a process that serves to further reinforce

the academy's reputation for liberalism. class, values, personalities to come into play here, but mine is an account in which dynamics of identity led especially large and i consider pieces of evidence to support such an account. finally, why do conservatives care the sensitive campaigns in recent years against the liberal professoriat. part of the answer is obvious. if most professors work surveyors, liberals would be upset too. some are as higher education personally, institutionally and symbolically the parties less obvious. i show how criticism of professors became a mainstay of conservative discourse in the 1950s and the contemporary american movement was getting off the ground. a notable aspect that iqs today in the words of newt

gingrich, rick santorum, ted cruz and others is the idea of professors form a correct cultural elite bent on pushing the country music or against its nature. this was and remains useful to the right because it identifies some elite to which conservatives can stand opposed. this helps the position of their populace enterprises an important move given the american right considers how much strength it's been able to draw from it springiness populace. are there moral and political implications of these claims? yes, but i learned something about. maybe we'll have a chance to talk about these implications tonight. [applause]

>> no mention that david horvitz list of 100 most dangerous professors, i was so disappointed not to have made that list, but you can imagine when dinesh deceives came out and there i was. so when i have invitations like this one and this is the second time i've been to nyu to talk on this subject, i asked myself, is a syndication to talk as a liberal or a syndication to talk as a sociologist? i'm primarily going to address does work as a sociologist. i'm going to give my sense of the context in which a great

deal of american society, not just politics has become organized differentiated on ideological lines. there is a process of sorting, self-selection going on in many different arenas that leads conservatives to form different communities and you have self-selection, but then you have the mutual influence than most communities than in emphasize the difference is that leads to greater polarization over time. we have evidence that americans are making their choices about where to live on the basis of social care or a six and my style preferences highly correlated with politics these days and so we see if we look at data over time that american

communities can look anomalous level, city level, but these have become more lopsided going either to words voting data, more lopsided democratic or republican is quite apart from gerrymandering of congressional districts. this has to do with the big sort as it's been called. we have interesting evidence that american choices about religion these days. there's a book recently by david campbell and robert putnam called american grace, which is a very surprising porsche of american religious sect chickadee and preferences. there is fluidity to identity, a

majority of americans today if they practice any religion, practiced it different from the one they were raised in. a great many americans are searching, church shopping and shopping us is sometimes called and others are not serving any other religion at all from what is happening is first of all asserting between religious observing the nonobservant that religiosity is now one of the best predict yours of viewpoints. if you ask people according to this book of campbell and pat whether they say grace before a meal is a strong critic or of how they vote. this is not true 30 or 40 years

ago. within congregations are choices people make about religious congregations is a big political view and within the congregation to campbell and putnam increases the pattern of polarization today. we can see a field restudy americans watch them as on the three networks. they were not clearly differentiated by partisan viewpoints and they are rather centrist, rather bland and now of course is cable television,

people watching and is the separated themselves an online you got the same pattern with the blogosphere's differentiated and organized on a left he says. and once people make these choices, their further influenced by them. one example of that in the oprah's book where he discusses frightening seven economists who track students from their high school years into college and students who have high school seniors express liberal views were more likely to become majors in the social is in humanities or others are able to go in to business and over the

course of their college years, the ones who chose social science is become more liberal. this is exactly the same pattern observed in other areas. so it seems to me this is something we can observe in many aspects of american life. i don't think it should really surprise us that liberals and conservatives sort themselves into different occupational field. this doesn't apply for all occupations, but particularly occupations like the professoriat and as a result, liberals and conservatives dominate different institutions.

"fortune" magazine reports every now and then on surveys of ceos. i remember seeing another survey on top military officers overwhelmingly republican. this is not surprising. in these institutions there may well be mutual influence going on, especially those who want to get ahead. i don't agree should be shocked or surprised at the universities are heavily populated for the same reasons have self-selection process. conservatives care about it. goodbye to control control universities, too. so what have they done about it?

this is a part of the story i would like to see in the book. they have not been entirely passive. they have their own counter academy and have done that to the creation of think tanks like the heritage, cato, american enterprise institute think tanks where their intellectuals can focus single-mindedly on the political tasks in the battle of ideas. anyway, it's given them an advantage as opposed to academics who feel bound by constraints of their discipline. there are also now conservative

college is made on a religious basis, and some conservative institute and organizations. we have the james madison center by professor robert george, which brings conservative in the lecture was every year. it stands in the way parallel to another center on the university which is a political philosophy and parallel structures. what i see developing is a pattern of parallels further separate organizations where you have separate societies, professional societies.

this has existed in other societies and as a surprise in the united states that didn't exist 50 years ago, but it's now a general pattern. the question about the liberal professoriat is different because it's not a new phenomenon. it goes back a long way. as i understand most of this book, it has a two-part explanation for this phenomenon. the first is self-selection by politically tapes because of the reputation of the academy for being liberal, says students make these choices on the basis of the reputation of an academic career. but then you have to ask, where

does that come from? the second part is that there were changes in the past going back to the progressive era and the new deal that went out earlier bad religiously oriented colleges turn them in a more liberal direction. so the question that lies unanswered and neil says at one point, this is not the work of historical sociology. so the question that oak leaves unanswered is the academic world was type in a more conservative way, how does liberals take control? how did they change that? and why today are conservatives unable to change that?

would have been in the spirits that brought about political change in the care their of the academic world is not happening now and maybe you'd want to address that later on. the book also mentions other reasons besides the political type in that explains why conservatives and liberals make different choices about academic careers and in this connection he say no one other than friedrich hayek, a great conservative economist to set in 1949 for the exceptionally able men the multitude they going to

log into the military where they feel more comfortable. liberals may dominate by default. conservatives have better things to do. these two explanations are different, so the first account is one that emphasizes some distinct episodes in the american past in the history at the university to develop this care are. the other explanation suggests and in a capitalist society conservatives are more likely to go in to business, more likely to be attracted to these other fields and here is where it would then very helpful although perhaps difficult it may be impossible to get evident about

other societies. is this just a story about the united states? re: is there a more general pattern? my impression and i don't have any data, but my impression is the american academic world is not unusual, that this is true in many other places and consequently i'm in client and to be partial towards the eerie that would account for this is a more general pattern and or not we could depend thoroughly on particular things that happen in the history of the american university. let me just finish a by recalling i was here in 1995 at nyu. the en-lai institute of humanities to talk in a series

unintellectual in public life about liberalism, conservatism in the intellectuals. there's of course the reason why anybody else would err what i said on that occasion and indeed i did not err, i dug out what turns out to be almost exactly about the subject were talking about today. so this is 1995, just after the newt gingrich republican takeover of congress. i said while bottles of foreign policy have diminished, cultural education and moral life intensified. even a tendency among conservatives to regard these battles as the domestic equivalent of war is that the so-called culture wars and is a great historic struggle of our time. in the view the american

cultural and intellectual landscape is entirely up to love so much of a frightening dominion and i was quoting hilton kramer. nowadays this includes almost all would have earned the media analysts agenda is rooted in the idea is intolerably repressive and the principle. this picture seems to be wildly inaccurate but highly revealing.

it is a measure of how thoroughly conservatives have transferred the passions of anti-communism into internal work against those whom they think of as the enemies of american culture and values and these were the conservatives as i recall from the 1960s the same people who decry the loss of civility. american liberalism and conservatism are civil. american conservatism is liberal in a philosophical sense. but the breaches wired today. it is not time it's possible to say the differences among parties in intellectuals are a matter of not make adjustments of fine-tuning. first principals debated in the press and around the family

breakfast table. it is a good time for intellectuals. [applause] >> thanks, everybody for having me. what i'd like to do in brief remarks is be a little more anecdotal. i think why can be useful as having had odd life experience whereby title i'm an academic, but i didn't work full-time in a university until i was 48 years old and so i was able to follow or much of my many debates neil gross talks about in this book from the outside and suddenly have an odd opportunity to see university life at a high level from the site.

deep into middle age. by the way in the aforementioned david horowitz spoke about the 101 most dangerous academics, two of the 101 are faculty members at columbia journalism school, even though we the faculty of 35 people. that's pretty good. i also want to mention i don't know if you remember, the 10 years or so ago when i was trying to decide about making this rather dramatic light switch of becoming an academic, i went to princeton and we had dinner about whether this is a good idea and was what i should do when i went there. so grateful for that.

so i admired the book a lot, especially for being home, careful and rigorous and complete about reading the literature and putting out every theory and testing it. what i would give you is more theory and anecdotal impression. i hope it's somewhat useful but i can't claim to have done the regress study. i've lived it as a natural experiment. number one, and peanut columbia, yes universities are overwhelmingly liberal. there are a few conservatives in my sample of one around columbia. we've done some conscious diversity hiring at the journalism school. we are in the cracks here not just of the star of this about other. said you all remember the incident of the president npr losing losing her job over

racing operation? we were in attempted npr, but fortunately were so much -- the reason we are so much in the cracks here is the idea that journalism also as a liberal profession with a lot of influence and if he wanted to say where does the influence come from, basically it was from our school. so we got that e-mail. the esteemed james o'keefe showed up at her school several times to do these ambush interviews with people and show up at events like this and we been on the bill o'reilly show many times and things like that. i'm kind of used to -- [inaudible] i'm used to that part of the debate.

but it is true the general tenor is super liberal. i can't think of anybody i know on the columbia faculty who did vote for a twice. who is sent -- [inaudible] is one of the business school who was at highest ivester and also the dean of the law school, but those are the only two i know. part of what's going on this kind of a self reinforcing technique. a lot of liberalism of universities is in an environment gets communicated not in an actual argument but what do you roll your eyes over? what to tell jokes over, things like that. it's assumed everybody is on the

left, so if you mention the name george w. bush, nobody says that what argument are you making exactly about church w. bush? it is assumed he's on their side and we are on our side. in terms of the etiology of this, what does that come from? i found a series of his allies intellectually as described more persuasive than he did. that's my anecdotal impression. there's a class centuries. this particularly note worthy to me as an outsider that if you walk into with surprisingly a private university, it's unbelievably dependent on government.

it's almost a government agency. over a third of the income of columbia comes from the government directly and not badly understate the case because the university is so dependent on federally guaranteed student loans that if they went away the whole university would go away. there is a phenomenon where it's not immaterial when president obama took office, pratt to clay he hugely increased, made academics and inspiring speech at the national academy and you know, it is an accidental one democrats are in power and liberals are in power, academics individually to better and that

is i don't think the relevant to my academics are liberal. i also want to quarrel about the self-selection dairy, which is persuasive but on two points. one is the point pollinate, what shall elaborate on in a minute but it's some u.s. pacific and doesn't explain why the general academics are the best elements in society all over the world. there are exceptions, but my sense is is generally the case. yet there is a profound question about human nature. i return to this in a certain moment. people are sort of less

ideological than how they come across in this book. the reason most people become academics is not because i'm first to liberal and want to find a happy professional home, but instead because they want to be academics and they have been embedded liberalism and that they don't choose to become academics as they are liberals first. they choose to become academics, journalists, social workers because they are drawn to the field and find themselves in an environment that is liberal and

reinforces their liberalism. i have been and it will, but most people i know who are academics didn't start from the premise of saying i want to find a comfortable place. it's almost like to use an analogy that may or may not work. with cultural identifications, i think people who are seriously religious observance that i know, including my wife will say i have to live in a place where i can be that for some of my friends who are say want to live in a place where it's easier to be gay, not in a place where it's harder to be gay.

relatively few people may feel that way about a liberal or conservative and we've determined the whole course of their vocation in life. a couple other points. one big is that some alternate hypothesis, if you imagine, this is not entirely fair because it doesn't encompass the cultural variables, but crudely the students over here with and the left is more associated with the state of the rate is more with the market. in a global context, the united states compared as to the right of other countries in terms of ambient political senses. most of the countries that have been a little more towards the state, less towards the market

that we would. as you'll know if you travel around the world you get why did many americans think this or that? my hypothesized is coming from the outside to the academy, what's striking to me as you see a little sense of it tonight. your boss isn't really at the university of british columbia. your passes the discipline of sociology, academic and habits to bomb underground at the discipline is more career determined that sandoval at the institution the paycheck is what non. academic disciplines come even though people make fun of academics being impractical, one of the most successful examples as globalization. they are truly globalized fields and therefore the hypothesized a

lot to offer is one reason why academics are liberal in america is the operator and global communities and pick up astronomically diffusive global community as opposed to the national community and this is striking to me as a journalist because even if you think of yourself as a super sophisticated journalist, you're mostly sitting inside american institutions and talking to other much less likely to pick up a global consensus on everything as to the left of the american consensus. there's lots of things have got to follow up on, but i do want to leave time for discussion and that has to do with threats to universities. there's a good discussion at several places in the book of

the idea that conservatism regards the university with alarm, much as liberalism, the word corporate to a live birds that we don't know what it is, but that's the way the academic balances in conservative circles. you see "the wall street journal" during investigations of universities so they know something is up and "the new york times" during investigations to corporations for the same reason. but i think conservative attack on universities isn't a conspiracy, but there's a real threat to universities, but i don't think it's primarily ideological. i say that the way of elevating, not reducing the threat.

what i see for dean in the university the main thread is wonderful passages in the book describing development of the research university model in the core model of american education. the people inside the system don't see as much as an outsider like me is nobody gets there such a thing as the university model. universities have huge amounts of stakeholders vacuously creating that. so the parents who want their kids to go here, the students themselves who go here at universities unlike nyu and columbia, they don't go there such a thing as research university. universities have not donate good job of communicating their

function to the world in this market values and business values become ever more ascendant in american society, there comes the argument you saw in the university of virginia site a while back that universities should be run more like business. they should teach skills, should have academic tenure. academics really shouldn't do research about. they should just teach and should only teach practical things. how these attitudes are in some way conservative, but they are not conservative in the david horowitz ideological sense. i do think they are moving into universities in a big way, especially the more vulnerable, less rich universities.

so the focus on an ideological conservative threat can obscure the real threat, which is a more business practical threat to the essential nature of universities and that is very real. so i stopped there and hope we can talk back and forth. thanks. [applause] %> thank you to make and to. >> thank you to make and to. before we open it up to the group, i want to respond to a few things. it strikes anders commonalities and two sets of comments. particularly this issue about the question of how american success and how we should think about the politics of the professoriate than other places and how that shapes the way we understand the situation in the united states. makes last point about globalism of the academy is original and

interesting and worth chewing on and it does strike me would be letting ourselves down if we didn't address bigger questions about the state of the university today. it is interesting attacked about the way the university flourishes when there's a democrat in office and that is true, but a few years ago barack obama made a speech at ann arbor proposing the possibility of universities continue to raise tuition in the way they would said he would cut the amount of federal financial aid available, which was a great threat to the fiscal situation. universities across the country built on the notion there will be a certain level of increase in the tuition every year. boards of trustees throughout the country and the streeters never university what that's thinking this is a real assault, cutting the budget for the msf a little smug thing, but this is a major, major assault.

one of the issues today is the notion that become prohibitively expensive than we can no longer justify asking students to take on the dabblers they take on, so the privilege of a university researcher in the research one university setting contrast to the vulnerability of the undergraduate who leaves with 50 or $60,000 debt come up with a mix of news situation. some point tonight we need to talk about the current situation which strikes me as a quite difficult one. neil, what it has been a few pictures from a and then join the conversation. >> banks. these are great comments and certainly very interesting. i'll try to address them quickly so we have time for questions.

paul has raised two major points. first a really helpful discussion about the growth of self-selection, political segregation in american society and the question of whether this is a uniquely american story. i don't know if i want to do more than say i agree. there clearly is evidence of political self-segregation. part of what motivated the book for me was the sense this is happening in a number of different fears and the university may be a possible site to figure out the small-scale dynamics driving it. i will say that social science is although a tent to two changes have not always thought of them is driven by dynamics of

identities, and interest not in maximizing particular sets of values, that the u.n. environment at home with others who are similarly like-minded and certainly part of the goal of the book is to encourage social scientists, sociologists in particular to spend more time thinking about this. you think about other forms of identity and conventional politics is the kind we had to be addressing morend conventionl politics is the kind we had to be addressing more and particularly now. i'm a question of whether this is uniquely american, is terrifically. i don't address in great detail because we don't have great data. we have some data from a comparative social survey. the syndicate many countries does tend to be less and as you

mentioned, we are more on some issues like gender but less on issues like the growth of the welfare state. their differences and similarities. why focus on the american story? the account i tried to offer the birth of the professoriate during the progressive era, that goes back to a period of the secularization of higher education in the second half of the 19th century and this is certainly important in shaping the contemporary university, but was part of a broader process for church and state separated and others began to separate as well. with respect to the secularization of higher education, this has been and all western societies, but not all at once.

it happened and it very much back-and-forth zigzag fashion. the story played out very differently. in france, germany, england, in the u.s. with lots of demonstration effects. it is a story leading to changes in professoriate, linking up with political dynamics tuesday of each country with a different political mix. the one that nevertheless occurred differently in different national contexts and that ultimately my account, one of a broad common malady with respect to institutional change, but a quite different trajectories. i mix really good point as well, i'll say a couple of things.

two class interests play a leading role? i bring forth two pieces of evidence in the book broadly to call into question whether this explains the bulk of the phenomenon. first of all class interests to explain my professors are liberal, you might expect more change over time and academics as someone goes through graduate school and realizes they have a career ahead of them in academe and commit themselves to my career and realize where -- that they would become further ensconced enmeshed in liberalism and they don't pay the evidence suggests it is not much change over time in people's political views, basically people more liberal in college are much but likely to become professors. maybe there's some shift over

time. second, you'd expect occupations would be more liberal the more dependent on public dollars. in a preliminary test of the thesis, the fact that higher education contains the fact of a greater proportion of people who are public employees doesn't do very much, so it's a great third principle there's probably some value in it, but the data are to my mind commencing on it. i want to address the second point before a cover onto the question of real threat today and that is whether academics seek out jobs because they want to be environments. the answer i try to give them the book is not quite that simple. i think most academics go into academe because they're passionate about their field, history, biology, sociology and

political motives are mixed in with that. for the most part this is sense of talent that leads people into academe. the theory tried to sketch is more one in which political identity shapes the horizon possibility so if you're on the left come you imagine us to think about different careers, you include higher education a list of possibilities because you feel at some level there some sense of a fit. if you do contemplate corporate works, it feels not write to you and people have various levels of awareness. but it's a sense of identity that drives it. oftentimes it's an implicit thing and here is where they could see sociologists and commentators on politics in general i tend more to the question of politics has

identity. people can be driven to make political choices, not simply a conscious desire to maximize the senate desires, but out of a sense of wanting to be immersed in an environment where they experience congruence. finally come back to the collation of the state of higher education today i see this as a time of real threat. i'm not sure the real threat is entirely ideological. i think it's also the case some of those pushing a vocational agenda for higher education are doing so that it leans to the left and this is a great opportunity to make sure liberal academics are pleased to research with the liberal leanings was something quite different.

i will say that there is more to vergence among conservatives than might be imagined. these interesting threads happening now between traditional conservatives and libertarians were traditionally saying we are not comfortable with this educational as some, but squeezes out the teaching of the western tradition. do ..

>> i recall reading how michael savage talked that student academics. he found that many in the environment of academia not suitable to his point of view. in that context, what it seems to me is that in academia and on campuses, there is very much a clan and a class issue that you have to do a certain amount to pledge to a fraternity, whether

of the greek community order the community of academia. so those who have achieved prominence there are going to naturally promote that which reflects her own values. i would suggest that. but it has to do not as much with self-selection but a certain kind privilege that you have in academia where you're not testing your views against the marketplace. you can go to the marketplace. you can actually make money, even if you don't agree with them. even if you happen to make money and they hire you on. you do not have to validate their time point of view, and social engineering which has power in academia. the question is having to do at the point of view that it is more a fraternal thing.

if that were some missteps to deal with these letters of recommendation to get to a point where you're able to join a fraternity. it is not so much that come about by those who have pledged in the upper region of academia do not think you. >> well, i think that there are various ways of assessing this point you have just raised. the first is to say that part of this is driven by the dynamics of social network and you are in the network and send signals and you're more likely to be included at higher levels. i think the other way of making the point that many conservatives do that there is kind of a bias or discrimination going on. and that is, you know, if you

are not part of the group, you're not part of the fraternity are being included. i don't doubt that some of these factors play some kind of a role. others have made the argument, i think, quite well. if you are a young conservative scholar there are a few places on campus where you might look to young conservative students for a career. but in terms of putting up with advisers and so on, there may not be very many. so it is probably going to play some kind of a role here. as to the claim or bias or discrimination, the arguments that are in the book that when we conducted this field experiment for which we took a lot of flak and sent e-mails from fake undergraduate students in programs in college, each

person got two e-mails. one mention mentioned that the students have either worked on the mccain or the obama campaign and the other dimension is about politics. so it was otherwise comparable. we analyzed the responses we received or been received. we found a very tiny levels of support for the obama students relative to control. not enough to be statistically significant. is this a good test of bias is what the question is. but what questions you have raised, i think it is not terrible but despite their believing most academics are professionals and they strive hard and not let their politics interfere with personnel. on the whole i think that this does show that there are some

that are negatively selected by academics. i think that these points have some value. but they are not the whole enchilada. >> the question primarily has in mind social sciences. it does not seem to me to be a natural point with any professional schools like medicine, law, business, so forth. so it is really discrimination and we should just see a concentration of liberals in those fields where political views will be viewed. if someone is studying geology, however, we do see where political views are not going to be assuming a graduate application or a doctoral

application. >> i am hearing unpleasant comments to a stronger cultural view that there might be something in the pursuit of open-ended knowledge and we don't know where the questions are going to lead you. you are open to any possible answer that you think somehow someone who is liberal towards the academy -- academy -- i'm wondering if i'm hearing that right. >> i mention this quotation. that people with more conservative views are likely to find a better avenue for their talent in their field. we are talking about people of high ability. those with high ability that could be part of the discussion we are referring to. i think that tends to drain a

lot. the most able-bodied conservatives into these lines of work. the elite doctoral degree institutions and that has an effect. i think that this can't account for a direct field. >> that is not because of cultural connotation towards money or professional success in some other realm toward knowledge. i'm just pushing because i'm trying to figure out, you know, where this comes from us. i am thinking you partially answered this. >> well, they are, they are just more at ease. very much at ease in those environments in the military. people on the left can make

their way in this world. but they may feel their discomfort. >> next question. >> i am going to invite you to talk about the past and present if you would. first, to remind you that from my perspective, there was a category club of liberals. they are radicals but never terribly comfortable, especially in the 60s. there was a book written about corporal liberalism. in the corporate world. and it discusses what was constituted as liberalism. including conservatism historically. a lot of it is speaking about the corporations involved with

universities today. but it continues today from the 60s. then we have liberal administrators who are also advocating that as well. the second is to open up the question even though you're writing about the story. the politics to remember to think a little bit about how does the conversation changed. also what it suggests about politics with people in the teaching profession. >> i think i might be the only person in the world who knew clark kerr. i wrote about him very extensively in both i publish in the '90s. you know, he kind of brings up what you're talking about. he thought of himself as the perfect example of a liberal.

he was completely shocked to find himself under and attack from the left and the right just remember that the free speech movement and ronald reagan ran for governor. he was a liberal economist and irrational man. he believed that most universities these days function on this. we deal with a bunch of different stakeholders that deal with something else.

a lot of this is building into a kind of 18th century french machine. this thing that's purpose is transparent. it just generated reserving part of it was bedtime. just go on and on, his idea -- everyone in california -- everyone in california to go get a higher education for no tuition in the early 1960s. that was a really dramatic thing

to claim there are three universities at the top and there are rich models and a big system. then there was a community college system. everyone was in their box and there were a few little things that resulted in it being kind of toxic in ways. it kind of goes hand in hand with what you have said. i don't think we have ever built a true consensus around this topic.

>> since we are recalling this in the 1960s, when i was still an undergraduate at spoke with on my professors and it was is called a liberal university under attack. but obviously under the assumption it was attacked from the left. the idea that he could be under attack from the right. it will be understood totally differently. >> during the moments of the good 1960s and 70s there is

some possibility on structures universities yesterday. this tends to be progressive and liberal. which opens up the possibility there was historical contingency is part of the story as well. i think it's more what i was talking about. it is also school reform, which i have written about a lot. as productive as him applies to education. it is to teach people how to do

things these people are thinking from themselves to create a realm for studying and doing things. this includes conservatives and liberals. so in that sense, i think it is in practicality rather than ideology. >> let me just say to follow up on that. >> a lot of people are getting bachelors degree is. i think that is an issue. but i think an issue is what he just raised.

including how higher education seems to be exclusive. exclusive is a domain. the fact that people have these four professors could all change. it has researched this as teachers and extensions. then we would have felt the pressures and attitude to be very similar. >> including outcome measures the pressure as well to undergraduates and graduates. >> i guess my initial question was as when asked about the research that you did this get

slipped out within the setting. i think that it would be interesting to hear that we have to say little bit further on the mission of the instrument was asian and education but it seems to sort of tip over into outcome-based testimony which is kind of scary. what do you think that we should get out of?

>> i would like to consider a book. a young sociologist from san diego who has focused on these think tanks. he does this across the spectrum. one of the things that he talks about is think tanks in america are certainly at odds in some respect of higher education. but they are quasi- academics and many of them have connections to higher education institutions that is something that is kind of counterfactual. this includes the expansion is think tanks.

this is a place that is more open to them. this would be as much pressure on the right on these other kinds of knowledge institutions. it is worth thinking about a few of these responses to the public. >> yes, that is correct. >> yes hello, i think i have not read your book.

>> it is on sale in the bathroom. >> just a minor that. [applause] >> just something to add there. i just to say that it's something that we are all accepting foreign idea that professors in universities liberals given that the data you presented was 50 to 60%. it is not an overwhelming gayness and trend data set. it seems to me that the point really is that they are not conservatives. as opposed to liberal.

that point needs to be stressed with this. the overwhelming majority of those are democrats. many of us were within the democratic party and the bulkhead of liberalism. so i let the verdict talk a little bit more about that. there is a wonderful children's working in a think tank. and so sometimes this is just better. that way there is more money to do research.

>> well, before you answer, i'm just going to say one last question because we want to wrap it up. if you have a question, we will have a speaker's response. >> welcome i guess that my question is that i believe that one goes to school to learn how to think for themselves. so if liberals or conservatives and teaching the process in terms of the outsourced. at this point, to make a statement my parents were first-generation americans. so they go forward and handle this and i became a democrat.

they have changed somewhat in this. the structure has changed. as of my last question -- he said so many people teaching him to be liberals, how could we end up with so many conservatives. [applause] >> okay, why do we start with nick and on then paul and then we will get the other glassware. [laughter] maybe this is a little bit non sequitur. this is really in the crosshairs of anyone. we bring in this innocent set of students and brainwash them. it is kind of like her students

who come from 40 countries around the world from small schools are on the faculty of entry. if anything, it is not necessarily centrists but more respectful of the process of objectivity that these sociologists were demonstrated tonight. we should try to remove personal passion specially since we want to write about it and if you want to write about it we can reinsert this later. there should be a moment when you're trying to look at the facts and the data in an endlessly on this way.

most of our students i want to go to journalism school to talk about plight of this or that category people that they belong to. so that is really a viewpoint about the whole hypothesis that students to the right of the faculty thought it would be true. paul? >> just one final point. conservatism depends very much on the particular way in which parties and ideologies have evolved over the last several decades.

democrats are better for universities and i would say nelson rockefeller. john king and christie whitman were very good. so the republican party has set themselves again in the academic world. these are particular conditions today. they do not have to exist forever. we shouldn't take this as being intrinsic and inevitable.

>> thank you for those questions. this is a question i get a lot. i have to say that the data is pretty convincing on us. fifty to 60% on the left including how the public has been with higher education. that is a lot. in terms of the substance and education and there are more liberals. fifty to 60% and that is a

higher percentage than any other occupation. that is local variation. i think it is time that folks in higher education have knowledge of the liberalism. the right has no doubt about it. i think that our inability to own it and make a strong case for why higher education should continue to exist in the country in which there is a conservative presence. i think we need to make a strong case that most professors on the left, they are of the social sciences and natural sciences as well but that does necessarily not researcher findings. that we can do research and that

is neutral. we need to educate this. i think it's part of what drives conservative skepticism that what we spoke of is a sense the institution of science and it has been affected by political values. this puts us on political ground. i certainly hope that that book will least draw attention to things in this way and to the problems that education is currently facing. >> ungrammatical marquesas but i

think i'm going to leave you i expect a lot more debate about higher education and want to thank neil and paul for writing this book. this is not the typical conversation that you get. that is the kind of conversation you can have your from the universities with good and careful research and capacity. stepping outside of awesome party and thinking seriously about tough questions. and i think this is a testament to your really fine book, which i hope you will read. on the half of my colleagues at nyu and also other books, thank you for being here. we look forward to the next book, neil.

[applause] >> talk about the importance of confidence in being a united states senator that being a woman and how important it is to foster that with business owners and to be involved and step up front, frankly. i always say two graduating classes that i could not imagine that i would have been running for the united states senate when i was in your position either. it is critical to have those examples the second part of it is that they bring a different

experience and that is also important to have that voice at the table and i encourage them to think about it as a possibility in the future. those choices present themselves even for me in politics and running for public office. you know, you always tend to go against the grain. but we do, that's what it is. that is what i always did. i felt so strongly about the things that i believe in. the policy changes are a direct correlation. even today with the women's health initiative that excludes a clinical study trial. to this day's largest title ever for women. it is so revealing what the results and has made life-saving

discovery for women. that is so important participating in the political process and what evolved from us. in fact i was talking about this the other day she is a beneficiary and i love the fact that there is no second thought about it. they make sure that they are treated equally and not. >> semi-rights and responsibilities came and protections came altering the core decade of service. so if you were rare at informative. not, were people have this end

we should have this on behalf of women. it has this but not naming senator end. he would've been the next president of the united states. that is my assessment. you mentioned in the book when you're talking about how everyone clicking. i have known her for years because her husband of mine served as governors together. >> yes, in which the states came into the unit. that is at least as.

>> i was so serendipitous and your friends and honestly colleagues. it helps a great many women, whether or not support her in dealing with this and you have an enduring respectful service is secretary of state. when you think this country isn't is ready and you look at this country, would you as a republican sit it out? >> it is speculating about this. but if hillary wants to run, she should run. it shows me an example of how a

woman can run for public office. if she chooses to do that, i think that embrace her candidacy. i think the country is prepared to have a woman president. it is very diverse as her so she can accomplish in her own experience. it has dispelled any notion that a woman could run. their differences within the party. it basically eradicates affair about how a woman would handle it. >> well, i just think many delightful anecdotes are mentioned in the book and little

nuggets for congress watchers like myself could these people tutor and mentor each other which i thought was wonderful. but you're also talking up the female justices, which i thought was really quite wonderful. we have to not only learn about the way things used to be but women look out for each other in positions of power. it had brought true bipartisan

connections. it's a very unique connection to a totally unique. so you want to tell them that there is a way out and that even if it's not near term, that is a path to unity and production. the future for the congress. diminish polarization in the future if steps are taken in the meantime. i would like to ask about the process of getting to a but it and the budgeting process. meaning that they believe the congress and get out of there partisanship. kind of like if they don't perform their duties, they will not collect a paycheck. filibuster reform. the secrets on legislation.

the super committee sequester bill and everything would have to go back. there only one of five senators with this kind of open impact. so i'm a big believer that myself and commission it is important to remember that we have the ability to read your words on this book. especially on the chapter about political system. if they don't know about redistricting and how huge this is every election cycle so i think that you have all the right ideas.

so the picture a little bit about that in the book. rick nolan, who left the house in 1991, he has been focusing on this. where do you get the establishment? so where do these leadership pacs maintain this? >> they find a release if everybody had to poke at wow. that is the key. it has to be a level playing field on both sides. but it was something about her.

it is another avenue not only are they raising money for their own campaign, but they are also raising this money with the leadership pacs because of the perspective that you are going to raise so much money. many of the trials would be paid for speeches and so the whole schedule would revolve around this but ultimately came to the

conclusion that they could ban this. because the idea of people coming back in town. yes, that is what we are exposed to do. it is one half level that is discussed in the book. >> you're watching these books and more online. check out booktv.org. we'll be reading this summer? booktv wants to know. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ >> let us know what you are reading this summer. tweet us apple tv or send us an e-mail at booktv at c-span.org you are watching booktv. up next sheryl sandberg talks about women achieving leadership roles in the united states and

she talks about her own crew choices and experiences. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. [applause] >> let's begin by thanking the speaker for putting on us along with the sponsors. it is such an interesting place to listen and to learn and understand the future. thank you to john and everyone. [applause] she was running what appeared to be a third of the treasury department. impossibly young and impossibly smart. she impressed all of us in the clinton administration in the first and second term. it became pretty obvious