Alex Tabarrok on political bias in the academy

Last night the Georgetown IR group took me out to a fabulous dinner, and naturally the conversation turned to whether there was a bias in academia against political conservatives. I was all prepared to expound on this in a post, but fortunately for me, Tyler Alex has a Marginal Revolution post in response to this ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

Last night the Georgetown IR group took me out to a fabulous dinner, and naturally the conversation turned to whether there was a bias in academia against political conservatives. I was all prepared to expound on this in a post, but fortunately for me, Tyler Alex has a Marginal Revolution post in response to this article by Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte suggesting statistical evidence of discrimination. Tyler's Alex's basic point: conservatives who cry bias here also need to acknowledge bias because of race or gender in the academy, since the types of cited evidence are awfully similar. Bravo to Tyler Alex for intellectual consistency. Go check his post out. [So you agree completely?--ed. Not completely, no -- I think there probably is some bias (against women, some ethnic minorities, and conservatives), but the effect is less significant than is commonly thought. But the proposed solutions to these bias are far, far worse than the original problem.]

Last night the Georgetown IR group took me out to a fabulous dinner, and naturally the conversation turned to whether there was a bias in academia against political conservatives. I was all prepared to expound on this in a post, but fortunately for me, Tyler Alex has a Marginal Revolution post in response to this article by Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte suggesting statistical evidence of discrimination. Tyler’s Alex’s basic point: conservatives who cry bias here also need to acknowledge bias because of race or gender in the academy, since the types of cited evidence are awfully similar. Bravo to Tyler Alex for intellectual consistency. Go check his post out. [So you agree completely?–ed. Not completely, no — I think there probably is some bias (against women, some ethnic minorities, and conservatives), but the effect is less significant than is commonly thought. But the proposed solutions to these bias are far, far worse than the original problem.]

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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