Ethics and Ideology in the AAUP: A Case Study

Ceteris paribus, more ethical institutions outlive less ethical ones, but even among ethical institutions short-term exigencies can pose ethical challenges. The balance is as delicate in higher education as in business or politics, and the ethical questions are as complex. In the decades following the 1915 founding of the professoriate's representative organization, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), public support for higher education flourished. Undoubtedly, the AAUP's codification of standards contributed to the public's confidence in higher education, and public confidence contributed to this flourishing. Certainly, the AAUP has played a critical role in fostering public support for higher education.

We perceive a weakening of concern for ethics within the AAUP. In particular, we are concerned that the AAUP has increasingly focused on short-term, narrowly defined political and economic interests, and forsaken its role as arbiter of enduring ethical standards and responsibilities. If so, there likely has been a general weakening of ethics in higher education both because the AAUP sets standards and because attitudes in the AAUP reflect broader trends.

Specifically, we are concerned that the AAUP's general secretary, Roger W. Bowen, recently has made public statements that selectively evaluate academic research. Such public statements breach the AAUP's established standards. Differentially criticizing the research of conservative scholars and withholding equivalent criticism from liberals suggest institutional bias. Such bias undermines the AAUP's claim of even-handedly defending the professoriate's pursuit of truth.

We refer to statements that Dr. Bowen made in the April 8, 2005 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education concerning the study "Politics and Professional Advancement among College Faculty" by emeritus professor of government at Smith College, Stanley Rothman; professor of communications at George Mason University, S. Robert Lichter; and professor of political science at the University of Toronto, Neil Nevitte. Published in the online journal Forum, the study finds campus liberals to outnumber conservatives five to one. It also concludes that conservatives tend to get worse jobs than liberals when research productivity and other personal characteristics are taken into account.

Dr. Bowen's response to the study was to declare its methodology "suspect" because the sample size was "too small" and to assert, without empirical support, that in academia "the cream rises to the top." But the sample size in the Rothman et al. study, 1,643, is larger than samples in the majority of published social science studies. It is larger, in fact, than the sample size that the Nielsen ratings use. Moreover, the Rothman et al. methodology is as appropriate to its subject as are the methodologies of many studies that are published in scholarly social science journals each month, and whose methodologies Dr. Bowen would no doubt not presume to evaluate.

Concerned about the inaccuracy of this response by an important academic leader, one of us e-mailed Dr. Bowen an inquiry to which he responded as follows: "Several studies have recently been done, but none of them approach the breadth or depth of those done over time by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) since 1989-90. Its conclusions, based on a much larger sample, reveal a very different picture."

Reviewing the most recent HERI survey, we discovered that it paints a picture not all that different from that in the Rothman et al. report. To be exact, the 2002 HERI study finds that among four-year institutions, far left or liberal faculty outnumber conservatives by a ratio of roughly three to one. Additionally, a low (below 15 percent) institutional response rate that is self-selected opens the HERI study to questions about methodology that are as serious as those that might be raised about the Rothman et al. study. A balanced observer would raise questions about both studies, or be satisfied in the knowledge that social science research is often imperfect.

When one of us then asked Dr. Bowen for further clarification of the basis for his remarks, he indicated that, rather than the HERI study, Professor Jeremy Mayer of George Mason University had provided him with information that was the basis for his remarks. When one of us questioned Professor Mayer, he wrote that he had sent "Roger a preliminary e-mail slicing and dicing the methodology" in the Rothman et al. study and that "I'd write a more sophisticated analysis if I'd known Roger was going to bandy my name about." Professor Mayer's e-mail did not mention the HERI study.

Professor Mayer's e-mail did, however, raise a number of criticisms of the Rothman et al. study that deserve scholarly debate. In particular, the e-mail mentions that the Rothman et al. data defined too small a portion of their sample as moderate rather than liberal or conservative, omitted foreign policy and trade issues in its definition of liberal and conservative, used a less-than-objective self-appraisal for measuring academic achievement, and omitted controls for teaching at Christian and historically black colleges. While such points are deserving of debate, they are in fact debatable. Professor Rothman has confirmed that Dr. Bowen never contacted him for his response to these points.

While mentioning that Rothman and his colleagues "simply won't release their data," Professor Mayer also provided us with a slide presentation. The slide presentation notes that Professor Rothman states that he intends to release his data when his planned publications are finished. In addition, the presentation points out that "discrimination in hiring is a bad thing" and that it is "possible to have an interesting conversation on the issue." It goes on to ask "how (could) discrimination happen?" and in several slides speculates about potential reasons why there might be discrimination against conservatives. It then discusses econometric criticisms and alternative explanations for the preponderance of liberals over conservatives. Professor Rothman has indicated to us that he intends to make his data available at the Roper Institute, as he has done with respect to six previous studies. He also indicates that he plans to respond to the various comments in future academic publications.

In short, like the HERI study, Professor Mayer's e-mail and the slide presentation do not support Dr. Bowen's statements to the Chronicle, nor do they address the HERI study to which Dr. Bowen at first alluded as the basis for his published remarks. Based on correspondence with Mayer and Rothman, Bowen's statements about sample size and "cream rising to the top" were at best exaggerations.

We made an additional good faith effort to give Dr. Bowen an opportunity to clarify his position. Apparently wearying of the demanding task of uncovering the truth, he e-mailed: "You remind me of the TV character, Columbo - 'Just one more question.'"

In his book Academic Ethics, Neil Hamilton discusses at length the centrality of the AAUP's 1940 "Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure" and 1966 "Statement on Professional Ethics" that define the high standards to which the professoriate is held. According to the 1966 document, a professor is expected to "practice intellectual honesty; exercise critical self-discipline and judgment in using, extending, and transmitting knowledge." According to the 1940 Statement, with respect to "extramural utterance," professors speaking as citizens shall "at all times be accurate"; "exercise appropriate restraint"; and "show respect for the opinions of others." It does not appear that Dr. Bowen adhered to the spirit or letter of his own organization's standards.

Instead of vigilantly adhering to the 1940 and 1966 statements, Dr. Bowen seems to have used his position as the AAUP general secretary to besmirch the scholarly reputations of conservative scholars, namely, Rothman, Lichter and Nevitte. Ironically, the debate is over this very kind of discrimination - extra layers of review and scrutiny that are politically motivated and aimed to intimidate and expel conservative views from scholarly discourse. Dr. Bowen's remarks provide a case study of the partisanship that has become characteristic of an academy grown accustomed to view itself in ideological terms.

Will the academy's increasingly ideological academic soil in the 21st century cause the public to reconsider its generous provision of the means for higher education to flourish? This is a question that academics might well begin to ponder.

A shorter version of this article, "Selective Evaluation," was published in the New York Sun on June 24, 2005.