Their principle findings were that "Around 50% of the general public supports right-wing or conservative parties, compared to less than 12% of academics".
When academics were compared with the most intelligent 5% of the population it was found that highly intelligent people had the same political profile as the population at large.
The authors summarised their findings by pointing out the negative effects of this bias, for instance, amongst universities "90% censored speech in one form or another during 2016 (Spiked 2016)".
Although the article mentioned employment practices it diverted attention away from these by focussing on psychological and sociological factors. However, the simple fact of the matter is that Universities are preferentially employing Left Wing academics.
There has been much talk in the past about the "old school tie" as a basis for discrimination when hiring staff but this has changed. The Hard Left are clear that the revolution is furthered by subverting organisations like universities and they are operating their own version of the "old school tie". As Harry Pollitt (1950s CPGB Leader) said; "Don't join us. Work hard, get good degrees, join the Establishment and serve our cause from within.". There can be little doubt that, especially in the Humanities, universities are discriminating against staff on the basis of their political beliefs, probably illegally. Governments that fund these organisations must demand a change and insist that universities provide evidence of politically neutral employment practices.
This trend for employing left wing staff in the public sector is even more pronounced in the publicly funded broadcast media where it has become obvious that something is badly wrong when almost 100% of journalists are supporting the Remain side in the EU Referendum but more that 50% of the public support Leave.
Teasing out the bias in the broadcast media cannot be done at the level of content because journalists can claim that they gave equal time to Leave and Remain but in truth interviewed a university professor to represent Remain and a drunk leaving a pub to represent Leave. The only sure guide is the political affiliations and backgrounds of journalists. Studies of the political affiliations of journalists are thin on the ground but according to the Washington Post just 7.1% of journalists are Republicans:
 |
| Washington Post: Just 7% of Journalists are Republicans |
In the UK the polarisation of journalists is complicated by the desire for multicultural/multi-ethnic journalists, from Evan Davies with his South African background to Kamal Ahmed. Recruitment according to this axis has undoubtedly affected the BBC's articles on migration and the EU Referendum (see Yes, the broadcast media are our enemy). This is probably a demonstration of the law of unintended consequences rather than a deliberate bias about issues outside of multiculturalism. However, something must be done to prevent such bias occurring.
It is obviously difficult for a State broadcaster to achieve true impartiality, however it must have been evident to the BBC when "training" staff for the Referendum that they had no Leave journalists. They should have hired some. The failure in the BBC is not with the journalists, it is not their fault that a selection committee liked them because the BBC runs the World Service and Internationalism was fashionable, the fault is with the management at the BBC who should be highly alert to who is being assigned to which projects.
(The rest of this article was written on 26/10/2012)
A recent study of sociologists and social psychologists in the USA by Inbar and Lammers (2012) found that only 3.9% ranked themselves as being to the right of "moderate" in their politics compared with over 42% of the US population.
When asked about this political polarisation most psychologists and sociologists tended to reply that their field of study makes them left wing or that only clever people study their subject. The reality was far more serious. It turns out that left wing academics are actively discriminating against conservatives.
When asked if there was discrimination against conservatives by their colleagues:
44% responded that there was discrimination against hiring conservatives
and
36.9% said that grants would be withheld from conservatives
Worse still,
34% said that there was discrimination when reviewing papers by conservatives.
Only 4% of these sociologists are conservative so there can be no significant discrimination against the Left.
The cumulative effect of this level of discrimination is to stop the careers of any conservative sociologists or social psychologists.
Anyone who has experience of social psychology in the USA and in Europe will know that if discrimination against conservatives is bad in the USA it will be total in Europe. In the USA the "Left" is "liberal", in Europe the "Left" are nearly all post-marxists. (See Postmodernism-poststructuralism-postmarxism )
This discrimination is as bad as or even worse than racism because it is entirely contrary to the constitutions of most Western countries, contrary to the purpose of universities and contrary to employment legislation in the EU and USA. Governments and university administrations are letting us all down.
Why are governments financing left-wing extremists and creating a huge subversive network in universities with taxpayers money?
The survey was conducted on Members of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (Part of the American Psychological Association) by Inbar and Lammers (2012).
Inbar, Y. and Lammers,J. (2012). Political Diversity in Social and Personality Psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 496-503.
 |
| 37% even admitted that they would personally discriminate! |
Article originally published 12/10/2012, updated 2/3/2017.
Comments