Why Would Liberals Predominate in Higher Ed?

There are many interesting posts on the issue of whether liberals dominate higher education. For the sake of argument, let me assume they do. The interesting question is why: Many of the conservatives discussing imply that discrimination against conservatives is the answer. As a liberal I'm uncomfortable with that, I suspect many liberals are, hence a reluctance to get into the issue. But some other answers are possible [caution, I last was on a college campus in 1965, when I busted out of grad school, so I've no current information]:

One thesis I particularly like takes off from George Marsden, "The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief". The idea is that ever since Harvard was founded, academia has been more liberal than the society at large. Most private colleges (like Dartmouth and Carleton College) were founded in connection with a Protestant denomination, but Marsden shows the tendency has been for them to evolve into secular (liberal) institutions. If I remember him correctly, the reason is one beloved of conservatives: competition.

To get students, and financial support, colleges had to reach further than their founding denomination and initial area. By competing over a wider space, both geographically and intellectually, they spread their fixed costs and increased their stability. Broader appeals meant minimizing theological correctness and ideology and emphasizing science, rationality, achievement, equality, democracy (the good liberal universalist virtues), as well as football teams and academic stars. The universities Marsden studies became secularized in the process, which undermined a foundation stone of conservatism. (He ends with the Bill Buckley's "God and Man at Yale" controversy in the 1950's.) It looks to me as if there was an educational establishment by 1950. Carnegie had seen to it that professors had a national retirement plan , the professional organizations were dug in, the AAUP was fighting back against McCarthyism, Harvard and Yale were the leaders and pacesetters, and ETS started pushing SAT.

(I don't know if this qualifies as "horizontal competition" in economics, but see Achenblog for a neat piece on it. The point is that competition forces the competitors to become more like each other, whether in location or in facilities and character. As of 1950 the Big Three carmakers each sported a full line of models, and the Kaiser-Frasers, Studebakers, and Nashes of the world faded away. The Big Three networks all had news departments and were very similar in content. I suspect all the elite colleges cover the same fields of study with few differences.)

Certainly when I went to college in 1959 many people on the right thought there was a liberal/pinko/egghead dominance of college faculties. Academia (faculty) was dominated by WASP males and some Jews. As for the student body, the colleges I applied to talked about diversity, but they mostly meant geographical. I think I remember 3 blacks in a class of 800. Males were a majority. Today my alma mater is 50/50 in sex, 27 percent minority, probably most Asian. In my field of history a popular theory was "consensus history"--the idea that America was always a liberal middle class society, lacking the hereditary upper class and the proletariat found in Europe.

I've not been back to college since I busted out of grad school in 1965. I have tried to keep up, through the Alumni mag and my history journals.

So, if academia was liberal in 1965, what would have kept it so?

1. Discipleship--seems to me that professors have "their" grad students, whom they try to place. That would tend to perpetuate any liberal bias.
2. Culture--I think all organizations have a culture that gets perpetuated through the air.
   
3. The appeal of the new--in the competition among grad students for places, topics that are new are favored over the old. (See labor history and agricultural history for two fields of declining importance in history, even though both would tend "liberal".)
   
4. New demography--colleges started going after new groups, notably blacks, but also other minorities and women. This is true both in the student body and in the faculty. It so happens that the new demographic groups are also the most liberal in the general population. In the case of women, they seem to have gone most strongly into fields that are now most heavily liberal (i.e., English and the arts, then social sciences).
5. Stronger competition--look at the attention paid to the US News ratings. Colleges are much more selective these days. One of the big criteria is selectivity. That's in line with the rule in literature: the more dead bodies the hero steps over, the greater the reward at the end of his quest. So every college in the competition wants to maximize the number of applicants. I might be cynical and say that the purpose of affirmative action is, in part, to attract more applicants to be rejected, which thereby increases the selectivity of the institution. But having a diverse professoriate, having people on the faculty with whom a possible applicant can identify, thus becomes very important. (See the LA Times article on celebrity instructors.)
6. Conservatism is not important among the incoming students. For the majority of students, college is probably a rite of passage and a ticket to punch (just as it was in my day) so the college's prestige is important, as are extracurricular aspects. (Liberalism isn't important to most, but having female or black role models will matter to some.)
   
7. Disdain for other occupations. It's true that people tend to demonize the others. So all things being equal, one should expect academics to denigrate those in business or government. They've been doing that since time immemorial, and seeing it done to them. (Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.)
   
8. Liberal guilt--one of the downsides of the bleeding heart liberal is that we become guilty very easy. That meant, and may be still means, that liberals will favor those who have no power, who have been oppressed.
   

All this means, I think, that conservatives should be concentrated in niches, the colleges that retain a strong religious connection, perhaps colleges trying to differentiate themselves (perhaps George Mason as opposed to UVA), some new fields (like bioeconomics, IT, etc. ). But the reality seems to be that even the hard sciences are 50 percent liberal, indicating the limits of any conservative push.

Do Away with Social Security Numbers

The Washington Post had its reporter try to get Social Security numbers from outfits operating on-line. He succeeded, and wrote this piece. Net Aids Access to Sensitive ID Data (washingtonpost.com):

"Although Social Security numbers are one of the most powerful pieces of personal information an identity thief can possess, they remain widely available and inexpensive despite public outcry and the threat of a congressional crackdown after breaches at large information brokers."

I've been working sporadically on a proposal to drop SSN's completely. I'm convinced it's feasible. Need to get back on it.

Don't Plant That Acorn, The Oak May Fall

The Post carries an article (Privacy Advocates Criticize Plan To Embed ID Chips in Passports ) that elicits the above response from me. The background--the State Department (and other federal agencies) are working to improve means of identification/authentication. The national Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued standards for ID cards that carry various data. The passport is one such card and State is proposing to include RFID chips in passports. (RFID chips send a radio signal to a receiver, like the don't steal tags on clothes or, in my library, the chips on books. Typically they send a very limited amount of information.) So privacy groups are attacking the plan. To quote:

"A government plan to embed U.S. passports with radio frequency chips starting this summer is being met by resistance from travel and privacy groups who say the technology is untested and could create a security risk for travelers."

What they say may be literally true, but so is the fact that the tree which grows from an acorn may fall and kill someone or damage some property. The reaction is somewhat like NIMBY (not in my backyard) reactions. There are always many reasons NOT to do something; it takes drive to get things done. The reasons often come flying when you're dealing with something new that people don't really understand.

My prescription in this case is for the State Department to open their testing process to the critics (on the assumption that any software development goes through multiple stages of testing). Give them the passports and be your beta testers. In my experience, it's usually better to try to co-opt your critics; they often have enough of a point that it's best to deal with it upfront, then ignore it and pay the cost later. But still, plant that acorn.

Thinking and Acting Are Uneasy Partners

Picking up on an old story, MSNBC reported a study showing brains don't mature until the 20's so that:

"many life choices -- college and career, marriage and military service -- often are made before the brain's decision-making center comes fully online. But for young adults, 'Dying on a highway is the biggest risk out there,' Giedd said. 'What if we could predict earlier in life what could happen later?'"

This is just one instance where taking action and thinking are at odds. That's one of the problems I have with organizations like GAO and the goo-goo emphasis on process. It's called "paralysis by analysis" or "the best is the enemy of the good". Another quote from the article:

"The pattern probably serves an evolutionary purpose, he said, perhaps preparing youths to leave their families and fend for themselves, without wasting energy worrying about it.

Maybe it's also why sons compete with fathers?

Relationship of farm programs and foodstamps--Updated

Update: Senator Chambliss ensured that the Budget Resolution contained language permitting the Senate Ag Committee to cut across the board, food stamps and/or farm programs.--4/2/05

From 2/7/05:
NewDonkey.com discusses the possibility that the proposed change in payment limitation will result in a lowering of food stamp money.

"Sunday, February 06, 2005

Farm Subsidies and Food Stamps

The Bush budget will apparently include a 'cap' on the maximum values of farm subsidies that any one producer can harvest, an idea that will (rightly) get some progressive support. But the proposal will run directly into already-announced opposition in Congress, especially from Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran of MS, who is mobilizing the powerful farm lobby to defeat it.

And that's where food stamps come in: Congress organizes its budget and appropriations work by federal department, and by a department-oriented system of budget 'functions' that track the jurisdiction of congressional appropriations subcommittees. If the White House and the GOP congressional leadership can succeed in setting lower targets for USDA spending, then farm subsidies will be placed into a direct competition with food stamps for funding."

Comments:

The setup is the result of the need to get urban votes for farm programs, and vice versa. In a logical world, foodstamps wouldn't be in USDA any longer (they first started in the late 30's to get rid of surpluses, were killed during the war, then George McGovern (I'm pretty sure) pushed them in the late 50 and they got adopted more or less as a pilot project under Kennedy. They kept being expanded over the years as the farm bloc grew less powerful and needed urban votes more and more in order to pass farm programs. (The biggest deal was to make food stamps = money, instead of limiting them to surplus commodities.)

I think it's true that payment limitations, at least in their current form, were the result of Senator Schumer, then Congressman Schumer's work when he was on the House Ag committee. Again, the cotton and rice people in particular didn't like it, but it was his price for supporting the 1985 farm bill. (Whether or not he knew that cotton and rice interests had inserted a couple provisions that would water down the payment limitation provisions, like the entity rule, I don't know. )

Because I like to think well of people, I'd guess Bush and Bolten wouldn't mind a cut of food stamps but are simply operating within a historical structure.

Berger Files and UN Files, What's Interesting?

The New York Times has an article on Sandy Berger's guilty plea to destroying files from the National Archives. According to them:

On Sept. 2, 2003, in a daylong review of documents, Mr. Berger took a copy of a lengthy White House 'after-action' report that he had commissioned to assess the government's performance in responding to the so-called millennium terrorist threat before New Year's 2000, and he placed the document in his pocket, the associate said. A month later, in another Archives session, he removed four copies of other versions of the report, the associate said.

Mr. Berger's intent, the associate said, was to compare the different versions of the 2000 report side by side and trace changes.

'He was just too tired and wasn't able to focus enough, and he felt like he needed to look at the documents in his home or his office to line them up,' the associate said. 'He now admits that was a real mistake.'

Mr. Berger admits to compounding the mistake after removing the second set of documents on Oct. 2, 2003, the associate said. In comparing the versions at his office later that day, he realized that several were essentially the same, and he cut three copies into small pieces, the associate said. "

The Post has a similar article. Comparing this to the destruction of files at the UN (see here) two things stand out. In Berger's case, Archives was keeping multiple copies of the same document, presumably because each had annotations by a different official. "Trace changes" indicates to me that Richard Clarke was clearing his report in parallel, taking advantage of modern technology to provide each official his/her own copy, then making appropriate changes in the final report.

If that's true, there's a contrast with the UN case as I discussed the other day (note: of this I'm not sure, have not been able to successfully download the report) use technology to make multiple copies. But what's good for expediting bureaucratic action is bad for the Archives and for historians. Berger was apparently trying to act as a historian, reconstructing what happened when. In the UN case, using carbons, all versions of a document were in one place and one could easily track the changes. Thus if Berger's story, as told by associate, is true, he wouldn't have had to steal documents.

A final point. I would trust Richard Clarke to squawk if there had been anything explosive in the annotations--he's certainly not publicity shy, so his silence means to me that this is a mistake and a misdemeanor, but not a coverup.

My bottom line: Berger's offense is due to bigshotitis, the idea that rules don't apply to me. See Richard Nixon and Elliot Abrams, who lied to Congress and is now back in the NSC. Personally, I'd throw all bigshots in jail for 6 months, Martha Stewart can testify to it's being educational.

Droppers, Walkers, and Pickers

For my many sins as a bureaucrat, I fully expect to be reincarnated as a lower form of life, perhaps an economist. Here's some meditations along the lines of the "broken window" thesis of James Q. Wilson:

My wife and I have lived in Reston, in the townhouse I bought in 1976. It's walking distance to the grocery store and I walked occasionally during my working years, more often now I'm retired. The neighborhood has had its problems over the years, as two of the section 8 subsidized housing projects in Reston were a ways down the street. ("Were" not because they've been destroyed, but Fairfax county has converted them somehow.)

Anyhow, with regard to trash on the ground, there are three categories of people:

1. Droppers, including people in cars, who drop trash
2. Walkers, including people in cars, who just pass by.
3. Pickers, excluding people in cars, who pick up trash.

The sources of trash tend to be fast food places and the grocery, particularly drink containers. There's got to be some math that would describe the possible balances among the people. If 1 percent of everyone who passes drops something, and 2 percent are pickers, the walkways will stay reasonably neat. But we have to account for feedback, if it's 2 percent droppers and 1 percent pickers, then some pickers may get discouraged and give up. There's feedback also for the droppers, the neater the place, presumably the less likely you are to drop something. That's perhaps because you feel a social norm in place, because there's the possibility of oppobrium being expressed, or because the first piece of litter does the most harm. (If you're a rebellious youth, trying to do damage, you get the most utility by writing graffiti on the Washington monument.)

We're Rich, Say George Will and Rep. Linder

Let me take a cheap shot at George Will's column today, boosting Rep. Linder (R-GA) flat tax plan.

"Linder says Americans spend 7 billion hours a year filling out IRS forms and at least that much calculating the tax implications of business decisions.... Linder says the director of the Congressional Budget Office told him it costs individuals and businesses about $500 billion to remit $2 trillion to Washington. "

Simple math says 7 billion hours into $500 billion is $70+ dollars an hour. If the average taxpayer works roughly 2000 hours a year, that's $140K yearly, which is rich by my standards. This is a cheap shot because such estimates are wild-ass guesses, initially, which get solidified into gospel as they move further away from their bureaucratic source. It would behoove Congresspeople and columnpeople occasionally to check whether their statistics match up with common sense.

On the more serious point, Will tries to appeal to the goo-goo in all of us by claiming the flat tax would do away with K street lobbyists. I doubt it, the money power always finds ways to tweak the system for its interests, whether it's in earmarking spending or the fine print of legislation. But there is a big issue for liberals: would we trade our (supposedly) "progressive" tax system for a flat tax if in return we got the safety net of the old Europe countries (universal health care, paid family leave, etc.)? At least today I think I would.

Shredding Documents at the UN, Does It Matter?

The answer: "it all depends".

Mr. Volcker, in the Lehrer interview last night referred to a "chron" file that was destroyed. I've no knowledge of the filing system they used at the UN, and have not read the report. But some filing basics, as done in my old agency in 1975 (figure the UN is 30 years behind times). Anything prepared for official signature in the office, whether in response to incoming correspondence or initiated within the office, had an original and multiple carbon copies prepared. (We moved to Xerox copies later.)

1 Writer drafted the document and his (remember, it's 1975) secretary typed it with the copies. Any incoming documents, attachments, etc. were stapled to the official yellow copy.
2 Writer reviewed, then initialed the official yellow copy.
3 Package went through clearance channels, with the officials initialing the yellow copy. If they didn't like it, it was sent back for rewrite and retyping. The original yellow carbon would be stapled behind the yellow carbon of the revised document.
4 The approving official signed the original. His secretary stamped his signature on all the copies and distributed them:

• original to addressee
• information copies to offices who needed to know that action had been taken and to the writer
  
• official yellow, green, and blue copies to official records. There, they would be filed as follows:
• official yellow (and attachments, etc.) in a file by subject (note that it should show all the changes made, the whole history of the document)
  
• blue in a file by addressee
• green in a file by date.

The addressee and date files (chronology) were finding aids. If you were trying to find something, you could search those files, retrieve the copy and find the subject category where you'd find the yellow copy. After a period of time, we'd destroy the addressee and date files, and move the official yellows off to the National Archives.

(The whole thing is comparable to today's PC's--the subject file equates to the system of folders and subfolders used in Windows. The date file equates to the history boxes that show the stuff you most recently worked on or URL's you accessed. )

So if Annan's chief of staff approved the destruction of blue/green files and the file systems were like my agency's, there should be no information lost, just ease of searching. ) Of course, the timing smells and the file system may have been something completely different. We'll see.

Three things are interesting:
1 The willingness of people to comment without knowing the system used
2 The fact there's no discussion of e-mail. I mean, I know the UN is not well run, but even Reagan and Ollie North got tripped up in 1987 over the IBM Profs internal e-mail system.
3 The problem historians will have in the future as filing systems dissolve under the impact of technology.

Sexy Work??

Ann Gerhart has an article : in the Post on the changing of the old Civil Service personnel system.

"Hundreds of thousands of federal workers made a deal when they signed up with Uncle Sam. Whether they were janitors pushing a broom or naval designers floating tiny model destroyers or econometricians micro-simulating Social Security scenarios, the deal was the same:

They would do good work, even rewarding, satisfying work. It wouldn't be sexy work, and it wouldn't make them rich. But what they would get was stability, the federal holidays, transit subsidies, Cadillac health care, the flextime allowing every other Friday off. The hours would be regular. The raises would come -- click, click, click up the general service scale. "

So what is "sexy work"? Working as an Enron energy trader exulting over screwing California grandmas? Working in legal/accounting firms to come up with tax evasion schemes to sell? Wheeling and dealing on Wall Street, taking large bonuses for doing mergers that don't work out (like DEC and Compaq), exercising stock options for mismanaging a company, working for the largest McMansion and biggest Hummer, the second house on the shore and the third apartment off the campus of your children's college?

Or is it researching public health crises for CDC, flying into space for NASA, designing ARPANET for DOD, fighting forest fires for the Forest Service, getting social security checks to the old?

There used to be the idea of "service", as in service to the community. And service is sexy, as when the bull services the cow.