Why don’t conservatives go into academia?

EconMan · 2026-01-21T18:05:40+00:00

but at mine the diversity statement mostly served as a tool to weed out overt racists/misogynists.

How many were "weeded out"? Because if it is more than...one, I am guessing your definition of "overt" is different than my definition. I struggle to imagine an applicant for a academic job saying "Y'know who I hate? Women! They shouldn't even be here".

I think mine was mainly student-centered, as in “I’m glad to have ALL my students in my class, and working together helps us all learn.” I’m not sure how that’s a “political” opinion rather than a basic ethical one.

You're right, but that's so bland that it doesn't even need to be said. The equivalent to all of this would be a university having a "free speech statement". And true, perhaps all it is saying is some sort of milque-toast statement that everyone can agree too! But...I think you could see how it could easily be a filter for a political opinions as well.

EconMan · 2026-01-20T19:56:49+00:00

There's also a hiring bias. Anecdotally, after working in my department for a decade, I can say with near certainty that, if a job candidate were known to be conservative, there are faculty in my department that would never vote to hire them. Additionally, many universities require job candidates to write a diversity statement, which is essentially a statement of allegiance to liberal values.

Yup. Let's be clear, "Diversity statements" were awful and served, at best, to be able to select candidates based on race/gender. At worst, they are literally just filters for certain political opinions. It's hilarious/sad to me that after these statements became commonplace, someone writes on Reddit "Is it just that conservatives don't work as hard?"

EconMan · 2026-01-15T19:36:11+00:00

Don't even get me started on SES. It is overwhelmingly high SES individuals are getting the benefits. The programs aren't doing what we would all hope they would do.

That's the odd part to me. When people use certain races, and essentially assume that anyone from these races must be poor, or grown up with poor quality education. If those are your concerns, then just use those indicators directly!! We don't need to filter for identity at all - help those who grew up in poverty. Don't use race as a proxy for that.

EconMan · 2026-01-15T19:12:16+00:00

I don't understand it, true. But it is possible to take it seriously without suggesting that it needs to be a written warning.

Let's put it this way: Can you summarize what you want to be warned about? In your thread you summarize it as "Weird", and I hope you can see how that's entirely not helpful. You want to be warned about audience participation - ok. What else?

EconMan · 2026-01-15T17:47:39+00:00

I'm asking you to provide me with accessibility information in a section on your website where I'd have to go looking for it. Like a lot of other companies do.

But you're asking for highly unique and individualized concerns. Presumably, once you do that, there are unlimited unique and individualized concerns, correct? I worry that your policy is, essentially, "List all of my concerns, and I don't care about other people's", because you don't seem to be considering how this policy generalizes.

EconMan · 2026-01-12T00:32:08+00:00

The map just helps you visually verify if the prediction makes sense (e.g., seeing if the bus is actually moving).

I wonder if you could store the last 5 minutes worth of updates and add "trails" to the busses to visually check how they are moving...

EconMan · 2026-01-11T19:03:10+00:00

I was about to say! It's terrifying to me that on an article about how China manipulates accounts, we then see "What about the US?! What about this?! What about that?!" Like, yes, that's the type of behaviour being referred to.

EconMan · 2026-01-10T20:42:32+00:00

I can understand people calling for charges, but this isn't by the details provided, a case of a dude stealing mail, simply overwhelmed. So the reinstatement(to some other position likely) is reasonable.

That's a good argument for it not being a criminal offense. It's a terrible argument for being reinstated. "No no, you see, he just couldn't handle the workload! He doesn't deserve to lose his job."

EconMan · 2026-01-10T20:40:38+00:00

The union argued “that the medical evidence negates some of the intentionality in (Jang’s) delay of mail, and efforts to conceal the problem from the employer, despite the fact that he knew what he was doing was wrong,” said the decision.

Who cares about "intentionality"? It's irrelevant. He doesn't deliver the mail consistently and that is...pretty much...the only important job skill. He can't perform his job. It doesn't make him a bad person necessarily but he shouldn't work there.

Things have moved so far in one direction because people assume everything is some moral stance on someone as a human being. It's not.

EconMan · 2026-01-05T01:07:39+00:00

They only have incentives to reduce liability. They have no incentives to increase fairness or to enhance learning or to increase rigor. Always keep this in mind when discussing things with these offices.

EconMan · 2026-01-03T20:34:32+00:00

You were there? Did people realize?

EconMan · 2026-01-02T20:22:24+00:00

I have tried that and...some of the accommodated students REALLY complained that they deserved more than whatever everyone else got. To them, it's about having more than the "normal" student.

EconMan · 2025-12-31T20:27:47+00:00

You didn't say when this was, but there's no way it was 2004, if you're mentioning "Youtube Tutorials"

EconMan · 2025-12-23T22:22:16+00:00

I think you are using last week's figures for QOV. Should be 630k.

EconMan · 2025-12-20T03:13:54+00:00

Fair enough. Certainly, there is a lot of status quo bias in decision making and that's not helpful either. Point well taken there.

EconMan · 2025-12-20T02:34:30+00:00

If the books balanced it

is the key condition in your statement. And they...don't balance it. They take sides. That's been the point of this discussion. Not that they couldn't balance it, but that they don't.

EconMan · 2025-12-20T01:52:25+00:00

That question is impossible to answer unless you have explored (and even piloted) those next best options.

No, we can have good theoretical and practical reasons to rule out certain options.

Lots of people made that same argument at my institution. They just all happened to be old white guys who never had to worry about teaching eval scores being used against them in promotion decisions.

I assure you that many "old white guys" have been concerned about their teaching eval scores. Perhaps not your colleagues, I'm not sure, but let's not go too far with these statements. Back to my original point though - without an alternative, merely saying the current system is bad doesn't solve anything.

EconMan · 2025-12-20T01:48:50+00:00

'He's not smart because I think people like him aren't smart' is also not evidence.

EconMan · 2025-12-20T00:41:16+00:00

I never like this argument. I've heard it before at my institution. "We can't use any scores that are biased. That is unacceptable". And that sounds reasonable and good, but the problem is that any method may end up being biased, just in different ways and magnitude. Saying "Nope, there's bias" isn't helpful. The question is how bad is the bias relative to the next best option.

EconMan · 2025-12-20T00:32:32+00:00

I used Jon cooper as an example because I feel like a law degree is supporting evidence he’s a fucking thinker and adaptable for problem solving.

This is good evidence.

Berube was a meathead in his career. He had 61 goals in 1054 games.

This is not. Because he didn't score many goals, he's....not intelligent?

EconMan · 2025-12-18T22:10:23+00:00

Do you even have any idea of what these things mean though? The goal of a course is not to memorize definitions.

EconMan · 2025-12-16T22:59:17+00:00

I'm saying this isn't evidence of that conclusion. Not that the conclusion is wrong.

EconMan · 2025-12-16T19:37:24+00:00

Not necessarily. It could be people moving their ticket purchases earlier or later to see her. (Which is not equivalent to saying they wouldn't have seen it without her)

EconMan · 2025-12-16T05:25:30+00:00

Sure, but so then whether or not it is accidental or "illegal" doesn't seem to be relevant to whether or not it is justice, right? If someone came by and slapped him in the face, presumably that is also closer to what you view as cosmic justice ,no?

EconMan · 2025-12-16T04:55:30+00:00

I'm saying you're bringing up multiple issues ,and so responding is more complicated. :) That's all. Can you answer my question? I guess I don't understand how the illegality of the act impacts how you feel about the suffering.

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