Baldwin: Academia’s leftward tilt doesn’t prevent honest and unbiased scholarship

What does being unbiased mean? Is it possible for people to be completely unbiased and impartial in their judgments and actions? So often in academia, there is a leftist bias. While I identify as a member of the left and, therefore, support people and institutions championing the causes attributed to liberal ideology, the larger implications of our nations’ researchers and academics having an overwhelming leftist bias is worrisome.

My thoughts on the role of bias and its implications recently came to a climax while I was attending a lecture by a distinguished faculty member in the life sciences. The professor made a joking remark about the “lunatic fringe” that the right wing of the political spectrum has become in this country. In a separate instance, a professor openly claimed that anyone who identified as a Republican suffered from a “mental or moral defect.” While I may agree on a personal level, the implications of the professoriate openly expressing its political ideology while teaching or researching are disturbing.

As leftism and science have become increasingly synonymous — perhaps erroneously, given that many leftists hold non-scientific beliefs such as opposition to genetically modified food and vaccination — it is critical that academics and researchers remain unbiased in their work in order to maintain a public culture that values fact and reason over zealous dogmatism and irrationality.

Data indicates that a substantial divide exists in the university setting. In a study conducted examining the party affiliation of tenure-track faculty members at 11 research universities, 46 percent were openly Democratic, and another 44 percent identified with left-leaning third parties or other philosophies. Only 9 percent of faculty identified as openly Republican. With conservatism being in the distinct minority, academia has become just another example of the ever-increasing political extremism in our public discourse.

Much of this has to do with increased digitization and vastly augmented exposure to political reporting to the point of fetishization. Although this information exposure may be considered a positive step for an advanced democracy such as ours, in this case, it has caused a problem. These political ideologies become sufficiently ingrained in the character traits of professors and scholars, bleeding into work in the lecture halls and laboratories, potentially causing biased teaching and skewed results favoring one ideology over another.

Part of this political bias is justified. With fallacious claims coming from Republicans regarding the nature of rape and validity of creationism, it is difficult for the research community to associate with a party that makes claims with such a lack of regard for scientific fact. According to Puneet Opal in The Atlantic, only 6 percent of scientists identify as Republicans, and 68 living recipients of the Nobel Prize endorsed Democratic candidates.

There isn’t necessarily a problem with the majority of the professoriate holding leftist views. Political affiliation is irrespective of professional behavior on campuses. The issue is when academics bring their political ideologies to the lecture halls or into their research. While all citizens, regardless of profession, are welcome to hold whichever political beliefs they choose, these beliefs shouldn’t be brought into the workplace. This should be especially salient in academia, given that academics are held to a higher standard of intellectual maturity. Personal ideologies at work cause professors to fail at their primary objectives: to teach, clarify, elaborate and elucidate in respect to established schools of thought and scientifically proven fact.

An open and blatant bias is also foolish for academics at public research universities working on federal grant research projects. If congressional Republicans begin to identify the research and academic community as a solidly Democratic voting bloc, then funding for research projects could become the next political stalemate. With sensitive research and people’s livelihoods contingent on federal research funding, this is cause for concern.

Regardless of the ideological component, it is critical for academia to remain unbiased and impartial for the sake of the genuine pursuit of science over personal political ideologies. Some argue that in order to do this, a scholar — especially one in the social sciences — must consider the arguments of the opposition: However, I’d argue it is not that simple.

Considering the arguments of the opposition is a fundamental component of sound argumentation in all scholarship, not just social sciences with potential political implications. Biological and physical science research must be scrutinized as severely as other branches of academia to guard against skewed or suppressed research. The impartiality standard should apply not only to research involving political factors, but also to the presentation of all research, regardless of any possible political ramifications.

Researchers who allow their work to be skewed by political ideology are risking not only their own integrity, but also the integrity of public research institutions and academia at large, even if that ideology is one that supports the mission of the very institution where the work is being carried out. The product of research must be conducted and presented in a way that places priority on factual results regardless of whether they support the political aims of the party with which most in the research community identify. This leftist bias in academia is not an underlying trend that is a concern for the future, but a major theme and a threat to academia today.

Write Eric at eab73@pitt.edu.