Media Inquiries: Véronique Rodman

vrodman@aei.org 202.862.4870

Orders: 800.343.4499 or www.aei.org/books

The culture of political correctness has a significant influence on American higher education. In The Politically Correct University: Problems, Scope, and Reforms (AEI Press, September 2009), editors Robert Maranto, Richard E. Redding, and Frederick M. Hess, along with nineteen other scholars and practitioners, examine how the politically correct imperative to promote "diversity"--of race, ethnicity, and gender, but not of ideas--has diverted higher education from its true purposes. The book offers empirical research on the role of conservative professors and students in the academy; nuanced explorations of how the reverence for diversity plays out in practice; and some suggestions for how the politically correct university might be reformed.

The book's contributors contend that a combination of faculty composition, self-selection by conservatives, and the tendency of political correctness to favor liberal views means conservative perspectives are often underrepresented in higher education:

• Conservatives and libertarians among college and university faculty are outnumbered by liberals and radicals by nearly 3 to 1 in economics, more than 5 to 1 in political science, and 20 to 1 or more in anthropology and sociology.
• Conservative undergraduates lack role models who share their political perspectives, have more distant relationships to faculty, and may have fewer opportunities to do research with their professors, all of which may affect whether they pursue a PhD.
• While the most important factor in academic success for faculty is a publication track record, holding socially conservative views has a statistically significant negative impact on career success--equal to about one third the impact of publications.

The book also takes an in-depth look at the effects of political correctness on specific academic disciplines, including political science, psychology, history, English, anthropology, sociology, and linguistics. Among their findings:

• Today's English departments study a wider body of literature than their predecessors did a generation ago. However, as Paul Cantor argues in "When Diversity is not Diversity: A Brief History of the English Department," the persistent focus on race, class, and gender has actually narrowed the scope of scholarship and homogenized classrooms across the discipline, limiting intellectual diversity.
• Identity politics have clouded the scholarly objectivity of both linguists and historians. In "Linguistics from the Left" John McWhorter uses the study of Black English to show how linguistics has become so politicized in the United States that the best scholarship on this distinctly American topic is actually being produced by Canadians and Germans. Similarly, in "History Upside Down," Victor Davis Hanson discusses how historians have "use[d] the past to achieve social change in the present," often at the expense of accuracy and nuance.
• The current reverence for demographic diversity, with its tendency to value one's race, gender, and sexuality above other characteristics, has overshadowed an appreciation for scholarly communities that include thinkers and researchers who descend from diverse intellectual traditions.

The dearth of conservative, libertarian, and neoliberal thinkers limits the type of questions asked and the phenomena studied; hinders credibility and dialogue between academic experts and large swaths of voters and policymakers; and, by limiting students' exposure to different ideas, inhibits the ability of the university to produce thoughtful citizens. The authors of this volume offer a range of solutions: programs or centers within universities, which operate outside official departments and allow conservative faculty to freely explore particular topics with sympathetic students; a larger role for alumni and trustees in overseeing their institutions; and a change in how liberal arts scholars understand themselves--not as provocative debunkers of accepted ideas, but as discoverers of truth.

The Politically Correct University promises to engage and enlighten anyone invested in the future of the American university.

Robert Maranto is the 21st Century Chair in Leadership at the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. Richard E. Redding is associate dean and professor of law at Chapman University School of Law. Frederick M. Hess is Resident Scholar and Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Contributors: Daniel B. Klein, Charlotta Stern, Matthew Woessner, April Kelly-Woessner, Stanley Rothman, S. Robert Lichter, William O’Donohue, Peter Wood, James Piereson, Paul A. Cantor, John McWhorter, Victor Davis Hanson, James W. Ceaser, Stephen Balch, Anne D. Neal, Hank Brown, John B. Cooney, Michael B. Poliakoff, and John Agresto.

Praise for <em>The Politically Correct University</em>

"Political correctness is one of the primary enemies of freedom of thought in higher education today, undermining our ability to acquire, transmit, and process knowledge. Political correctness limits the variation of ideas by an ideologically driven concern for hue rather than view. This volume is not simply another rant; there are good data here, along with well-crafted, hard-to-ignore logical interpretations and arguments. It is the sort of work that those who adhere to idea-limiting notions of the university will try to trivialize. That alone should make it important reading."

--Michael Schwartz, president emeritus, Kent State University and Cleveland State University

"Half a century ago, universities were the institutions characterized by vibrant free inquiry and free speech. Today something close to the opposite is the case. The Politically Correct University shows how the universities' quest for 'diversity' has produced in too many departments a stifling uniformity of thought. Required reading for those who want American universities to eschew political correctness."

--Michael Barone, resident fellow, American Enterprise Institute

Interview Requests:
For interview requests, please contact the editors directly. Robert Maranto can be reached at rmaranto@uark.edu (479.575.3225), Richard Redding at redding@chapman.edu (773.834.4073), and Frederick Hess at rhess@aei.org (assistant jenna.schuette@aei.org 202.862.5809). For all other media inquiries, please contact Sara Huneke at sara.huneke@aei.org (202.862.4870) or Hampton Foushee at hampton.foushee@aei.org (202.862.5806).