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Yesterday’s Washington Post reported on a new survey on attitudes of professors toward religion:
The other survey … found … an "explosive" statistic: 53 percent of its sample of 1,200 college and university faculty members said they have "unfavorable" feelings toward evangelical Christians.
This compares to 22% unfavorable for Muslims, 9% for non-evangelical Christians, and 3% for Jews. Evangelical Christians make up 11% of faculty but 33% of the public. From the survey:
Only 16% of faculty said they are Republicans, … In the public, 28% identified as Republican. … Seventy-four percent of Republicans answered that they have a personal relationship with God … Only 36% of Democratic faculty said they have a personal relationship with God. … Faculty who identify as atheist/no religion were the most likely to agree that international trade agreements have favored large corporations. … A large majority [74%] of faculty believes that this country would be better off if Christian fundamentalists kept their religious beliefs out of politics.
This seems to confirm my post of last November where I mentioned:
This 2005 BE Press Forum paper suggests that [professor} discrimination against conservatives, women, and religious folks is at least part of the explanation [of the high academic Democrat/Republican ratio].
Academics Against Evangelicals
I should be surprised. But I'm really not. I've always had an idea that facts like these were indeed true. It still upsets me to read something like this though. I wish they would just teach and leave their personal feelings aside.
I still do not think that the polling data on its own shows that academics will use religious orientation "over and above" other available features when making decisions, especially decisions regarding hiring and promotions -- unless you posit that people are incapable of overcoming their biases.
When taken in combination with the content of the BE paper, however (which I did not read the first time around), I agree it makes a more compelling case.
As an interesting side point, I was most convinced by the fact that the BE paper used a methodology I would normally find convincing in documenting racial or gender bias. In other words, I was swayed by the novel use of an argument that I originally heard in support of my own biases.