Have to say I disagree with the framing of this infographic. It is pretty open about trying to portray this as a *bad* thing, something with a negative connotation that needs to be fixed.

The truth is that it is not exclusion, but rather something deeper in the psychological makeup of liberals and conservatives that results in universities being liberal (which often means Democrat in the US): the most educated folks are liberal because the FACTS bring them to that perspective.

It is precisely why the vast majority of scientists are not conservative: conservative ideology is in direct opposition to reality. In fact, only 6% of ALL scientists from every profession are Republican, and only 9% call themselves conservative: http://people-press.org/2009/07/09/public-praises-science-scientists-fault-public-media/

Further, it is the exact same pattern throughout the entire world. Centers of education and science are almost exclusively liberal everywhere on the planet, and there is nothing wrong with that. Conservatives do better in some things (like being bankers, real-estate agents, and car salesman).

This has got to be the dumbest “analysis” I’ve seen in a long time.

This makes a whole lot of sense.

http://www.real-privacy.au.tc

I, too, resent this pathetic excuse for analysis, for the reasons already well-stated in the comments.

Conservatives worship appealing ideas: Jesus, the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, the simple life of the 1950s. Unfortunately they rarely UNDERSTAND these ideas: hence gun-toting Jesus freaks (hint: Jesus would not approve), Michelle Bachman explaining that the founding fathers were anti-slavery (wrong), die-hard “defenders of the Constitution” who have never read it (well-parodied in the Onion!), and widespread belief that Happy Days is the ultimate embodiment of post-WWII (Red Scare? McCarthyism? ever heard of ‘em?)

Academia, on the other hand, attracts people who love to think and dwell over a deep understanding of issues and circumstances.

This argument is like saying that World Class restaurants are biased against McDonalds, because so few of their chefs eat there: it’s not the case at all, it’s simply that great chefs love excellent food, which McDonalds doesn’t serve. Similarly, great academics love deep ideas, which are sorely lacking among modern Conservatives.

I’d like to add my voice to the chorus of comments here. The reasons for the discrepancy are also the mechanics behind why the conservative movement in the US is able to act as a monolithic force, and the liberal movement is often fragmented or ineffectual at pushing policy items forward. It’s in the psychology of political ideology. Conservatism favors strong, authoritative, centralized, top-down leadership. This works well in many scenarios, with the military being an example, and a film set being another, drastically different example. However, it is fundamentally not how higher education works. Education beyond the Leave-No-Child-Behind years is focused on exploration, dialog, analysis, challenging assumptions, and most of all, understanding nuance. Nuance and centralized, top-down structures do not make good bedfellows. When a party line demands that a demographic be boiled down to an archetype, character type, or stereotype, that goes in the face of nuance (and quite frequently in the face of facts). When a party line seeks to simplify the reasons behind an action, that is the exact opposite of what an academic does, which is to seek the broad range of reasons.

What this ultimately means is that many that are attracted to and feel comfortable with the conservative thought modality do NOT find themselves attracted to the academic process. It’s antithetical. Certainly there ARE people that identify as conservative that DO enjoy the process, and this is what accounts for the fact that there ARE some conservatives in higher education. But as another poster here acknowledged, there are some fields that are more suited to thinking inside a politically defined box, rather than seeking to see beyond the box.