Zane: UNC-CH survey shows students – more than professors – discourage conservative opinions
Anti-conservative bias is metastasizing in Chapel Hill.
That’s the upshot from an important new survey conducted by UNC professors which found that self-identified conservative students “face distinct challenges related to viewpoint expression at UNC.”
Sixty-eight percent of self-identified conservative students say they have censored themselves in the classroom for fear of retribution compared to 26 percent of self-identified liberals, according to the survey sent to all UNC students and answered by a “representative cross-section” of 1,087 of them.
In an article for The Conversation, the survey’s authors — political scientist Timothy Ryan and marketing professor Mark McNeilly — report that “students who identify with the political right do indeed face fears of being ostracized that students who identify with the left do not.”
Liberal bias on campus is the quintessential dog-bites-man story, but the authors say their survey does challenge the conventional wisdom that left-wing professor are the root of the problem. They found that 89 percent of conservatives believed their instructors encouraged “participation from liberals and conservatives alike.”
This confirms my observations teaching at Duke, UNC and Saint Augustine’s University. While the liberal leanings of almost all the professors I’ve interacted with were clear, I have been impressed by their sincere effort to explore a wide-range of ideas in the classroom. One very liberal professor at Duke seemed to spend much of his time channeling Milton Friedman to challenge the leftist assumptions of his students.
Still, students are adept at determining the leanings of professors who grade their papers and shape their destiny. Given the faculty’s overwhelmingly liberal bent — national studies peg the ratio of liberals to conservatives at 6:1 — that influence cannot be dismissed.
The UNC survey, however, is less interested in ideology than intolerance and the authors argue leftist students play a key role in silencing conservatives: “Right-leaning students worry at least as much about reactions from their peers as from faculty.”
Liberal students, for example, are six times more likely than moderates and conservatives to say it is appropriate to “create an obstruction, such that a campus speaker endorsing an [objectionable] idea could not address an audience.”
Fifty-seven percent of liberals and 68 percent of moderates say they routinely hear “disrespectful, inappropriate, or offensive comments” about conservatives — a fraction of the 14 percent who hear disparaging comments about Muslims and 20 percent who hear anti-black remarks.
Where 92 percent of conservative respondents say they would be friends with a liberal, almost a quarter of liberals say they would not have a conservative friend.
The survey confirms that college campuses are hostile places for conservatives. This is a major problem at an institution whose core mission is the free exchange of ideas.
The work of Ryan and McNeilly — who should be commended for illuminating this dark side of campus life — demands a response from the leaders at UNC and other elite schools where this same atmosphere of intolerance is allowed to fester.
Ironically, an effective response can be found in the identity politics that informs so much left—wing intolerance. Colleges and universities have done a remarkable job in recent decades protecting and promoting the voices of once marginalized groups.
Now they must show the same resolve in ensuring conservatives feel they are equal members of the campus community.
This story was originally published March 9, 2020 at 1:12 PM with the headline "Zane: UNC-CH survey shows students – more than professors – discourage conservative opinions."