Prof: ‘The problem with academia today is that it has too many conservatives’
A UMass history professor released a tweet in which he claimed that academia has ‘too many conservatives’
He insisted to Campus Reform that this "problem" includes culture on campus.
On Sunday, Assistant History Professor at the University of Massachusetts Asheesh Kapur Siddique, sent out a tweet claiming that colleges have “too many conservatives” on campus.
The problem with academia today is that it has too many conservatives. They run the university. They sit in admin & on university boards enforcing manufactured austerity, combating unionization, & casualizing most of the professoriate.
— AKS (@AsheeshKSi) April 11, 2021
“The problem with academia today is that it has too many conservatives. They run the university. They sit in admin & on university boards enforcing manufactured austerity, combating unionization, & casualizing most of the professoriate,” Siddique wrote on Twitter.
Campus Reform contacted Siddique about this claim. When presented with a study published by the National Association of Scholars showing that college professors donate to Democrats ninety-five times more than to Republicans, Siddique insisted this was not relevant.
[RELATED: Nearly 99% of College Board employees’ political donations go to Democrats]
“Partisan political affiliation has nothing to do with the teaching or research work that goes on in universities,” Siddique said in response to the study.
After Campus Reform inquired to Siddique about Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project being taught in college courses, he responded by urging people to, “Look at any business school or econ department, where free market / small government orthodoxy reigns.”
Siddique then referenced a 2018 article from The New Republic that criticizes American MBA programs for teaching American economics, referring to them as, “Ideological institutions committed to a strict blend of social liberalism and economic conservatism.”
Campus Reform has reported on hundreds of business school professors who endorsed President Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election.
[RELATED: Students at Emory business orientation asked to put race next to Zoom names]
When asked if he believed this is representative of college culture and academia as a whole, Siddique simply replied, “Yes”.
Nicole Neily, President of Speech First, criticized Siddique for his factually “incorrect” premise, citing a study showing that university administrators, on average, lean more left than their professors.
”Dr. Siddique’s factual premise is incorrect; Sarah Lawrence professor Samuel Abrams the ideological composition of university administrators several years ago, and found that they actually lean farther left than even university professors,” Neily told Campus Reform.
Neily then encouraged Siddique to “welcome” different perspectives.
”Intellectual diversity is an essential component of higher education; there’s a reason that studies are peer-reviewed, and dissertations are defended before committees. Uniformity of thought, opinion, and background can lead to devastating blind spots and groupthink - so scholars who are committed to high-quality scholarship should welcome different perspectives.”
Campus Reform contacted UMass for comment. The article will be updated accordingly.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @_addisonsmith1
