http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092101543.html

Again, the hardcore social conservative may not be exactly satisfied, but Corinth it ain’t….

###Why is this a story? Are sub-groups required to reflect the demographics as measured of society as a whole?###

Some people seem to think so, though as I said, I think the extent to which that belief is held has selective enforcement, i.e., it’s always popular to bash the institutions you don’t control but you don’t say anything about the ones you do.

###Societies and social beliefs change and evolve. Should academics track those changes and make sure they continue to represent society as a whole?###

Well since the vast majority of us work for public institutions, I think the answer has to be: Yes, to some degree.

###Should universities hire a representative number of bible-believing Christians, or economists who believe in angels?###

I definitely don’t think so, but that’s a subtext of a lot of the discussions. As I said, I do think that there is a point to say that most universities are public institutions (so I’m not talking about the private ones) and thus need to make sure that entire classes of the public don’t feel totally alienated from them. I also think the data show that, despite definite deviations from the average, it’s not as if universities are totally off the rest of the population, especially the universities that most students attend.

Unfortunately, Evangelicals (as another comment) pointed out *do* have a longstanding history of self-segregation, so in no small part if they’re not represented on campuses they’ve got no one but themselves to blame. Now the reality is that Evangelical students often are on campuses, but Evangelical faculty are rare. The self-selection issue tends to pull their “best and brightest” into other things.

There will be a lot more on this in the second part, which will be published soon.

###The numbers about atheists are a lie, by the way. We’re not “rare” in society, but skewed polls are common.###

Well I don’t really know. I’ll have to trust the polling data, but obviously all such data need be taken with a BIG grain of salt. Nonetheless, I don’t think it’s grossly wrong that the number of atheists in the US population is fairly small, probably no more than 10%.

Now, if people are barred in any way due to race or religion etc. then there’s a problem. I don’t think that’s the case here at all. I hope it never comes to that.

Societies and social beliefs change and evolve. Should academics track those changes and make sure they continue to represent society as a whole?

Should universities hire a representative number of bible-believing Christians, or economists who believe in angels?

The numbers about atheists are a lie, by the way. We’re not “rare” in society, but skewed polls are common.

You’re welcome. I got inspired by http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/10/AR2007091001610.html

I figured they were worth taking at their words. I don’t buy a lot of what they said, but felt that, of critics from the right, they were worth engaging. Much of the criticism of academia focuses on the likes of Ward Churchill and other radical humanities types. This is, IMO, bad for two reasons. One is that it unfairly tars many people who are nothing like Ward Churchill with the same brush. The second is that crying about guys like that ends up missing a lot of things that ARE wrong about the academy.

Odale says: ###So many agendas from so many directions…and expanding!Thanks for a good read!###

Actually it’s going to get a lot more specific next time (early next week).

Thanks for a good read!