We at the IWF love being taken on by Ellen Goodman, feminista syndicated columnist par excellence. In her latest column the Goodperson writes:
“The Independent Women’s Forum has repeatedly claimed that the reason women don’t rise to the corner office has nothing to do with discrimination. It’s really because, as the IWF president said, ‘women often make different choices than men.’ Conservatives also like to talk disparagingly about ‘victim politics.'”
Amen. Trouble is, Ellen’s column doesn’t have one thing to do with alleged sex discrimination! It’s actually about a recent survey showing that on the the humanities and social-sciences faculties of U.S. colleges and universities, Democrats outnumber Republicans by 7-1. At Harvard and Stanford there are nine Democrats for every Republican. Ellen also cites a report from the Center for Responsive Politics showing that the biggest contributors to that Dem John Kerry’s presidential campaign were the employees of Harvard and the University of California.
Of course this lends a little, ahem, credence to conservatives complaints that academia is dominated by liberals. And some conservatives have been wondering aloud why the liberals, who constantly talk about campus “diversity” of sex, race, ethnic background, etc., don’t extend the concept to ideological diversity as well.
But according to Ellen, just raising that question means that you’ve succumbed to liberal victimology and you’re demanding an affirmative action program to solve your problems. She writes:
“What is fascinating, however, is to see how the campus-watchers have usurped the language of liberalism for their own. It reminds me of the arguments in favor of teaching creationism in the name of open-mindedness.
“The conversation about liberal bias on campus is chock full of words such as diversity and pluralism. There is even the hint that universities may need a touch of affirmative action for conservative academics. What next? Quotas for Republican anthropologists?”
No, actually not, Ellen. They’re just saying that from now on it’s going to be hard for academics to deny the overwhelming evidence that liberal ideologies dominate the campus conversation.
Nonetheless, although we’re flattered to be mentioned by a big-time columnist like you, Ellen, we still can’t understand what our views about the corporate workplace have to do with party affiliation in the groves of academe. Of course, if you’re Ellen Goodman, maybe everything on earth is all about sex discrimination. For Ellen also points out in her column:
“Among full professors, 87 percent are white and 77 percent are male.”
How this is relevant to ideological diversity, I don’t know, either. But it always gets back to this sort of thing if you’re a feminista.