Is It Time For “Conservative Studies”?

A common political narrative is that college campuses are hostile to conservative students and ideas.

Consider the website Professor Watchlist. On that website, you can search a database of professors labeled radical. Consider the entry for Dr. Anna Kirkland, a professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan. Dr. Kirkland is pro-abortion and pro-vaccine. Her views are described on the Watchlist website, and then the reader is given the contact information of the department where she works (presumably so conservatives can express their concern). Or consider the entry for Dr. Elaine Parker-Gills, an adjunct professor at Antioch College in Los Angeles. Dr. Parker-Gills is on the watchlist because she teaches a course entitled The Rise of Black Power Movement & the Black Panther Party.

One may want to dismiss The Watchlist as so much conservative propaganda, especially since it was the brainchild of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Kirk is known for his extremist and inflammatory comments. Most recently, Kirk called the deranged attacker of Nancy Pelosi’s husband a “patriot.”

But respectable academics and public intellectuals have also expressed concern. A noteworthy example is the organization Heterodox Academy. Heterodox Academy was started by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and has a mission to “improve the quality of research and education in universities by increasing open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement.”