Ideological affirmative action is bad

After approvingly quoting a Wall Street Journal op-ed (sub. req.) suggesting that political extremists impose externalities on the rest of us, Harvard economist Greg Mankiw makes the misguided suggestion that universities should have ideological affirmative action:

To foster tolerance, what we need is more interaction among people with opposite viewpoints. How about a student exchange program between Harvard and Liberty University? Or an affirmative action program to hire more Republicans for the Harvard faculty? Now that would be real diversity.

As I wrote last year, hiring based on politics is a mistake that will make the problem of classroom politicization worse. Here's what Mike Munger, a Duke poli sci professor who serves on my dissertation committee (and is also running for governor as a Libertarian), said on the subject (Quicktime video):

You asking me "what are my political views" belongs outside the classroom. Now there are plenty of people on the left who don't do that. They're bad teachers. That's not an issue of political repression. They're bad teachers, and I would say the same thing about someone on the right who did that. The last thing that I want is a university or department of equal numbers of people on the left and right who impose their views on students.

So the solution is not to hire more people on the right. The solution is to take politics out of the classroom, to develop a norm of pedagogy that says "I challenge students to try to get them to think."

That's exactly right.

Comments

[Rob]

Making hiring decisions based on someone's political views is wrong--though, regrettably, it's not unheard of for faculty members to avoid hiring those whose political views are not agreeably liberal. Hiring decisions and admission decisions ought to be made on the basis of merit, not ideology, not politics, and--by the way--not race.

But if universities do decide that diversity is crucial and should be a factor in hiring and admissions, they need to explain why racial diversity is important enough to warrant preferences, but religious diversity and ideological diversity are not.

[C]

Ideological affirmative action, I agree, is wrong-headed.

What about race-based affirmative action? Isn't it also wrong-headed? (The road to hell is paved with good intentions...)

[Seth]

C:

It seems to me the issue at hand is ideological indoctrination. Are you concerned about racial indoctrination? Because I can tell you, no matter how hard my 6th grade teacher Mr. Lopez tried I remain decidedly not Hispanic.

Seriously though, there are arguments for and against AA, but not on the same grounds Brendan has outlined.