Analysis: Why Are Republicans (and Obama) Attacking the Liberal Arts? (Part 1)
Other Republicans believe that the high cost of education is due to professors not working hard enough. In February, Walker argued that the rising cost of college education is due to lazy professors not teaching enough classes (a false claim). And this year a bill was proposed in North Carolina that would require all professors to teach eight courses a year, regardless of research expectations.
Former Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., had singled out one of the liberal arts in particular, political science, for retribution. He tried to pass legislation that would have prevented political scientists from obtaining National Science Foundation grants. (Disclosure: I have a Ph.D. in political science and I'm a member of the American Political Science Association, which lobbied against the measure.)
When he first announced the proposal in 2009, he wrote, "When Americans think of the National Science Foundation, they think of cross-cutting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Most would be surprised to hear that the agency spent $91.3 million over the last 10 years on political 'science' and $325 million last year alone on social studies and economics."
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Political science was the only liberal arts discipline singled out. At first glance that sounds odd (historians, good; political scientists, bad?), but when you consider that political science is the discipline most devoted to studying what senators do, there is a certain (Machiavellian?) logic to it.
While Coburn has retired, NSF funding continues to be a place where Republicans signal their displeasure with the liberal arts. Last June, the U.S. House voted on an amendment that would have drastically shifted NSF funding for social sciences to physical sciences. The vote was mostly party line with only five Democrats voting for it and 18 Republicans voting against it.
This same educational philosophy — that the purpose of education is to prepare students for the workforce — also undergirds the K-12 education reforms known as Common Core, which has been promoted by Republican governors and Obama alike. The purpose of education, according to the Common Core website, is to prepare students "to succeed in entry-level careers, introductory academic college courses, and workforce training programs."
With this utilitarian view of education, liberal arts suffer. Under the Common Core standards reading classical literature is replaced with "informational texts" and recent articles written by journalists.
Conservatives' suspicion of the liberal arts may be derived from some of the ideas and activities found on college campuses these days.
In most liberal arts disciplines, professors are more likely to be liberal, non-religious and a Democrat. Studies have shown anti-conservative discrimination among faculty and their work has had a liberal bias, showing liberals in a positively and conservatives negatively. Just last week, a study with pro-gay marriage findings was found to have used fake data.
Additionally, liberals are stifling intellectual diversity on college campuses. The newest political correctness trends of "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings" have made many campuses hostile to thought diversity, which, by and large, means hostile to conservative and religious views.
When the University of California system forces evangelical Christian groups off its campus but has not problem with a professor requiring his entire class to take all of their clothes off, traditionalists will, naturally, become less supportive of their work.
There could be some additional confusion from the fact that "liberal arts" contains the word "liberal." Although, governors, members of Congress and state legislators should be knowledgeable enough to understand the difference. The liberal arts is a reference to Liberalism, in the broad sense, as in the philosophy of Liberal democracies that decided they no longer wanted to be ruled by a king. All of us, liberal and conservative, are inheritors of Liberalism, and should be devoted to its continuance through, in part, a devotion to studying the liberal arts.
The fact that the attacks on the liberal arts have not only come from Republicans, but can be found in Obama's speeches and policies, and the bi-partisan support for Common Core, suggests that the future of the liberal arts has deeper problems than the recent trend of illiberal liberals on college campuses, however. The liberal arts may be losing support among the broader public, not just Republicans.
