"DEI for Conservatives" is the Wrong Way to Think About It

Calls to hire conservatives are about truth-seeking, not bean-counting.

Though it wasn’t my plan, it is fitting that my first piece on The Next Turtle Down should be on a topic that has been central to both my academic and popular writing: the need for more conservatives in the academy.

Some context. A few days ago, Vanderbilt and WashU released a report on the state of scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, authored by several prominent figures in those fields. Their broad conclusion was that the quality of scholarship has suffered substantially from (typically left-wing) politicization, in which truth-seeking goals are subordinated to activist pursuits. The report calls for a recommitment to objectivity and rigorous standards in order to get these disciplines back on track.

Its release set the higher ed twittersphere abuzz in predictable fashion, with reformers cheering while critics accused it of legitimizing the right-wing authoritarian takeover of academia. Never mind that none of the authors, so far as I am aware, are associated with the political or intellectual right, and that the report is quite explicit that counterpoliticization by the right to address scholarly skew on the left would only make a bad situation worse. That commentators on the internet would respond to the report by mapping it onto pre-drawn battle lines rather than engaging its substance is not, I suppose, to be wondered at.

In any case, the report’s release sparked a fresh round of takes on the topic of ideological slant in the university, which always keeps me lamentably glued to my phone. Amidst this buzz, one of the report’s authors, Ashley Rubin from my own field of sociology, posted an X response to a recent Chronicle of Higher Education essay by Jon Shields, entitled “Hire Conservatives, Not Republicans.” It’s a short, pithy piece whose content is effectively captured by its title—higher education should recruit people whose perspective is shaped by the conservative intellectual tradition, as opposed to those with overt Republican political commitments. I naturally find this argument quite agreeable, having made similar points myself on various occasions.

Rubin’s take is more critical. Her thread expresses concerns that Shields’ line of argument amounts to precisely the sort of counterpoliticization that the Vanderbilt/WashU report warned against. As it happens, I published an article in Theory and Society last year arguing for the intentional cultivation of an explicitly conservative perspective in social science, which I believe addresses some of her objections, as I’ll elaborate below. Specifically, I think she makes two category errors: mistaking orienting assumptions for hypotheses, and an epistemic argument for an identitarian one.

First, though, I’ll note that Rubin has been an active and effective figure in the higher ed reform space, particularly since her own Theory and Society article last year critiquing ideological scholarship in punishment studies. As far as I can tell, we’re basically in alignment on the major questions regarding where academic scholarship has gone wrong and how it should be righted. It is precisely because we share a common cause that I take Rubin’s concerns here seriously, and see engaging them as a fruitful avenue for thinking through the problem (as I see it) of social science’s conservative deficit. My hope is to use her critique as an opportunity to seek greater clarity around these issues, and to make the case that calls to hire conservatives do not in themselves constitute counterpoliticization.

Conservatism: Hypothesis or Paradigm?

Shields’ essay lays out a number of conservative priors, what he describes as a “particular cast of mind, informed by a constellation of ideas about human nature and society.” He enumerates these as follows:

• Human beings are wayward and tend to act badly without constraints.

• Long-standing institutions — especially the family and religion — are essential to guide and restrain human beings.

• Inherited institutions are marked by complexity and often serve the human good in ways that are hidden from view.

• Projects that seek to liberate individuals from socially imposed restraints should be regarded skeptically as they generally result in unintended consequences.

• Civilization is fragile — hard to build, but easy to destroy.

• Some inequality is both legitimate and inevitable.

• Human reason is limited; thus, the need for epistemic humility.

Though sympathetic to some of these propositions, Rubin objects to the idea of intentionally promoting their representation in the academy on the following grounds:

“The problem is we are scholars: we are supposed to be data driven, not belief driven. At the end of the day, it’s what the data say. What hiring conservatives brings us is a willingness to investigate or test out these ideas, but at the end of the day, each belief (with a few exceptions of value judgments) are empirically testable and probably historically variable.”

The concern, as I understand it, is that conservatives will treat their premises as conclusions and conduct research that simply confirms their priors rather than engaging in truly open inquiry—precisely the sorts of problematic practices condemned in the Vanderbilt/WashU report, just in the other direction. Rubin treats Shields’ propositions as falsifiable theories or hypotheses. Whether they are right or wrong is an empirical matter. If we engage in research that is pre-committed to them, then what we’re doing is activism, not scholarship.

But is that the proper way to view Shields’ list of conservative ideas? I think this is the first category error. While the propositions are not empty verbiage or mere tautology, none of these seem falsifiable in any straightforward sense. What experiment can we run to determine whether human beings are wayward? What data could we collect to settle the question of whether or not inherited institutions serve the common good in complex and invisible ways? A tremendous amount would depend on how we define our terms and set up our questions, but at minimum, it would be hard to deny that these propositions are true for some people (institutions, projects, civilizations, etc.), some of the time. They are not so much concrete empirical claims as they are general principles or lenses that lead us to attend to some aspects of social reality over others—which is ultimately what all theory does.¹

Rather than view them as hypotheses, I suggest we think of Shields’ propositions, particularly as they pertain to research, as orienting assumptions from which to launch inquiry. They naturally highlight particular social phenomena as worthy of investigation, and provide the problem space in which we study those phenomena. They are not themselves hypotheses, but rather provide the scaffolding in which questions are developed and hypotheses are generated. Together, they add up to something closer to a paradigm or a theoretical framework than a general, testable explanation.

Now, there is a sense in which operating from these assumptions constrains inquiry—but only in the way that all inquiry is constrained. Background assumptions are simply a necessary component of scientific investigation, which must, after all, always come from somewhere. Because human social life is both incredibly complex and largely unobservable, assumptions are necessarily bearing a heavier load in social than in natural science.²

For instance, economists study markets based on an assumption of human beings as rational actors. This does not mean economists think either that humans are actually always rational or that all humans are equally rational, only that they are rational enough to sustain economists’ delimited claims about human social life. Similarly, sociologists operate from the foundational assumption of society as something sui generis with its own distinctive force on human behavior, and conversely, that humans are the sorts of beings whose behaviors and dispositions are meaningfully shaped by their social environments.

Famously, economists’ and sociologists’ assumptions are somewhat at odds, yet this does not mean that either one invalidates the other.³ It simply means that their explanations are never more than partial, and that they are suited to bringing into relief and explaining different aspects of social reality.

In this way, the conservative proposition “Some inequality is both legitimate and inevitable” is simultaneously completely plausible, unfalsifiable, and yet compatible with the more prevalent proposition among sociologists that “Some inequality is both unjust and exploitative.” So, for instance, a conservative social scientist might be interested in how traditional gender roles provide meaning, status, or functional social scripts among the members in a given population, while a progressive would instead examine how these same roles facilitate various sorts of deprivation or exploitation. In some cases, their claims might genuinely conflict and would need to be sorted out with better evidence and theory. But in others, both the conservative and progressive-valenced claims might each be perfectly sound and well-substantiated, simply explaining different aspects of a similar social phenomenon.

It is worth making explicit here what has already been implied: asking questions framed by conservative background assumptions does not pre-determine the answers to those questions. For instance, given the above point about the value of traditional religion, a conservative might hypothesize that atheists are particularly angry, miserable, and poorly adjusted people. As it happens, these hypotheses are typically not borne out—atheists tend to be happier, healthier, and more socially engaged than the nominally (though not the actively) religious. This finding challenges simplistic conservative narratives and pushes them toward new puzzles to solve, but does not outright falsify any of Shields’ propositions. It simply forces conservatives to revise their ideas about how religion functions in society, ask new questions, form new hypotheses, collect new data, and thus gain a better understanding of social reality than they had before.⁴ The new ideas, questions, etc., may still be constrained by priors, but this is true for anybody working in any theoretical tradition.

In brief, there is no conflict between conducting inquiry from a conservative perspective and deferring to what the data say. Nor should we assume a conservative perspective is any less legitimate or fruitful than many other widely accepted perspectives (rational choice, conflict, evolutionary, etc.) as a launching pad for inquiry.

Intellectual Diversity ≠ DEI

Rubin’s second objection to Shields’ call to hire conservatives is a common one, namely, that this would just be swapping out one affirmative action regime for another. The mess higher education finds itself in has a lot to do with evaluating people based on identity rather than merit. Swapping left-favoritism for right-favoritism is just repeating the same mistake.

More specifically, she writes:

“Do I think hiring more conservatives would alleviate those problems [of progressive ideological scholarship] and get us a more well-rounded field? Yes. Do I think hiring conservatives is just another version of DEI that privileges some people over others based on protected categories, and is therefore discriminatory? Also yes.”

The first thing I want to note here is that I have followed the “political imbalance in higher education” conversation for some time now, and do not recall ever seeing anyone make a “protected category” argument for hiring conservatives. This is the second category error. Rubin appears to be objecting to the identitarian logic of putting a thumb on the hiring scale to ensure fair group-based representation or remedy past injustices, but that isn’t the logic advocates for hiring more conservatives are applying.

Shields certainly isn’t, as his conservative vs. Republican distinction makes explicit. His case for the benefits of hiring conservatives is stated most directly here:

“More small-c conservatives would broaden the field by considering neglected areas of social inquiry, like religion, the military, and social order. And they would likely bring new interpretative approaches to the study of inequality itself, perhaps by taking more interest in its cultural sources.”

The reason to hire conservatives, the argument goes, is because it contributes in a direct way to the university’s core mission of effective instruction and inquiry, of precisely the sort advocated in the Vanderbilt/WashU report.

Of course, nobody is obliged to accept Shields’ claim. We might think he is wrong about what conservatives would contribute, or that the contribution is subordinate to the many other criteria that enter into hiring decisions.

The key point here, however, is that it is not a DEI argument. It is ultimately merit-based. The claim is that we should hire conservatives because they are the best people for the job. Not because of any general intellectual superiority, but for the more market-based reason that their particular contributions are what the academy in its current form most needs to make progress toward its truth-seeking mission.

In contrast, DEI was never presented as a primarily truth-seeking project even in principle. It was broadly understood by advocates and detractors alike as oriented around (a particular and not very popular conception of) justice, not inquiry. For reasons the Vanderbilt/WashU report captures effectively, under the logic of DEI inquiry is not treated as a primary good or perhaps even an intelligible one. If all so-called “knowledge” is ideological and if we regard questions of what justice demands as resolved, then the imperative becomes to enact justice, not seek truth. In this sense, the aims of DEI are therefore not primarily epistemic at all, but rather social and political.

In terms of their underlying logic, then, DEI and calls for more conservatives are not two sides of the same coin. They are totally different currencies. It is also worth mentioning that Shields does not advocate any law or formal intervention to force the hiring of conservatives (though of course, others do). His essay contents itself with making the simple persuasive appeal: Higher education would be better at what it is supposed to be doing if it had more conservatives around.

Again, one can disagree with this, but I do not think it can be reasonably characterized as a proposal for counterpoliticization.

Get Your Conservative Advocacy Out of My Higher Ed Reform!

Rubin concludes her thread with the appeal:

“Most importantly, we need to stop conflating fixing academia with a conservative worldview. You don’t have to be a conservative to criticize the state of the literature, but people certainly think that is the case. And these hiring proposals are only reifying that belief.”

Based on the prefix of “most importantly,” I expect this concern is the source of the frustration motivating her larger objection. As noted above, many of the reactions to the Vanderbilt/WashU report accuse it of aiding and abetting the right-wing assault on the walls of the Ivory Tower. As sociologist Julian Go publicly mused:

“It befuddles me how the authors of these ‘reports’ do not fathom that their project is basically cover for authoritarian states & industries to squash knowledge produced about colonialism, trans issues & other ‘leftist’ topics. All while complaining about politicization.”

This gives a flavor of the critical responses.

While such reactions were amplified with the report’s release, they are not new. Efforts at higher ed reform, particularly those focused on ideological slant, are regularly identified as right-wing plots and machinations, regardless of their source or substance. Reformers are accused of either being right-wing agents themselves or acting as their dupes or stooges. For non-conservative reformers whose concerns about the academy are substantive and whose efforts are constructive, this constant delegitimizing move by their opponents is surely frustrating. As I interpret Rubin’s post, she wishes conservatives like Shields (and frankly, me) would stop making arguments that lend plausibility to accusations of higher ed reform as counterpoliticization.

I appreciate the concern, but I think it is misguided for a couple reasons.

First, it isn’t a response to Shields’ argument. The fact that the presence of this sort of argument might be inconvenient for certain higher ed reform efforts does not make it wrong. Rubin thinks it is wrong, though as I have argued above, this seems to be based on a mischaracterization. If Shields is not calling for counterpoliticization, it is hardly fair to object to his argument on the grounds that an unfriendly observer might construe it as such. In keeping with the spirit of the Vanderbilt/WashU report, the argument should stand or fall on whether it is sound, not whether it is bad for branding.

Second, and crucially, I do not think it is the case that if conservatives stopped making conservative arguments for higher ed reform, the opponents would relax and jump on board. The authors of the report have argued that their fields are compromised, producing scholarship that is shoddy and ideological. This critique implicates a lot of people who either a) don’t think their scholarship is shoddy and ideological, or b) think it should be ideological, and shoddy is beside the point. Those people are not going to respond to reform efforts with equanimity. They are going to yell, point, and call names, and I don’t think it will make much difference whether reformers can be plausibly conflated with conservatives. The resistance is to the message, not the perceived ideological impurities of the messenger.

And in a sense, the opponents are not wrong. The metaphor of left-right is unidimensional. For someone who thinks that left-wing scholar-activism is what they are supposed to be doing, anyone who tells them to stop doing it falls to their right nearly by definition. Calls to abandon progressive activism in favor of objectivity and rigor are, from the perspective of the committed progressive activist, naturally going to look conservative. Higher ed reformers may fear association with overt conservatives will undermine their ability to establish themselves as non-ideological. But “non-ideological” is not a category scholar-activists recognize, and therefore not an available credential. Reforming energy is thus best spent not on brand management, which for many audiences will be a futile exercise, but instead on articulating both an ideal vision for inquiry-oriented higher education and a practical agenda for how it might be achieved.

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So my first piece on here has run nearly 3,000 words. That does not reflect well on my Substack discipline. But I expect I’ll have many thousands more words to say on the topic of ideological imbalance in higher education, whether in the form of reflection or (as in this case) reaction. Stay tuned.

1. As rhetorician Kenneth Burke observed: “A way of seeing is also a way of not seeing.”

2. As is made clear in empirical graduate training, even the hard stuff of statistical data analysis relies on questionable assumptions. Linear regression, the workhorse of quantitative research, entails several assumptions (e.g., exogeneity) that are often violated, untestable, or implausible.

3. Hence the joke that economics is the study of how people make choices, while sociology is the study of why they don’t have any choices.

4. It is theoretically possible, of course, that every hypothesis generated by a set of background assumptions could fail, or they might fail consistently enough that intellectual honesty would prescribe the wholesale abandonment of the framework. This is a high bar of falsification, however, that is unlikely to obtain in the case of Shields’ propositions.