Scroll down to read this post.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands. Instead, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
 

3. A Paypal Donation:

4. A Paypal subscription:


5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.


Blacklisting in academia has been going on for decades unseen

The output from modern academia
The triumphant result of academia’s long blacklisting of conservatives

Blacklists are back and academia loves ’em: Though the return of blacklisting by Democrats has only become evident and blatant in the past two years, this blacklisting culture against conservatives has been aggressively blackballing such people from academia for decades, largely silently and without any news coverage.

That no one has noticed this blackballing is because until recently this effort hasn’t tried to get conservatives fired. Instead, administrators and faculty heads in colleges nationwide have simply made it a point to not hire conservatives. They blackballed them, and did so silently so that it was difficult to accuse them of any unfair discrimination.

How do I know this? A recent series of surveys performed by the College Fix proves it unequivocally. The data from Cornell University, though extreme, was hardly unusual:

Democrats outnumber Republicans 98 to 1 according to a College Fix analysis of professors’ political affiliations across six humanities departments at Cornell University. The archaeology department sits alone in hosting a Republican professor. The gender studies department, along with the philosophy, sociology, government and literatures of English departments, all contained zero registered Republicans.

Other universities were little different:

The survey of the University of Georgia found Democratic professors outnumbered Republican ones by a ratio of about 10 to 1, and the survey of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found Democratic professors outnumbered Republicans by a ratio of about 16 to 1.

The results were slightly less slanted at Ohio State University, where Democratic professors outnumbered Republican ones by a ratio of 7 to 1. And the ratio of Democrats to Republicans at the University of Nebraska-Omaha is 5 to 1, according to a Fix analysis.

Though this data simply confirms what has been generally known for years — that academia strongly favors leftists in hiring — the percentages reveal a starkly one-sided environment, one that could not have been created quickly, and is something that is distinctly unhealthy for encouraging a wide-ranging and open-minded intellectual marketplace.

Actually, I am being kind. Academia hasn’t merely favored leftists. The lack of diversity of thought in academia has been wholly intended. The leftists in charge did not want a wide-ranging and open-minded marketplace. They wanted obedience, and to teach that to students they required that no dissenting teachers exist in positions of authority. Since the 1960s this has been the left’s goal in academia. Behind closed doors, in interviews, in applications, in hiring, leftist teachers and administrators have for decades applied pressure to discourage the hiring of conservatives. That same pressure has made the social atmosphere uncomfortable for conservatives already in academia, so that many were very glad to leave when other opportunities beckoned.

Today we can see the result of this long-range campaign of close-mindedness. To the glee of the left, academia is now bankrupt. To gain a well-rounded liberal arts college education it makes little sense to attend almost any college in America. You simply won’t get it.

The article at the link provides a detailed break down of the College Fix‘s survey in each Cornell department. In most cases the dominance by Democrats is astonishing. For example, the English Department has 33 Democrats and NO Republicans out of 47 faculty total. However, the high number of teachers in each department whose party affiliation remains secret suggests strongly that the few conservative teachers who remain in academia are literally in hiding, out of fear for their jobs.

That fear today is wholly justified, because the blacklisting is no longer done in silence. With modern academia so totally controlled by the left the need for secrecy has vanished. Academia has become a very public Stalinist state. Even if you rally up the courage to publicly disagree with the leftists in charge, you no longer have the freedom to speak. If you do, today’s very open blacklisting culture will hound you, slander you, threaten you, dox you, and if this campaign of harassment doesn’t force you from your job, it will make existence on campus generally intolerable.

That anyone chooses to attend any of these colleges utterly baffles me. Even more baffling has been the lack of competition. Have we as a society become so close-minded that we will not even consider new alternatives to these bankrupt institutions?

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

10 comments

  • pzatchok

    I noticed it 30 years ago when I took a few classes.

    If the professor got the idea you had a different philosophy than them they would make your life heck.

    I have even seen them make complaints about a student in their class just to get that student out. Once other students got the idea they could do the same thing about someone they didn’t like all the gloves were off.

    Universities have not been the place of open mindedness since the 80’s.

    A know a prof who asked me to never email them at their school email address because it was monitored and if I even mentioned he was a hunter and a military vet he could be targeted.

  • Cotour

    Related:

    Charles Payne responding to a question about the fear that Democrats are forced to project: https://youtu.be/btMAgxmUyNM

    Government (D) through the propagation of fear and in the context particularly of today’s America, racism, necessitates the need for government (D).

    November 8th will in fact be a massive sea change.

    The only question remains is how long can it be maintained?

    Trust none of them. Why? Because the government and by extension those who are politically empowered that inhabit government and the Political realm are the natural enemy of the people in the Pedestrian Realm.

    Question: Why was the Revolutionary war fought?

  • Alton

    From Personal History…
    Blacklisting was going on.
    In the 70$.

  • James Street

    It’s not so much that it’s getting worse.

    It’s getting exposed.

  • SDN

    “Even more baffling has been the lack of competition. Have we as a society become so close-minded that we will not even consider new alternatives to these bankrupt institutions?”

    Go ahead, Mr Zimmerman. Start one. All you’ll have to do is
    1. Secure financing. Blacklisting is a thing there, too.
    2. Secure a building, by purchase, rental, or building. Land grants aren’t a thing anymore, so you’ll have to do the same for land.
    3. Navigate the absolute maze of regulations at every level, and with the absolute certainty you’ll encounter bureaucrats who are Leftists and looking for an excuse to turn you down or put on restrictions no one can actually meet.
    4. Get accredited. If you aren’t accredited by the Right Sort, good luck attracting students, faculty, or government tuition assistance and other programs. Not to mention getting your graduates hired.

    I could go on, but why bother. When the process is the punishment, not many people are masochistic enough.

  • Alex Andrite

    “The Closing of the American Mind” – Allan Bloom – 1987.
    “How higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today’s students.”

    Impoverished the souls of today’s (1987) students.
    Where are “those students” now ?

  • Andrew M Winter

    Worst historical example I actually watched with my father as it unfolded was The Velikovsky Affair
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky#%22The_Velikovsky_Affair%22

    This, Velikovsky’s work, was the opening of the advent of Cross Disciplinary Studies, that eventually led to “discovery” that the KT boundary in geology was the result of an Asteroid collision that in turn led to the extinction of the Dinosaurs.

    Since then so many new discoveries have matched his predictions it is just amazing.

    His works and the reaction against him are the main reason behind by three college degrees in History.

  • pzatchok

    This now reaches down into High schools.

  • pzatchok: Actually, this stuff is now in the elementary schools. Just consider the revolt of parents about the teaching of critical race theory and the queer agenda to their kids.

    And it is being introduced by the very students who are in my blacklist story today, in Maine. None should get teaching licenses. None.

  • Biglar

    It’s not just academia. Government jobs at all levels have been taken over by Democrats. And because of this, most government contractors are also dominated by Democrats, with perhaps a smattering of big-government Republicans for the sake of diversity (and to glad-hand fake Republican politicos). Even more scary are the fields like law and corporate departments like HR that have been taken over by Diversicrats. Try getting a call-back on your resume if anything there may hint at right-wing politics. And even if your resume is clean, I’m pretty sure that if you decline to state your race or ethnicity you are very likely to miss out on an interview. After all, what conscientious SJW of any race would decline to identify themselves? Only a conservative would do that. A really interesting EEOC project if someone of integrity got control would be to review if there is likely bias against people who decline to state their ethnicity. I’m pretty sure it’s an easy backdoor way to exclude conservatives from ALL jobs. It’s happening before our very eyes, people. You just have to want to see it. We are the Kulaks.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *