Frontpage Interview's guest today is James Miller, an economics teacher at Smith College who was almost denied tenure for espousing conservative viewpoints.  He is currently running as a Republican for the Massachusetts State Senate.
 

FP: Prof. Miller, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Miller: My pleasure Jamie.

FP: Tell us about the political discrimination that was the cause of some members of your department voting against you for tenure.

Miller:  When I came up for reappointment at Smith College in April 2000 I had a relatively weak record, having published only one academic article.  My department, however, decided to make the best possible case for me and voted 11-0-1 in favor of recommending my reappointment.  I was very productive over the following two and a half years, publishing five additional academic articles and a book.  Yet in Fall 2002, by a vote of 6-3-1, my department voted to fire me by denying me tenure. What changed between my reappointment and tenure review, I believe, was that I started writing conservative op-ed pieces.

I appealed my tenure denial to Smith's five-person Grievance Committee.  They unanimously ruled that two members of my department had violated my academic freedom during my tenure review.  One department member, in explaining why she had voted against giving me tenure, expressed disappointment at the conservative views I had expressed in a National Review Online article.  The article is available at the following address:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-miller121901.shtml.

Another colleague was upset that I had publicly criticized academia in my book Game Theory at Work:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0071400206/qid=1086304532/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-9566222-7274234?v=glance&s=books.
 
As a result of the Grievance Committee's ruling I got to come up again for tenure.  My department again voted against me, 5-4.  This May, however, Smith's Board of Trustees granted me tenure and promotion.

FP: Why do you think leftists rule academia? Why are the majority of professors leftists?

Miller: Many leftist professors may prefer to hire only from their own intellectual gene pool.  Fear of political discrimination discourages many "politically incorrect" individuals from pursuing academic careers.  Also, many academic disciplines such as Women's Studies, African-American Studies, and English have become almost entirely devoted to propagandizing for the cultural left, and so jobs in these fields hold little interest for conservatives.
 
FP: There is a tremendous cost to having so little diversity in academia. To begin with, students only get one half of the story, if that. Tell us about the price you think society pays for having this totalitarianism on our college campuses.

Miller: The multicultural leftists' "religion", which dominates college social science and humanity departments, is in many ways anti-intellectual and based entirely on feelings and notions of perceived fairness.  Its dominance stops students from learning to reason.  For example, although students can explain why our war against terror makes them personally feel bad, most can't begin to objectively analyze the strategies employed by different factions in the war.

FP: What do you think can be done to counteract the Left's political bigotry on college campuses?

Miller: Republicans, conservatives and libertarians should stop funding academic bigotry.  Before you give money to a college, ask how many Republicans are in their humanities departments.  If your business contributes to a college, investigate the school's commitment to political and ideological diversity.  (An excellent way to find out would be to contact the school's Republican club.)  Since even tenured bigoted radicals probably prefer a conservative colleague to a pay cut, we can use financial power to induce colleges to embrace true diversity. 

Furthermore, with regard to state colleges, Republican governors should take away hiring authority from departments that fail to achieve intellectual diversity.

FP: Tell us about your Minuteman Institute idea and what you hope to accomplish.

Miller: The Minuteman Institute would hire professors to teach courses from a pro-American and pro-capitalist prospective at the University of Massachusetts.

The Minuteman is the mascot of the University of Massachusetts, but almost lost his status due to campus political correctness.  As a representative of dead white males who used guns to fight for America, the Minuteman naturally draws the hatred of many on the left.  As a result, the University of Massachusetts spent over $10,000 to design another mascot--and this during a time of severe budget cuts.  Apparently, public ridicule stopped the University from expelling the Minuteman.

I see no hope of convincing today's faculty to voluntarily hire people with different perspectives.  As a result, I wish to partially take away hiring authority from academic departments that don't achieve academic diversity and give the authority to organizations like my proposed Minuteman Institute.
 
FP: Did you have any support from Smith students during your tenure fight?

Miller: Both times I came up for tenure Smith students circulated petitions in favor of Smith's keeping me.  Most importantly, however, the strong teaching evaluations Smith students have given me probably helped convince Smith's administration to grant me tenure.  One (actually far-left-wing) professor said he was suspicious of the reasons why I was denied tenure because students had said such great things about me to him.  On student course evaluations, a frequent comment about my classes has been that students enjoy hearing the conservative point of view, as it helps balance out the leftist views they are bombarded with in their other classes and forces them to critically analyze and more solidly defend their liberal positions.

FP: So why are you now running for the Massachusetts State Senate?

Miller: After fighting and achieving victory over the extreme left in academia, I feel qualified to become a Republican in the Massachusetts Senate, a body dominated by the hard left in which Republicans occupy only 7 out of 40 seats. My campaign website is here: http://www.jamesdmiller.org/

FP: Thank you Prof. Miller, it was a pleasure to speak with you.

Miller: Thank you Jamie, I appreciate it.

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Previous Interviews:

Rodger W. Claire

Kenneth Timmerman