Friday, July 04, 2008  Tenured Radicals? Not so much.  According
to the NYTimes, the tenured liberals in American academia are
now reaching retirement age and being replaced by a generation
that is more politically moderate: that is to say as sick of the
arguments of the 60s generation as I am. This article
corresponds with what I’ve found in grad school: the rising
generation of scholars isn’t terribly interested in fighting
political struggles. They’d rather (get this!) study and teach.
Of course, tenured professors are also being phased out in favor
of temps, who are more likely to keep their politics to
themselves anyway. When your job security depends on getting 500
overly entitled teenagers to wuv you every semester, challenging
them becomes something less of a priority.  Besides, polling
academics about who their political opinions is a lousy way of
telling what university classrooms are actually like, probably
for the same reason that polling Department of Motor Vehicles
workers on who they vote for m