Paper Assails Report on Liberal Bias.

This article reports that a report, published last spring, arguing that conservative faculty members are less likely to advance in academe has drawn a withering attack in a new paper written by four scholars at the University of Pittsburgh. The original report, published in "Forum," a journal of applied research in contemporary politics, was based on a 1999 survey of 1,643 faculty members at 183 colleges in the U.S. It also contends that ideological discrimination is unlikely in higher education because political leanings are rarely discussed in the hiring process, and that it would be difficult, and probably impossible, for a potential employer to discover an applicant's political affiliation.