Thread
🧵In discussing how religious/conservative candidates for academic jobs are treated we should distinguish: 1) whether it’s intellectually valuable for departments to have faculty who defend right of center positions and 2) whether departments can reasonably discriminate 1/17
against faculty who hold conservative or religious views, when these views are not central to their academic work (@BrandonWarmke @Alex_A_Guerrero @profyancey). I want to talk about issue 2) based on my personal experience. 2/17
My early career work was on Aristotle’s metaphysics and epistemology, not topics with a strong political valence. However, because I went to a conservative Catholic college, interviewers repeatedly assumed that I was a conservative Catholic 3/17
I’m a practicing Christian but not Catholic and would describe myself as politically moderate - admittedly that makes me right wing relative to the profession’s median. Search committee often asked questions designed to pin down my religious or political views. 4/17
While on campus at an R1, a faculty member asked how I would teach Intro to Ethics: a question I wasn’t prepared for since I would never teach that course at this institution. I outlined the version I had taught and they followed up by asking if I ever taught on abortion. 5/17
I said I didn't usually, but I had done it once in an applied ethics section. They then grilled me on the readings I used. When, in my youthful naiveté, I mentioned that I taught an article by @McCormickProf in addition to Judith Jarvis Thomson’s piece, it was all over. 6/17
I’m confident none of the other ancient philosophy candidates were asked about how they would teach abortion. The search committee recommended me as the top candidate but the department (influenced by the person who asked about abortion) voted against their recommendation. 7/17
The search chair wrote “there was no doubt in our minds that you would make a positive contribution, both in scholarship (where your record is already stellar) and teaching. Several of my colleagues, however, thought you did not manifest a sufficient philosophical "openness."" 8
i.e. they thought I seemed like I might be conservative or religious in ways they really don’t like and they refused to take the risk of having someone like me as a colleague. Now is this justifiable? I'm a practicing Christian. 9/17
Some philosophers think religious beliefs are epistemically indefensible or that Christianity is such a force for evil in the world that anyone affiliated with it is morally disqualified from being a good person or colleague. I'm willing to talk about those concerns. 10/17
But that’s not how things work – the person asking about abortion didn’t engage me in debate, they were just searching for a signal, as I realized after some of the hiring faculty reached out to @elizabethharman who tried to convince them that I wasn’t a crazed fanatic 11/17
I’d respect a department that explicitly said “we think belief in God is intellectually indefensible” or “we’re committed to the moral permissibility of abortion and refuse to hire anyone who argues against it." I’d know not to apply. 12/17
Instead, what happens is that a few people look out for signals and then raise vague concerns or objections. I agree with @Alex_A_Guerrero that many philosophers are open to all candidates but, in today's job market, it only takes a strong objector to rule someone out. 13/17
If you’re on a search committee, don’t allow your colleagues to rule out candidates for reasons like openness, collegiality etc. Make them be explicit about why they have doubts and then evaluate their reasons. If they can openly defend them to colleagues and HR, that's fine. 14/
If they can’t, don’t let them launder their discriminatory beliefs into the decision process via euphemisms such as feel, fit etc. I’m not in a position to say how discrimination against religious or political views compares to other areas such as race, age, appearance etc. 15/17
Faculty members are generally looking to hire people like them and there are lots of characteristics that we'll unfairly count against candidates. At least in cases such as gender and ethnicity, however, our field acknowledges there's a problem. 16/17
When it comes to religious and/or conservative job candidates, hiring committees should either explicitly acknowledge and defend their discrimination or give religious and/or conservative philosophers the opportunity to articulate and defend their beliefs. 17/17
