Fint:
http://www.cmpa.com/documents/05.03.29.Forum.Survey.pdf
Go nuts.
Specifically, check out this paragraph:
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To summarize, the second hypothesis is confirmed when socio-political orientation is operationalized in terms of ideological attitudes or party identification, although not as left-right self-designation. These results show that individual scholarly achievement is by far the most important factor in predicting the quality of a professor’s institutional affiliation. But being a Republican or conservative significantly reduces the predicted quality of the college or university where he or she teaches, after taking scholarly achievement into account.
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Note that there big fancy regression analysis had (what I recall to be) a pretty low r squared of 20%, and that even at face value the analysis states that achievement is 5x more important that the other factors. This is without discussing the measurement flaws (the
Idealogy Index is not benchmarked against the general populace, and an almost useless measure) and what I would hypothesise as the self selection of liberal participants to academia.
Then note that, despite Lichter's breathless "And this is the first study that statistically proves bias [against conservatives] in the hiring and promotion of faculty members.", the study itself states:
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The results do not definitively prove that ideology accounts for differences in professional standing. It is entirely possible that other unmeasured factors may account for those variations. That said, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that political conservatism confers a disadvantage in the competition for professional advancement.
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and
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Our statistical analysis suggests that conservatives may have a legitimate complaint.
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This is not "proving" anything, and it was dishonest of the guy to say so.