Sociologist George Yancey, who comments from time to time on this blog, investigates anti-Christian bias. Today, the philosophy blog Daily Nous posts some data he put together on the percentage of academic philosophers would be against hiring people in various groups. Here’s what Yancey found:

The Evangelical reader who sent this to me says:

For those of us in philosophy departments there are no real surprises except that Communists and Transgenders are almost as despised as we are. I wish race had been on there.

Imagine, though: more academic philosophers would be willing to hire Communists than Republicans or Southern Baptists.

UPDATE: George Yancey himself comments:

I was quite surprised to come to my second favorite blogger, behind myself of course, and to see this. lol. This started out as just a facebook post. It went to Daily Nous and now it is here. So let me clarify a few things.

First, this is a facebook post and not an academic article. Some of the questions of methodology are addressed in my book.

Second, the basic rank order you see here you also see in other departments such as sociology, physics, chemistry, political science etc. So in all of those departments academics are less willing to hire fundamentalists and evangelicals than other social groups.

Third, the number of just philosophers is relatively low but remember that this same ranking holds when we look at the about 1,100 academic respondents that this ranking holds, albeit some disciplines are more likely to reject conservative Protestants than others.

Fourth, I admit that these numbers include those who only are slightly less willing to hire these groups. I am not trying to exaggerate the potential bias but I have found this to be a better way to present the data rather than use means of a seven point scale. David44’s point is well taken. I think it depends on whether you think any propensity to use membership in religious or political social groups to make hiring decisions in academia.

Finally, once again a lot of the methodological questions are answered in the book. I will check in to see if there are any other questions but you may want to check out the book (https://www.baylorpress.com/Book/20/235/Compromising_Scholarship.html) from a library or to get a copy yourself if you want to make a more informed decision about the research.