Social Science Research bows down to political pressure

After receiving tremendous amounts of political pressure, the academic journal Social Science Research performed an audit of the publication of the recent controversial article by sociologist Mark Regnerus.  (Here are my thoughts on the Regnerus controversy.)  The Chronicle of Higher Education had a summary write-up of the audit's findings.

The audit found that the, "peer-review process failed to identify significant, disqualifying problems" with the study on children raised in homes where one or both parents has same-sex relationships.  It found that unbiased reviewers would not have let the study slide by in its definitions of "gay parenting".

I see three problems with this audit:

1. The study wasn't about "gay parenting".  Regnerus was actually very careful to not make it about that because of difficulties in defining what exactly that is.  The study intentionally looked at the children of parents who had engaged in same-sex sexual encounters.  This avoided a lot of tricky definitions.  So, the result of the study was that children who knew one or more of their parents had experienced a same-sex sexual encounter had a harder time growing up and faced difficulties in early adulthood.  The objection arises that this isn't representative of "gay parents".  My response, to be blunt, is "no duh".  What the study shows, and what the paper's conclusions clearly said, is that it was promiscuousness and instability that were the primary problems for the kids.  Why should that have blocked it from being published?  To be honest, it matches every single heterosexual study I've ever seen on the topic.  Kids do better in a stable home environment.
2. Some of the reviewers were biased.  I concede that.  For those of you not familiar with the peer-review process, it is basically a group of experts who read an academic article "blind" (they don't know who the author is) to evaluate its academic merit.  Here's my problem.  How are you going to find six unbiased peer-editors for this paper?  Almost every expert in this field is biased.  In fact, apparently two of the reviewers were biased against the Regnerus position.  They still thought the paper met academic snuff, despite being less than thrilled with the results.  (My guess is that they actually read what the paper was trying to say, not what it later got interpreted to say in the media.)  This brings me to my third point.
3. The auditor was himself biased.  The auditor is Darren E. Sherkat, a sociologist at Southern Illinois.  As is the case with Dr. Regnerus, I've met Dr. Sherkat a couple of times.  Both times, and this stuck out to me as an Evangelical Christian, we were at a reception of some sort and he went on a tirade about how stupid and bigoted Evangelical Christians were.  His own research shows glimpses of this bias.  How did a biased scholar come to audit another scholar's work for bias?   My guess is that the journal was looking for political cover.  They found an auditor with biases of his own to placate the political uproar.  (Incidentally and conveniently, Sherkat found no fault with the journal editor.)

Now, having said all this, I want to point out something that is very important.  Dr. Regnerus is biased.  He has an openly-stated view on same-sex marriage and parenting.  This is why a conservative group gave him money to fund the study.  It may very well be that the paper was influenced by his bias, as I suspect the vast majority of academic papers on this topic are biased. If you want to attack Dr. Regnerus' work, though, be fair about it.  Give him the same treatment everyone else receives and attack him on the scholarship he actually did, not on the fact that a bunch of people didn't read his work carefully enough to know what he said.

Is the Chronicle of Higher Education not being politically correct?

I must give credit where credit is due.  The Chronicle of Higher Education published an opinion piece by Notre Dame professor Christian Smith calling the scathing reception of Mark Regnerus's research a witch hunt. I made a similar argument in a previous post.

Unfortunately, I was surprised that the Chronicle posted an opinion piece from that perspective.  I supposed I shouldn't have been, since they also published opinion pieces about how universities should eliminate Black Studies programs.  (Of course, there was such an uproar that the blogger who posted that opinion was soon fired for doing so.  Fortunately Dr. Smith is not a regular contributor to the Chronicle.) The Chronicle, to its credit, seems willing to publish views that lie outside of academic orthodoxy, even if they don't have the stomach to keep such dissident views around for long.

I should note that I am not opposed to Black Studies programs.  I actually think they play an important role in academia.  The blog post linked to above was poorly thought out, in my opinion.  But, I want that perspective heard in the debate without getting shouted down without rational discussion.  I taught for five years at a Historically Black College and I exposed my students to a (more sophisticated) argument that Black Studies should be eliminated, even though I disagree with the position myself.

I think healthy debate is good for academia.  I just don't think there is an equal opportunity to present one's views.  I believe Dr. Regnerus was discriminated against because of the conclusion reached in his article.  I wish I could think otherwise, but the evidence to me is overwhelming.  He suffered from a politically correct witch hunt.  And, even if they are inconsistent with it, I must give credit to the Chronicle for breaking through the politically correct dogma and allowing a diverse opinion to be presented.