Writing for a political website & the market?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Anonymous US grad writes:

I'm a PhD student who does some freelance writing to supplement my income. I've been offered an opportunity to produce educational philosophy content for a conservative website. I don't personally identify as politically conservative, but I think all audiences have a lot to learn from philosophy, so I'm considering taking the gig. However, I'm wondering if writing for a conservative publication would be a bad career move. I'm going on the market soon. Advice on whether this would look like a negative to hiring committees?

This is an interesting question. My understanding is that there have been some studies indicating that a good proportion of academics report being willing to discriminate in hiring on the basis of perceptions of a candidate's politics. See, for example, this study, which features the following graph:

Percentage of participants ''somewhat'' to ''very'' willing to discriminate in hiring, by academic area. 

It seems to me like the safe thing to do, then--at least as far as the job market is concerned--would be to stay away from contributing to websites that might give search committees an (erroneous?) picture of one's political orientation. Of course, it is a further question whether one should play it safe, and so a lot might depend here on the OP's tolerance for risk, what the website is, and what the OP would write for it. Then there is the question of whether the OP would really want to work with people who would discriminate against them on political bases. Obviously, I can't answer these questions, as I am not the OP. But they seem to me at least some of the relevant issues here.

What do you all think? It might be great to hear from people here who have expressed political views openly or written for conservative venues. Do you think it impacted your ability to get an academic job? It would also be good, I think, to hear from search committee members.

Comments

[Richard Y Chappell]

> "I don't personally identify as politically conservative, but I think all audiences have a lot to learn from philosophy"

I would take the gig, and list it under "public outreach" on my CV with an explicit explanation like the above. I can't see many philosophers viewing that negatively. Many more, I expect, would view it positively.

[Another anonymous grad]

Write it under a pseudonym?

[t]

For a bit of extra cash? Not worth it.

[Tom2]

Marcus is correct. If anything, he may be understating the danger: This might sink you on the market (I'm assuming you work in value theory).

Indeed, I know, first-hand, of several cases in which LEFTIST (but non-"woke") public outreach hurt job seekers.

Of course, as Marcus alludes to, none of this speaks to whether things ought to be this way (they shouldn't), whether the profession and society would benefit from this kind of outreach (they would). But this is the world we live in.

[Evan]

I’m going to assume that they might look you up on Google anyway. In which case, unless you went by a pseudonym, it probably won’t help much even if you omit the info. You wanna maximize your chances of getting hired so I would also apply to a department that is known to be friendly towards conservative/centrist academics. I honestly don’t even know what “conservative” means nowadays.

However, the drawback is that if you do get accepted into these conservative friendly departments, you might not enjoy your time or space there. Other than that you can compensate that aspect of your public philosophy with lots of academic publishing, teaching experience, or even prestige. I like to think that philosophy departments are filled with philosophers who are willing to change their minds in the face of the better arguments and evidence and not dogmatically stick to one view.

[Michel]

Depends on the publication. What's its reputation?

[William Vanderburgh]

The job market is so terrible that either:

1) You shouldn't do anything that could even possibly decrease your chances of getting a job.

Or:
2) The odds of getting a job are so low and candidates have so little control over the outcome that you should just do what you want to do.

[Tim]

For what it is worth, given the current distribution of political affiliation in academia, I consider politically right-leaning candidates to meet diversity goals. So writing on a conservative website, for me personally, wouldn't be held against you--even if you yourself aren't conservative. (And writing on such websites meet public outreach goals as well.) But I'm sure I'm in the minority.

[JDF]

All else equal, it would be a positive on the UK job market since it would likely qualify for the "impact" portion of the REF or, at least, would demonstrate to the department the willingness and ability to engage in outreach which might in the future so qualify.

[Ian]

I think it depends on the site. The Federalist? Nobody will care probably. Daily Caller? Breitbart? People will probably care.

[Greg Stoutenburg]

I think writing for that website is more likely to be viewed as relevant job experience for future positions outside of academia than your Ph.D. studies are (sadly), so I'd recommend taking it, along with some of the caution suggested above concerning visibility.