Everett Carll Ladd

American social scientists and the growth of campus political activism in the 1960's

While the effects of the dramatic growth of radical campus activism in the United States have touched the entire university community, no other disciplines have felt them as profoundly as the social sciences. The most obvious reason is that the problems and issues which have nurtured campus activism lie squarely within the intellectual domain of social scientists. The work of the biochemist or the agronomist is quite clearly separated from the political controversies which have ensued; the professional concerns of the social

A Reply To Lang

Any effort to evaluate a particular body of research in the social sciences should be based on a detailed analysis of published work. Unfortunately, Serge Lang’s criticism of the Ladd—Lipset surveys of academics contains little reference to the many publications which have resulted from these studies. This is especially striking since we have published one book, two monographs, close to two dozen articles in academic journals or edited books, and a large number of short reports in The Chronicle of Higher Education.1 Our work has also been extensively reviewed in various journals, and has been commented on and used in many different research publications. Seemingly, if a critic were interested in evaluating the quality of any work, the ideological or other biases contained in it, or the uses to which the results of the research has been put, he would carefully read the material in print. We would recommend to any reader who is serious about judging this controversy, that he do so.