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Several times I read or heard about the claim that there is a discrimination against theists in academia by atheists. For example the german newspaper ZEIT Campus ONLINE cites an anthropologist Robert J. Priest:

Für Akademiker ist es ganz einfach, sich zu diskreditieren. Sie müssen nur sagen, dass sie religiös sind

For academics it's easy to discredit oneself. You just have to say you are religious.

(Source; translation by myself, I could not find the original citation)

I searched for surveys about that claim but could not find much, except creationists arguing against evolution theory.

So my question:

Are there surveys about discrimination of theist people by atheists in academia?

EDIT

I deletet the follow-up question "Is there discrimination against theists by atheists in academia?" because it is too opinion based and is probably answered within the survey(s) I am searching for.

Brasol
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    Please at least specify a country/region – Azor Ahai -him- Apr 18 '19 at 16:46
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    Certainly there is discrimination by some (x) against some (y). But I don't think it is widespread, nor is it determinative. But some would interpret complaints about misrepresentations of scientific knowledge as discrimination. Climate-change denial comes to mind. – Buffy Apr 18 '19 at 17:01
  • Discrimination is one thing (very hard to prove); I think your quote raises a separate issue entirely - a stereotype that religious people aren't as smart as atheists. That is, there might not be overt discrimination, but religious academics might have to work harder to gain credibility. I think a lot of theists (particularly in STEM) are "closeted" a bit due to this. But not sure how we would measure either of these phenomena, so not sure your question is answerable (and this site doesn't really do open-ended discussions). – cag51 Apr 18 '19 at 17:13
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    Country/region does seem like a good qualifier for this, as @AzorAhai suggested. The issue's that this is likely very different for parts of academia in highly religious areas, e.g. Iran, vs. highly secular areas, e.g. China. – Nat Apr 18 '19 at 17:16
  • @Brasol I think if you were to ask whether there is scientific evidence for discrimination (or systemic discrimination) against theists, you might have something that can be answered without taking recourse to opinions. – sgf Apr 18 '19 at 17:34
  • This question specifies the whole world, but that would also make the answer pretty trivially "no", since there's bound to be universities (say in/from the Vatican) where being Theist would be considered the norm. – sgf Apr 18 '19 at 17:37
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    Question (a) is certainly on-topic and not opinion-based, and I believe (b) could be addressed in an objective fashion as well. I have voted to reopen. – Nate Eldredge Apr 19 '19 at 00:20
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    I do think a lot of this is anecdotal, but that doesn't mean it isn't "a thing". Certainly I know of many religious folk who would downplay this vital aspect of their lives in interviews/conversation with colleagues more than should strictly be necessary for a given job title in academia - especially until they have tenure. Whether one could come up with data is another thing. – kcrisman Apr 19 '19 at 01:16
  • Probably related: https://heterodoxacademy.org – kcrisman Apr 19 '19 at 01:16
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    Edited it so that only the questions for surveys about possible discrimination is asked, as the deleted follow-up question "Is there discirmination against theists by atheists in academia?" was rightfully claimed as too opinion based. – Brasol Apr 19 '19 at 08:37
  • Basically this is just a reference request. – Alchimista Apr 20 '19 at 12:24
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    I wouldn't trust such a survey. It's too popular nowadays to victimise oneself and to accuse others of doing the same. – Karl Apr 25 '19 at 00:27
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    It might make a difference if you talk about King Saud University Riyadh, Catholic University Louvain, Trinity College Dublin, Hebrew University Jerusalem, or the MIT. – henning Apr 25 '19 at 06:44

2 Answers2

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Addressing the question in the context of the Unites States, it appears that it's questionable that any discrimination, and that if there is any such discrimination, it is a) not particularly strong, and b) highly entangled with other factors, such as conservative religious social and cultural activism.

It is an undisputed fact that in the United States there is a higher percentage of non-believers in academia than in society at large. The key and unresolved question is whether this is a result of self-selection (e.g., non-belief being correlated with interest in scholarly investigation as a career and belief being correlated with disinterest) or whether there is also some component of discrimination. One can find serious and respectable scholarly work both arguing that there is significant bias and that there is no significant bias.

Even articles strongly advocating that bias exists, however, find that if any such exists it is not particularly strong (else it would not be so equivocal to study) and that it appears to be measurable only with respect to religious people who are a) strongly culturally conservative, and b) activists with respect to politically polarizing positions (e.g., opposition abortion, gay marriage), and also c) at very particular stages of career (entry to graduate school, possibly at tenure promotion).

In short: even amongst those studying and debating the question, it appears that even if any systematic bias exists in US academia, the vast majority of theists are not significantly affected.

jakebeal
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Religion is a deeply personal topic that should be left out of scientific debate. If religion were to come up as a citation or reference in a scientific paper I doubt that it would be published. However I have never heard of someone being discriminated against academically solely due to their personal beliefs provided it doesn't taint the objectivity of their work. It would be unethical to discriminate against someone due to their theistic beliefs alone.

I have witnessed light hearted chiding directed at people who are open about their religious affiliations but their work and research were still highly respected in their fields.

Anouk
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