Voice of the Public

“My friend works for the District Attorney and jokes that if you want to be dismissed from jury duty, say that you’re a sociologist. They never support the police and never convict an (alleged) criminal.” (Letter to NY Times, January 2024)

“My Dad was an economist. He often commented that sociology was pure BS. I think the enmity between these two fields goes back a long way”. (Distinguished Professor of Chemistry)

“All sociology papers are pablum. Unrepeatable pablum using bad statistics. Yes, I've read them for my M.Ed. As an engineer, who understands math and statistics, I was amazed at the gymnastics they performed with numbers to arrive at their conclusions. The only rigorous studies are admonished as politically incorrect, and the authors are forced to apologize. Example? A scientific study showed that the LGBTQI expressions of teenage girls came in clusters, like anorexia before it. That LGBTQI expressions might be a sort of herd mentality. The authors were forced to apologize for their transgressions. Ahem. Sociology is also an easy major. It might attract... Sociologists” (User TexicanPilotTeacher)

“I really loathe how the entire sociology section of the bookstore is literally just race baiting Marxist propaganda. Literally 100 percent of the time in the most shameless way possible. This field is almost all propaganda” (Whatifalhist on X)

“Don't tell anyone. I try to avoid political issues, But sociology has too many regressions and statistics and not enough logic, reason, or diversity of political ideologies” (Technology Consultant and Professor of Engineering)

“Sociology and its offspring - African American Studies, Urban Studies and Women Studies and etc. - while interesting subjects, should be relegated to a few classes not actual majors. The curriculum content of these majors are laughable compared to STEM and Business majors. Maybe Sociology is needed, however, because Physical Education is actually too rigorous for most football and basketball players.” (Charley in Dallas. 2024)

“Sociology is the poster child of academic junk science. At best, it belongs in journalism.” (VW Comment to NY Times)

“Sociology used to be primarily about the scientific study of society: families, groups, money, artifacts, etc. It is only in recent years that it has become political. When a discipline takes as its assumption that white people/white males are a fundamental problem, we've moved away from sociology as a tool for getting students to think about basic questions to turning the classroom into a place for political indoctrination. The institution where I teach has a large number of courses in social justice. The premise here is always that men/white people are the perpetrators of all that is wrong in the world. This is an unquestioned assumption. In exchange, the old line liberal arts courses--history, philosophy, literature that believed in open inquiry, have been largely abandoned, with the aim appearing to be to teach as few of these as possible. I am a Democrat and a social liberal with a visceral dislike of Ron DeSantis and Trump and all that is Florida, but I applaud Florida's decision about this in the name of a good education.”(Hazlit, Letter to NY Times, January 2024)

“While other disciplines, e.g. political science and history, have a leftist bias, their ability to focus on political propagandizing is partly limited by their need to cover some basic factual material. By contrast, sociology lacks a distinct object of study. It is whatever you feel like making it, which opens the door for politicized studies.” (FS, Yonkers, NY)

“Sociology is a totally captive, in the pocket of the guilt-ridden, race and class obsessed, multicultural, West-is-worst cabal. The economists at least know that correlation is not causation. There's some rigor left in economics. We can only hope it persists.” (Laura, Philadelphia. 2017)

“I tried to date a sociologist. Never again. He was the most abusive POS in the world. Whenever I did something, he found characteristic of mine, he would claim that on my culture or origins. I couldn't talk about money or the neighborhood I grew up in, with him, because he said I was classist and racist. He was the worst person (after my father) I have ever talked to and I will never in my life befriend a woke person again. They can rot in hell. I told him to stop it, because I felt uncomfortable and he told me that I should be thankful, because he would only point out faults at friends and then stopped talking.” (Anonymous on Reddit, 2024)

“Americans tend to think sociologists are academics, and their field a social science discipline. To the rest of us they look like members of a strange cult, pretending to study society, but doing so under very restrictive rules. They are not allowed to report on power, money, or social class. Indeed, it seems plausible that their bogus discipline was invented entirely to obscure the exclusion of these topics from American academic study. Their place in academia is made safe, it seems to me, only by the relentless rightwing attacks on sanity and intellect everywhere which make these pallid fantasiasts look legitimate.” (David Lloyd-Jones, Toronto, Comment to NY Times)

“This [NY Times] article operates from the assumption that the academics who Florida is attempting to silence are impartial and disinterested arbiters of truth. That just isn't the case. Unfortunately for the academy writ large, many sociologists these days are activist academics which means they are operating from a bad faith position of masquerading as impartial arbiters of truth. I say they brought this upon themselves. This is not a problem for many other fields, although Critical Theory is creeping into psychology. But, as far as the real sciences, like biochemistry and physics, good luck trying to convince us that enzymes and gravity are heteronormative cis white male colonial cultural constructions. Although, the applied postmodernists who worship the gospel of Critical Theory secretly believe them to be which is indicative of how far removed these people are from reality.” (Comment on NY Times article from Michael in St. Louis)

“Sociologists have spent the recent decades giving conservatives something to be right about. I'm a solid liberal and my experience with sociologists in college and after is defined by a grotesque contradiction. On one side is a passionate and sincere commitment to equity. On the other: for people that don't fit into non-white, non-female, etc. categories that field is barren, save for a witch-hunt that sees racism etc. everywhere and prioritizes any aspect of it over poverty, abuse history, etc. These people can barely spell "class." (Letter to NY Times from Dan. January 2024)

“I have an MA in a social science — emphasis on the science. Sociology has always been more theoretical and less empirical than the other socials sciences, and since “critical theory” invaded sociological thought, the discipline has become a joke”. (Letter to NY Times, January 2024)

“Sociology sounds like psychology, but worse. Maybe a cautionary example for us, especially if (as seems likely) the increasing radicalization of the field (combined with the weak methods) causes a downward spiral where nobody but true believers takes sociology seriously.” (Psychology professor)

“Sociology is a useless course and just serves as employment for green haired pot smoking Marxist idiots. I took a class in 1984 at American University. The class text book actually featured a cartoon image of the American flag as a field of being plowed by a brown slave. It also had a picture of a fat, white man in a three piece suit smoking a cigar while sitting on the back of a sad looking white woman. The class was taught by a very ungrateful, short Iranian woman whose family fled Iran (note the date, 1984. This was right after the Shah was deposed) and she made the class USA hating 101. It was a real dumpster fire. From what I hear, nothing has changed since.” (Westsidejeff on Reddit)

“When sociology departments uniformly channel Michel Foucault and teach that power is at the root of all social interaction- which they do- they go from the empirical to the ideological. When all society is viewed through the lens of power and racial oppression, we get the intersectional travesty of Jews being designated as the White colonial settler oppressor. Sociology departments are at the root of this corruption of academia, and I, as a Democrat, feel no contradiction in believing as I do.” (Matthew Wodicka, San Francisco)

“Modern sociology is so cucked. They detest the uncomfortable truths. Just set on fire the whole field and rebuild it”. (nathan_speaks on Reddit)

“Sociology degrees are a red flag. Sociologists don’t have enough knowledge to think critically about a subject, but enough to weaponize the information. It is the degree most often behind ineffective social workers and therapists without a psychology background. Sociology certainly doesn’t apply scientifically sound analysis to a subject matter.” (Anatonia Ferguson, 2024).

“Having taught sociology for 3 decades, I can say that this ban does not surprise me. Yes, you may blame Governor DeSantis for a lot of things, but it is time for universities to get their own house in order and for sociology to return to what used to be a proper field of study. This, however, will be very difficult to achieve, today, as postmodernist thought has turned every sociological discussion into a power game.” (JS, Netherlands, 2024)

“I took sociology as an undergraduate. It was utterly worthless course and had no redeeming values. The world would be just fine if the discipline disappeared.” (Letter to NY Times from J Scott in Houston, 2024)

“The field of sociology is presently dominated by despicable ideologues.” (Ph.D educator)

“My current Research Assistant did graduate work in Sociology and then quit because he realized it was impossible to do serious research in that field and came to law school” (Professor of Law)

“Problems with sociology include: (1) Lack of scientific rigor making it too subjective and interpretive; (2) Overemphasis on theories that aren’t susceptible to provability through studies; (3) Intellectual bias: scholars prioritize their own (or the institution’s) perspectives or values over objective analysis - leading to skewed findings or conclusions that favor confirmation of beliefs; (4) Self-Aggrandizement and reaction to criticism - the sociology community often exhibits a heightened sense of self-importance and predilection towards posturing as some ‘David’ against the ‘Goliath’ of various institutional systems. There is a distinct sensitivity to the aforementioned critiques that is somewhat unique to sociology when compared to other social science disciplines like psychology or anthropology.” (User DNA98PercentChimp on Reddit)

“Being in it's nature a left leaning science, sociology in public nowadays is mainly communicated by radical leftists in a very normative manner. They are very loud and push their opinions in people's faces whenever they can. Actually these people are not left at all as they tend to shame everyone disagreeing with their opinions, which is actually more a fascist facet. Anyway, the claims those actually very privileged people make, like microaggressions or subjective gender identities, are so far away from the day to day realities of the simple man, that they are not taken seriously anymore.” (User KamelLoeweKind on Reddit)

“Well, you sociologists are drowning in ideology. You don't care about the reality about society. You only care about proving yourselves right. Since there is no falsification mechanism that you came up with, all you guys do is jerk each other off. If you want to be taken seriously and contribute to the society, try to move the field into a more scientific direction.” (User Tricky-Lingonberry-5 on Reddit)

“Every sociology professor - except perhaps 1% - ascribe to conflict theory and Marxist sociology. The methodology and conclusions of their studies is often questionable and lacking rigorous parameters. Psychology is much more useful. Intersectionality is the hallmark of American sociology and feminist theory, which is basically a study in who can be the most victimized victim. Yay, victim award!!

“I will absolutely die on the hill that academia is significantly left-leaning, and sociology in particular is quite left. I generally identify as a Democrat and was regularly informed. I was a fascist because my colleagues were socialist, Marxist, or left leaning anarchists. Someone tried to have me thrown out of the program because I suggested that there were fundamental differences between the sexes.” (MountEndurance on Reddit)

“Many prominent sociologists are professional leftists that group people and lack the ability to see the individual. To call them objective scientists is really laughable. I have taken class after class of marxist professors’ indoctrination to view everyone (except white males of course) as merely a victims of societal structures. It actually just helped me see them for what they are: propoganda artists. They don’t really inquire; rather, they seek to confirm their own worldviews. Researchers often have no shame about injecting their leftist biases, especially in textbooks”.

“Sociology as a field is so overrun with activists and ideologues, and so politically homogenous, that the conclusions can't be trusted, because one of the fundamental principles of science is undermined. There is so much ideological homogeneity in the field that its conclusions aren't actually subject to bias correcting processes that other more diverse sciences are subject to, and its results likely simple reflect the perceptual and attentional biases of the researchers. Psychology is bad enough in terms of homogeneity, but sociology is even worse. It is completely corrupted by activists and their shoddy research.” (Brundybg on Reddit)

They go on and on about the merits of ‘diversity’, yet they shun the most important type which is diversity of thought. I sympathize with folks that say it’s a useless major because it sadly is. Every study concludes with “the government needs to do more….. blank.” You name it. That’s not creating anything. They also like to skirt the issue that research shows the breakdown of the family and single motherhood is responsible for so many societal problems. The fact that a queer studies or feminist theory majors even exist is a complete joke. Cultural relativism is a cancer on our society. Some cultures are indeed better. I can think of one… you know the one that has like natural rights, liberty, free speech, etc.” (Anonymous response to ‘Is sociology leftist propaganda masquerading as science?’ on Quora)

“The issue is that the sociologist perspective is contagious. People who go to college for a degree in sociology are the type that see a lot of problems with the world and likely view them as societal. They're also the type to want the government to step in and fix them. This means that already sociology classes are filled with more left wing people. Even if you don't go in as left wing your left wing instructor and classmates will drastically shift your views by providing information that supports their views and limiting information that detracts, meaning they act as a sort of unintentional collective brainwashing tool by simply repeating information that confirms their beliefs more than information that invalidates it. Add onto the fact that many sociologists ignore things like meritocracy and take the view that different groups should achieve the same outcomes and it's easy to see how their science can be easily corrupted. They ignore differences in races, they ignore differences in culture, and they ignore differences in gender. Because they study society they ultimately end up overattributing issues to society, because it's simply what they focus on.” (Reddit user Suicidemeteor)

“I’m an associate professor at a state research university. It’s true that social sciences like sociology and anything ending in ‘studies’ have become more about activism than scholarship.” (Comment on NY Times Article from ‘Tree’)

“Sociology, like most of academia, is left-wing biased. Most of the issues liberals now champion came out of sociology, like the obsession with intersectionality, Marxism, etc. Many are not capable of independent thought and critical thinking, so they don't allow or consider other views. For example, even though the predominant view in America is that biological males should not play in women's sports, academia will try to make you think that is the fringe view even though theirs in the fringe view that happens to be in an echo-chamber. Marxism and racism are all the instructors can think about in the obsession over intersectionality. I quit the American Sociological Association because all of the content was about that stuff when there is so much more to explore in sociology. It is sad. For example, I was interested in the projects they offered for those teaching sociology to use, and all of them were about racism.” (JimPiersall on Reddit)

“In some niche areas sociology can contribute some good things. But its been taken over by a bunch of liberal narcissists who see only what they want to see” (Certain-Highway-1618 on Reddit)

“Sociology and other social sciences are circle jerk nonsense fields that just cite each other constantly to pretend they have any relevance, when in reality they don't bring any true knowledge to the table or increase our understanding of the world in any meaningful way. And it isn't just sociology. It is nearly all social sciences, as well as psychology and similar fields. Just about all of these "academic" fields have been going through a decades long replication crisis, so you can't take any of their papers/conclusions you read today at face value... you have to take them all with a grain of salt (and even be outright skeptical of them), especially ones attempting to drive agendas, influence political policy or piggy back on contemporary issues”. (iamverycontroversey on Reddit)

“My son had a four year free ride scholarship, couldn't decide what he wanted to so, so he got a degree in sociology. To put it bluntly, he turned into a jerk. Pontificating about social issues and belittling his friends and family about how stupid they were. Five years later, after discovering he couldn't get a job lecturing people twice his age, he's back at school getting a degree in Electrical Engineering. He just got an internship developing missile guidance systems for a defence contractor. Ain't that a hoot!” (Gregory Scott Comment on NY Times Article)

“As another instance, a Sociology professor at Berkeley told us that black men had a right to rape white women as recompense for slavery”. (Comment on NY Times Article by Haldor1890)

“Lmao ffs man. Sociologists are leading us to hell. When I was at Oxford, I started off loving sociology. Intellectualized victimhood complexes leading us nowhere” (Crashout Cammy on X)

“It is literally one of the easiest Masters programs available in the U.S. Sociology is the laughing stock of the social sciences. Even my liberal professors made a hella lotta fun outta the field” (MrDave09 on X)

“I had 54 Sociology credits and confirm that except for the field of Demography, it is indeed a bunch of crap and the remaining parts that are useful can be combined into other departments.” (Igottamake on Reddit)

Perhaps the real research which should be conducted is on the culture, or perhaps cultural pathology would be a more accurate term, of academic sociologists. We have here in America so much wealth and abundance that we can finance hordes of academic sociologists to go out--undoubtedly with grant money-- and strew envelopes on the ground to see what cultural values obtain in various different neighborhoods. What a great country this is! (Mark B. Packer, Comment to NY Times)

“It is stupid to fit sociology to the quantitative scientific model. I would think that sociology that pretends to be a quantitative science is most likely worthless. It is naturally a humanity, like history or cultural anthropology.” (Paul Easton, Brooklyn, Comment to NY Times)

“Sociology is overrated. It's mostly wishful thinking and ideological explanations. Most if not all their studies fail the reproduction test. I haven't heard of any sound theory coming from sociology so far. It's all just pseudo intellectual gibberish without any substance.” (User R_4_13_i_D on Reddit)

“Sociology departments have long been subject to ideological capture, meaning there is not more actual critical thinking going on there than at the Heritage Foundation. Both are propaganda machines.” (Brock Landers, Comment on NY Times Article)