You know how I keep expressing astonishment at the way C H Sommers has gone from being an academic to being a shameless hack. It occurred to me to wonder if it’s just a simple matter of being better paid as a hack. Having wondered that, I decided to see if I could compare her salary as an academic to her salary as a hack for the American Enterprise Institute.
The bulk of her teaching career was at Clark University; she was an Associate Professor when she left to be a scholar at AEI. Clark reports the salary for associate profs to be $107,580.
The 990 tax form for the AEI reports some scholars’ salaries but not all.
That lists Gary Schmitt, John Bolton, Charles Murray, Thomas Donnelly, and Frederic Hess as scholars. Their salaries range from $170,500 to $178,500. It seems safe to conclude that Sommers’s pay is in that range or lower (as a more recent hire).
So…maybe 60 or 70 thousand more. Worth having, certainly, but it hardly seems enough to motivate palling around with the MRA crowd.
On the other hand…there’s no teaching. It’s in DC. It’s among a bunch of like-minded reactionary lobbyists as opposed to a bunch of PC liberal academics. All that and a 2/3 bump in pay. Maybe it’s worth it.
Waitasec. AEI employs that Charles Murray? “The Bell Curve” Charles Murray? C H Sommers is palling around with some really awful people, isn’t she.
Yes. Yes they do and yes she is.
Sounds like pretty nice work if you can get it. And if you have neither shame, decency nor integrity.
Associate Profs get paid over $100K? That’s a full prof with years of seniority here.
I know, that sounds like a lot to me, but the source says it’s a little below average for Massachusetts. Maybe cost of living-related.
Would be kinda ironic if she was only on $130K or something 😀
She also gets $3,000-5,000 for speaking engagements, which she’s likely to do much more of by being an anti-feminist. http://www.yaf.org/Christina-Sommers.aspx
How much does AEI pay Newt Gingrich for his colossal intellectual contributions?
BTW, Glassdoor.com shows Clark U assoc prof avg salary as $81,700.
Huh. I wonder which is right.
I found out. They’re both right. Or rather, they’re both “right”. The 80,000 figure is what they’re actually paid, for a 9 month teaching year. Then Clark is extrapolating that out to 12 months if – IF, as in NOT – they were being paid at the same rate for 12 months. Of course, this also assumes that all their time out of the teaching term is basically goofing off, because of course no college profs do any study pertaining to their teaching during their off hours.
Misleading at best. I’d say dishonest myself.
Here’s a link which has specifics:
http://faculty-salaries.findthebest.com/l/5454/Clark-University
The fact that their list if “top conservative colleges” are all religious based colleges focused solely on ‘Merica, traditional values, smaller government, free entreprise and the goodly ‘Merica things and not anything else.
Essentially, glorified “finishing schools” for creating parrots……
The pay is just the beginning of the emoluments possible. Serve them well and you may be offered premium healthcare for self and/or family, a plush (show up, travel expenses comped, four times a year for several $100,000) seat on a corporate board, a no to low-show job for spouse or relative with a corporate sponsor of the think tank, perhaps a well timed (and completely anonymous) stock tip that turns out to be a lucrative sure thing, a sweetheart deal (with generous advance) for that book you have been writing (complete with a gentleman’s agreement that it will sell at least one million copies), a seat on a study committee that will spend several months ( leisurely and all first-class) crossing Europe as part of a tax deductible “fact-finding” effort, …
The possibilities for wingnut welfare are unlimited.
The one limit, albeit a soft and porous limit, is the question of what can be deducted from taxes as a business expense by a highly trained and creative army of accountants and consultants. The services of that army of accountants and consultants is, of course, deductible.
anthrosciguy @7:
She also picks up revenue from her books. Sommers has seven listed on her Wikipedia page, three of which were published by AEI themselves, and one is a textbook. Some of the Amazon reviews are worth a read:
Dang, I didn’t quote the most interesting part of that review:
Now I’m tempted to loan a copy of “Freedom Feminism”…
Put like that, it’s a no-brainer.
Well, no matter what anyone says, it’s damned difficult to work for an organization if you’re not aligned with their belief system, no matter how many Benjamins they throw at you.
I once had the opportunity to interview for a reporting gig for one of the national tabloids. I would have been a HUGE increase in salary — they were offering 3 times what I was making at the time. But I decided against it because I wanted to be able to sleep at night. Self respect is worth more.
For Sommers, it’s a win-win. She gets to be an anti-feminist asshole AND get paid swimmingly for it.
Donnie wrote:
You mean patriots!
christina hoff sommers | Tumblr — some GamerGaters call her “Based Mom”