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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.

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According to a recent study by Mitchell Langbert of the National Association of Scholars (H/T: The Federalist);

The political registration of full-time, Ph.D.-holding professors in top-tier liberal arts colleges is overwhelmingly Democratic. Indeed, faculty political affiliations at 39 percent of the colleges in my sample are Republican free—having zero Republicans. The political registration in most of the remaining 61 percent, with a few important exceptions [i.e. the Service Academies], is slightly more than zero percent but nevertheless absurdly skewed against Republican affiliation and in favor of Democratic affiliation. Thus, 78.2 percent of the academic departments in my sample have either zero Republicans, or so few as to make no difference.

Lest anyone is tempted to argue about the validity of his sampling, Langbert notes that his sample included “8,688 tenure track, Ph.D.–holding professors from fifty-one of the sixty-six top ranked liberal arts colleges in the U.S. News 2017 report consists of 5,197, or 59.8 percent, who are registered either Republican or Democrat.”

Clearly, there is something wrong here. When even Michael Bloomberg is forced to say, at Harvard;

In the 2012 presidential race, according to Federal Election Commission data, 96 percent of all campaign contributions from Ivy League faculty and employees went to Barack Obama. Ninety-six percent. There was more disagreement among the old Soviet Politburo than there is among Ivy League donors … When 96 percent of Ivy League donors prefer one candidate to another, you have to wonder whether students are being exposed to the diversity of views that a great university should offer … a university cannot be great if its faculty is politically homogenous.

This is very true.

The fact that states as Republican as Utah or Wyoming have 95:5 ratio of Democrats to Republicans in even their state university teaching staff indicates a clear and actively pursued bias at work. Numerous studies have demonstrated that liberal professors and administrators, as a rule, discriminate deliberately and heavily against conservatives. Once they have the influence and authority and are able to control tenure and hiring, they immediately begin purges and start applying litmus tests for new hires.

Which is why I propose that Republican state legislators in every state where Republicans have a majorities in the legislature should immediately start probing the hiring practices, curriculum, faculty, extra-curricular programs, etc. of every college and university that receives public funds from the state.

Every college President should be required to explain the heavy ideological imbalances in their faculty and administration, and present a one-year plan to ensure an ideologically heterodox teaching and administrative staff in every major academic program.

The resulting squeals and cries decrying the attacks on academic freedom can be safely dismissed out of hand as insincere and in bad faith by people whose primary interest is creating and maintaining an ideological echo chamber.

The first pillar of academic freedom is free speech – a principle that much of the professoriat has rejected as an artifact of “oppression” i.e. “white supremacy”, “misogyny”, etc. and administrators routinely endeavor to limit to the fullest extent possible because allowing people to speak freely is “unsafe.”

Quite apart from university authorities nudging and winking at acts of violence and disruption committed by students and even faculty members against ideological opponents simply speaking on college grounds, the deliberately engineered political homogeneity has led to multiple instances of academic research being suppressed, character assassination campaigns being launched against researchers, entire disciplines having entire lines of inquiry ruled out of bounds based entirely on politics and ideological considerations – often disguised as issues of “safety.”

Witness the recent case at Brown University where a study came out with a result that went against the current gender dogma in vogue in higher education and recommended further research. The researcher submitted her study to a peer reviewed journal which accepted and published it. In response to the hue and cry from transgender activists – citing “safety” concerns – Brown disavowed the study and left the professor out to dry, without even the most cursory attempt to verify her methodology or data. Even worse is that the journal that accepted, supposedly peer-reviewed and published the work, did the same.

This is far from the only case where researching the “wrong” thing, observing the “wrong” phenomenon, challenging the “wrong” person/cause, wearing the “wrong” clothes, expressing the “wrong” opinion, even eating the “wrong” food has resulted in the sabotage (or end) of an academic career for both students and members of faculty.

In such an environment, does academic freedom actually exist? No, it doesn’t. In fact, in an ironic twist, the American institution that is least welcoming of free speech, free debate and free inquiry, that most punishes dissenting views and most ruthlessly enforces conformity is the Academy.

The fact of the matter now is that academics – particularly Left-Wing academics and administrators – have proven that they cannot be trusted with the stewardship of academic freedom. Therefore, it’s the legislature’s role to safeguard the interests of the taxpayers footing the bill to forcefully reverse the almost complete stalinization of the nation’s institutions of higher learning.

So while it is a sledgehammer approach, it’s probably the only swift and effective way to break the Left’s stultifying stranglehold on higher education and actually return academic freedom and free inquiry back to the Academy.