I can certainly believe this statistic; it corresponds well to what I've observed at the three universities I have attended.

I'm not sure how much this translates, though, to hostility or contempt for other views. For instance, I have made little secret of being a laissez-faire libertarian, and so long as I can defend my views even halfway decently, I find I am usually accorded a fair share of respect.

I have less experience on whether this is quite the same for conservatives, but from what I have seen, the nightmare scenarios of overt hostility are comparatively rare. For instance, a conservative graduate student at Hopkins presented a seminar paper on the history of the Heritage Foundation last year and found it was very well-received.

Bad as they are, the really egregious cases of anti-conservatism aren't so worrying to me as the simple lack of alternative viewpoints. It is an open question to me, though, whether this lack of diversity is a case of exclusion on the part of liberals already in the academy--or whether it actually comes from conservatives, who seem to prefer professional careers in business, the military, or churches.

I think that conservatives avoid working in higher education because education is pretty much a socialist affair. Even private schools depend in large part on donations and other cooperative activity not for personal gain in order to survive.

Tenured faculty are essentially living in a socialist system -- they perform well not for personal gain, but for the good of the collective. What conservative would be happy for long in such a situation?

Professors are highly intelligent, highly educated people who basically spend their lives giving away this knowledge, their primary asset, while subsisting on a salary far lower than what they could make in the private sector, for the greater good. In other words, they're socialists.

Higher education as an institution seems like something that would repulse pro-free-market conservatives, not attract them. Saying conservatives are underrepresented in higher education is like claiming socialists are underrepresented on Wall Street.

I agree with Jason that hostility seems to be rarer than a simple shortage of conservative viewpoints. I usually found my conservative views on issues such as judicial deference to legislative action, affirmative action, and even the Establishment Clause to be well-received by law school professors as long as I was well-reasoned.

Sometimes I think the overt liberalism of college and law school professors actually encouraged me to be stronger in my own views and equip myself with more ammunition to defend those views.

Perhaps, then, it is the liberal student who suffers the most by the concentration of liberals in academia. Without the challenge of an authority figure presenting an opposing viewpoint, there may not be the incentive for the student to tirelessly research and substantiate his position. The liberal student can nod his head and go with the flow.

I will go one step further and say that the liberal teacher-conservative student dynamic is crucial to the vitality of liberal arts education and critical thinking. Too bad for liberal kids that it appears there is little opportunity for the opposite, and equally crucial, relationship.

I found that a very thought-provoking point, Petronious. I agree that university education in generally is a lot less challenging morally, ethically and ideologically to a liberal than it is to a conservative.

Of course, entering the workforce was like pouring a bucket of icewater on an idealistic liberal like myself ... whereas conservative kids were able to wrap that free-market culture around themselves like a warm blanket. It's no wonder conservatives don't stay and teach, while liberals huddle around the warmth of the academic fire.

In other news the sun will set in the west.

As the saying goes, "those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

CJ,

If that is your feeling about the situation, then I trust you will never complain about discrimination against conservative views in academia?