A commentator at Janegalt.net:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but about 6-8 weeks ago there was a flurry of activity in the blogosphere re: the dearth of conservatives/Republicans on university faculties. If I recall, the general, not to mention immediate, consensus among liberal/Democrat professors was that Republicans either didn’t have the intellectual oomph to be professors, or just preferred to do other things. Natural selection, in other words, certainly not any sort of bias. We now have Harvard jumping through hoops to explain the dearth of female professors in math and science departments. They’re not quite sure why this condition endures, except for the fact that it absolutely, positively, ain’t natural selection. Strangely enough, this was another immediate, reflexive consensus, excepting Mr. Summers’ brief but embarrassing romp off of the intellectual plantation.
I would add that if Summers’ quite measured comments have gotten him into such hot water, imagine how regular faculty, untenured faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates whose views don’t reflect the politically correct mainstream are treated, and how much their careers can be placed in potential jeopardy. And then consider whether a young conservative or libertarian scholar would be wise in pursuing an academic career.
As for the argument that many scholarly issues in academia are non-political, ahd thus not subject to ideological prejudice, consider another Janegalt commentator’s missive:
I’m a newly hired scientist at Harvard, and I have been amazed by the fact that almost all of my colleagues agree that this hypothesis (that biological differences contribute to the persistent discrepancy between the numbers of men and women in the natural sciences and mathematics) should not even be considered.
If science can’t be objective and free from political correctness, what can?
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