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I believe it was way back in college that I first heard of some finding it controversial that there are few right-wing university faculty and staff members. The reason for that seemed obvious to me even at the time: It's all about money. A right-wing ideology tends to go hand-in-hand with a pursuit of profit. The life of an academic involves years or decades of the opposite of profit, so it is a path that few profit-motivated people pursue.
I learned a few other things when I worked on a college campus for ten years. One notable item was that business and engineering programs often charge higher tuition than arts and sciences programs in large part because professors in those fields tend to come from industry rather than academia, and therefore command higher salaries than their Ph.D. counterparts in other disciplines. The same is true of law schools. This is of course a chicken-or-egg cycle in which those fields command high salaries so that the people in those fields can pay for their education which is so expensive because universities have to compete with industries that command high salaries.
The research generally supports my assertion that the left-leaning university phenomenon is more a product of self-selection than of bias in hiring. Right-leaning people don't flock to university environments like left-leaning people do. It's no surprise, then that right-leaning speakers, especially those who are more about entertainment than politics, have poor receptions at universities. Nevertheless, the right prefers to characterize this phenomenon as an infringement on said speakers' individual - and, in general, the right's - free speech. This recently-published column clearly and succinctly summarizes why I think that argument is bogus.
I appreciate being challenged, and my sharing of the above-referenced column on Facebook resulted in a challenge. Thoughtful arguments were raised by a person who disagrees, and I welcome the opportunity to respond. These six speakers are representative of the phenomenon I believe we are discussing.
Before addressing the questions, I would like to underscore the fact that the column focuses not on "conservatives" or "Republicans," but on "modern conservatism," otherwise known as the Party of Donald Trump. People who identify with what's generally known as the right really need to examine whether they want to identify with what this president stands for, in ideology and in deed. Those who continue to support - even revere - him are making a statement that they need to be prepared to be judged for.
