THERE IS NO BIAS IN THE ACADEMIC WORLD (CHOKE) – AT 10:03 A.M. ET:  No, not much.  Campus Reform, a great website, nails the facts, which are indisputable:

Only one undergraduate professor from the top 50 liberal arts colleges has donated to a Republican presidential candidate in the current election cycle.

According to FEC third quarter reports released October 16, 47 professors at the top 50 liberal arts colleges in the country, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, have given to presidential campaigns. Of those 47 professors, Hamilton College History Professor Robert Paquette was the sole donor to a Republican candidate, giving $150 to Carly Fiorina’s campaign.

The remaining 99.51 percent went to Democrat candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. The 46 other professors collectively donated $20,875 to Hillary Clinton and $8,417 to Bernie Sanders. Professors donating to Clinton have given an average of $1,043.75. Those giving to Sanders donated an average of $323.73.

"I do believe these numbers give an accurate representation of the political leanings of faculty on most college campuses," Paquette wrote in an e-mail to Campus Reform, "especially allegedly elite liberal arts colleges like Hamilton College," where he claims to be the "only out-of-closet conservative in a faculty of 200."

After 35 years of experience in higher education, Paquette believes that the business "has become a racket monopolized by the academic left."

Paquette argues that with cover from "spineless or sympathetic" administrators, leftist faculty are able to keep their campuses liberal. Conservatives like himself can be prohibited from participating in searches for their own department and large endowment funds are "lavished on faculty activists and their programmatic agendas.”

Paquette says that trustees know about the problem but "[prefer] not to hear, see, or speak any evil to protect the elite ‘brand’ of the college."

COMMENT:  And that's part of the problem – trustees (and alumni) who only want to preserve the prestige of the degree.  But more and more people are finding out the truth about American higher education, and what it's become.  The trouble is, the academic establishment is entrenched, and perpetuates itself.  We need, first of all, a selective cutoff of federal aid – stop feeding the beast.  We need a revolt by parents paying the tuition.  We need exposure of the scandal by the media (not much chance), and we need revulsion by students who'll realize they're being used.

Tough order.  Maybe generational change will help.  But the bias problem can only be solved in the long term, if at all.

October 27, 2015