In virtually every college and university academic department where the professor’s opinions could be relevant (and even some where they should be utterly irrelevant), we find a strong leftist tilt. That is the case in political science, argues N.C. State professor Andrew Taylor in today’s Martin Center piece.

He writes:

. . . although academic political scientists consider themselves experts who have built robust models validated by all sorts of empirical studies, they seem to believe the kinds of misinformed and prejudicial attitudes and anti-social and harmful behavior they attribute to just about everyone else have somehow evaded them.

But they haven’t, and that leads to bad results for students and the integrity of the discipline. It has become saturated with “groupthink.” That’s regrettable because “a pervasive desire for harmony silences dissenting voices and, as a direct result, leads to dysfunctional decision-making and undesirable outcomes,” Taylor states.

More willingness to consider (or merely tolerate) different viewpoints would help to rebuild the damaged academic reputation of political science, he concludes.