In today’s National Review Online “Guest Comment” column, James D. Miller explains why the American academy tends to tilt leftward, and why academics tend to eschew overt expressions of patriotism:

The large number of non-U.S. citizens in American colleges necessarily makes these schools less patriotic. You wouldn’t expect an American-based professor who is of Chinese citizenship to be as pro-U.S. as the average American is. As long as U.S. high schools continue to provide deficient training in math and science however, American colleges will have to continue to heavily recruit students and faculty from abroad if the schools want to remain world class.

A less benign reason why colleges are so politically correct is because leftists in many academic departments will not hire outside their intellectual gene pool. If a corporation uses political criteria in hiring its profits will suffer and its owners will complain. Since colleges are not actually owned by anyone, few complain when they sacrifice their teaching mission for politics.

One novel solution offered by Dr. Miller: “insure that professors are hired and promoted primarily on the basis of their teaching skills.”

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