https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/stanford-law-school-political-correctness-intolerance-conservative-views/here’s a growing intolerance of conservative views.
Nestled in the heart of what is now Silicon Valley, the Leland Stanford Junior University was, for much of its hundred-plus-year history, lightly regarded as a playground for the idle rich. To the extent that Stanford bore any resemblance to its aspirational cousins on the East Coast, it was to their previous incarnations as polite finishing schools for those who made their money the old-fashioned way — that is, by inheriting it.
All of this began to change during the 1960s with the advent of the modern semiconductor industry. Although this development was largely a fortuitous coincidence, some combination of luck and shrewd decision-making soon tied Stanford’s fortunes to the trajectory of its now-prosperous environs. The results, of course, are nothing short of breathtaking. The undergraduate college regularly boasts the nation’s lowest acceptance rates, and both the graduate business school and the law school likewise rank at the very top of their respective fields.
But all is not well on a campus where many T-shirts bear Stanford’s unofficial mantra that “Life Is Good!” Last year, former provost John Etchemendy warned publicly of a threat from within — a “growing intolerance” that has manifested as a sort of “political one-sidedness.” His admonition was, predictably, politely ignored. However, my experience at Stanford Law School suggests that, if anything, Etchemendy has understated the scope and the scale of the challenge that elite universities now face.
At Stanford Law School, no more than three of approximately 110 full-time faculty publicly identify as conservative or libertarian. (By way of contrast, Stanford Law School touts on its webpage 23 full-time faculty under the inartful rubric of “minority.”) As a consequence, many of my classmates will graduate having never engaged with a law professor whose worldview and convictions track those of nearly half the voting public.
