Every major university claims to celebrate diversity. And they are clearly sincere if we restrict the term to race, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. However, if we include philosophical orientation and political party identification, such claims are decidedly disingenuous. Conservatives and classical liberals are rarely welcome -- and Republicans are scarce.

“The jury on Marxism is still out.” Try to imagine how insulated, insensitive, and ignorant one appears when making this statement in public. Adults who agree that Marx’s ideas on class struggle remain relevant cluster in universities.

Those outside the academy hear denial and irresponsible idiocy, for the jury of experience returned its verdict on Marxism decades ago. For example, Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson stated, “Wonderful theory. Wrong species.” Eugene Genovese, a founder of the Conference of Socialist Scholars, noted, “The tyranny is built into the system.... We built a political movement that conquered a third of the world, with 100 million corpses to show for it.” University of Washington professor (and 2006 FREE Summer Scholar in Residence) Daniel Chirot noted of communism: once it was clear its “promise [of progress] was increasingly based on lies, its immorality became unbearable.”

The data on bias are compelling and buttress casual observations. There are scores of empirical studies. One of the most careful is “How Politically Diverse Are the Social Sciences and Humanities?” (by Dan Klein and Charlotta Stern, in Academic Questions). Here’s a summary about party identification: “[T]he faculty is heavily skewed towards voting Democratic. The most lopsided fields surveyed are Anthropology with a D to R ratio of 30.2 to 1.... The least lopsided is Economics with 3.0 to 1.”

This disproportion is far more extreme in literature and the arts, while engineering is more balanced. Generally, the more subjective the field, the more collectivist or “liberal” its professors. The strong implication is that students receive a biased perspective. Horror stories of liberal intolerance to alternative ideas abound, get around, and bounce back.

Naturally, many legislators, alumni, and now students, find this disturbing. Some argue we need to counter the prevailing situation and create a more balanced perspective via an “academic bill of rights.”

There is an ambitious website run by reformed ’60s radical David Horowitz, FrontPageMag.com. He has developed a detailed “manifesto” to eliminate this bias in university hiring and teaching. I find this academic bill of rights a sorry and impractical idea.

First, it’s most unlikely to be enacted -- even in “conservative” states. Consider a project of the Free Congress Foundation. It attempted to restrict “cultural Marxism” on campuses. It drafted a bill “which very simply would have cut off all Federal aid to any school” which adopted a politically correct speech code.

A senator from a very conservative state proposed it and “the academic community ... screamed bloody murder. Eventually even this Senator backed off.” Learning they had overreached, they focused on South Dakota with a bill requiring its six universities to report annually what steps they are taking to insure “intellectual diversity.” Perhaps, they dream, “in South Dakota, with its strongly Republican Legislature and a conservative Republican Governor, things will be different.”

Not likely -- but even if enacted, it is naïve to believe legislation can overcome the academic culture and the institutions that nurture it. The value would be symbolic, not substantive. Conservatives who don’t recognize this are bogged in the social engineering swamp liberals have long loved.

While administrators can block faculty selections, academic department members prefer junior faculty with whom they feel comfortable. Given this reality, imagine the consequences of this proposal. I’ll make a confident prediction: its goal of intellectual diversity will fail. Perhaps a few postmodernists will not be hired. But will committees select a conservative or libertarian with star potential? Not likely. Rather, if somehow forced to go outside their tribe, they’ll select a few non-threatening duds.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute and internships at think tanks like Cato and the Heritage Foundation provide modest antidotes. But only students who are independent and aware find these opportunities.

Faculties are encysted and ever more culturally removed from the American mainstream. This creates tension as their views become known. Agitation for an Academic Bill of Rights is only an early sign of corrective efforts. Can we have intellectual diversity?