ROUND AND ROUND ON VIEWPOINT DIVERSITY. A David Brooks report (requires registration) on the lack of viewpoint diversity in (some) academic disciplines in (some) universities has touched a few nerves around the academic weblogs. Here is a quick pass through a small sample. Crooked Timber's Henry Farrell doesn't see the phenomenon in his discipline, and he notes the existence of outside employment opportunities for policy-minded conservatives. (My short answer to his concluding question: brightness might include sensitivity to message. A scholar making a conservative argument from a university office, in a way that doesn't echo Pach talking points, comes off as credible in a way that a hired intellectual making a similar argument from a foundation office that is assisting in developing the talking points cannot, no matter how well he is paid.) Volokh Conspiracy's Juan weighs in with some experiences and a roundup of some other posts. Leiter Report (hmm, a Texas university allowing professors to post polemical material, are you listening, Indiana University?) offers a simple explanation that Professor Bainbridge finds wanting ... do read the comments to follow how it plays out.

Brooks quotes Volokh Conspiracy's Jacob Levy, whose impressions mirror mine. "And Jacob T. Levy, a libertarian also at Chicago, says some conservatives exaggerate the level of hostility they face. Some politicized humanities departments may be closed to them, he concedes, but professors in other fields are open to argument."

I'd go further. Why would any rational conservative, or rational liberal, or political position n.e.c., for that matter, want to get into an academic field where the conventional wisdom is that a large car, or a shopping center open all night, is a "profligate" waste of energy, but the production of four or five times as many Ph.D.s as will get onto the tenure track is not?

SECOND SECTION: Invisible Adjunct provides commentary and additional links.

THIRD SECTION: Critical Mass and OxBlog report from the belly of the monster.