Professors did leave GOP

Regarding Ramesh Ponnuru’s Feb. 28 op-ed, “We need intellectual diversity back on campus”:

A question for Mr. Ponnuru: Did university professors leave the Republican Party, or did the party leave them? How many professors still identify as conservative when the Republican Party promotes being anti-science, demeaning of public health in a time of national crisis, encouraging of veiled racism and equating an attack on the U.S. Capitol with a citizen rally?

The overwhelming proportion of professors are conservative in the sense that they base their research and teaching on disciplines with long histories and consensus rules for producing and conveying knowledge.

More centers on campuses to promote discussion among viewpoints would only add to the ongoing debates that occur in seminars, faculty meetings, committees of various sorts and guest colloquiums. But if donors want to support new centers, so much the better. They can only further what is going on already in that wonderment of variety and excellence called American higher education.