Perhaps it’s my job, but every day I grow more and more disenchanted with the academic world. Between the supression of free speech to the the politization of research, academics are doing their best to create a completely insulated world that only furthers a few pet causes.

I’ve written before about the silly “bingo” game for gender equality. I’ve also written about the absolute lack of academic research done on female conservative voters. Now, thanks to Russian hackers, we know that academia whored itself for research money and covered up the truth about global warming. Not surprising. While I’m a strong conservationist, I’ve questioned global warming for a long time.

All of this actually makes me sad. It’s heartbreaking actually.

I’m a nerd. I’m one of those people who love school. Since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to be a professor and share my love of learning and research with others. I’ve always been drawn to the ideal of study, debate and research to further knowledge. “The marketplace of ideas” concept is a beautiful thing. I love the idea that places exist in our society for people to just pursue ideas, enjoy the freedom to debate and question existing bodies of knowledge or the status quo. Historically, academics have been the true rebels.

Those ideals simply don’t exist on the modern college campus.

Politics long ago entered the classroom, and dissenters are not allowed to question. Academia is such a police state that individuals are not allowed to pursue entire fields of research because it’s not politically correct. Does anyone else find it ironic that the academy now resembles the Catholic Church in the days of the Spanish Inquisition?

Phi Beta Cons at National Review linked to an article in Harvard Magazine, “The PhD Problem,” which covers some of my qualms about academia.

The obstacles to entering the academic profession are now so well known that the students who brave them are already self-sorted before they apply to graduate school. A college student who has some interest in further education, but who is unsure whether she wants a career as a professor, is not going to risk investing eight or more years finding out. The result is a narrowing of the intellectual range and diversity of those entering the field, and a widening of the philosophical and attitudinal gap that separates academic from non-academic intellectuals. Students who go to graduate school already talk the talk, and they learn to walk the walk as well. There is less ferment from the bottom than is healthy in a field of intellectual inquiry. Liberalism needs conservatism, and orthodoxy needs heterodoxy, if only in order to keep on its toes.

Groupthink is the biggest sin of the academic world. Since it’s such a highly-competitive and insulated world, you have play nicely. As seen with the relevations in the Hadley CRU emails, if you don’t go along with popular opinion, you don’t get published. If you don’t get published, you can’t get a job. If you can’t get a job, why did you spend 10 years pursuing a very expensive piece of paper?

However, my biggest concern over entering academia (aside from the financial ramifications) is summarized here:

It is unlikely that the opinions of the professoriate will ever be a true reflection of the opinions of the public; and, in any case, that would be in itself an unworthy goal. Fostering a greater diversity of views within the professoriate is a worthy goal, however. The evidence suggests that American higher education is going in the opposite direction. Professors tend increasingly to think alike because the profession is increasingly self-selected. The university may not explicitly require conformity on more than scholarly matters, but the existing system implicitly demands and constructs it.

I’m in the communications field. The majority of people who work in communications are not just left-of-center but left-of-left. Every time I sit down to write the “Why I want to earn my PhD” essay, I can’t bear the idea of three to five years of political torture. (And that’s if I get in. Given my track record of conservativism that’s questionable.) We’ve seen what happened when a professor even questioned a flaw in a school’s sexual harassment policy. What happens when I try to research conservative politics, especially the role of conservative women in politics?

Even in graduate school, I remember my thesis advisor (an awesome but very liberal lady) questioning why on earth I was concerned about the state of Republicans online. It never even occurred to her that I might be conservative. Even after reading my thesis, I’m not sure if she ever figured out that I was not liberal.

Academia has become so polarized that it’s actually hurting itself now. For one second, pretend that there is a slight chance that global warming is a hoax. After 20 years of study, scientists will all shout, “Nevermind,” and we can go back to having CFC-spraying parties and burning styrofoam. How much damage has been done by not having a rigorous field of debate? Look at how much money has been wasted in the private and public sectors? How many jobs have been lost, and companies hurt by environmental decisions made by bureaucrats? Can that damage ever be repaired?

When academia does not employ critical reasoning and blindly follows the lucrative path of grant money, the entire world suffers. Academia is sick, but when the inmates run the asylum, can it ever be fixed?