"I am not a Conservative..."

Yes, but I am, at least I am a right-leaning libertarian which is adequately different from liberal dogma that it counts as Conservative. Actually, anyone who does not toe the liberal line is considered a Conservative by some of these open-minded academics. Anyway, I went to yet another panel at the law conference I am attending in Florida and this time it was on the Fourth Amendment (search and seizure). One of the law professors was discussing an example of the Fourth Amendment and used a case which must have been rather conservative in its final decision.

He had to let the audience know, "I am not a Conservative" before discussing the decision, I guess just to make sure his colleagues knew he was in "their tribe." Another panelist was discussing another court case and had to make sure that everyone knew "this was not exactly a Conservative court" though apparently, they had reached a "conservative" decision.

I looked around the room at the law professors in the audience and wondered if any of them were conservative. I wondered what they thought of how these professors said the word conservative, as if they were saying something almost sinful. But most of all, I wondered what kind of hostile environment these paragons of diversity were creating for their students who do not have the safety of tenure to help them navigate the negative image these professors seemed to have of the conservatives who (gasp) may be attending their classes. Or worse yet, I wonder how many conservatives avoid the academic world altogether because of the hostility toward their political views. Law schools are better than most in allowing for different politics but if this is the most tolerant of the academic world, how intolerant are other graduate schools and their professors? I shudder to think about it.