In response to Bret Stephens' column on the Yale report examining academia's trust crisis, a Columbia University research professor argues that the Republican Party's growing hostility toward science is driving conservatives out of higher education.
Richard Seager, a professor of ocean, atmosphere and climate sciences at Columbia, notes that while Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Law School, and School of Management have a 36-to-1 ratio of registered Democrats to Republicans, this imbalance reflects a broader political realignment rather than academic bias.
Seager points out that in the 1980s and 1990s, many conservatives and Republicans worked in his earth sciences institute. The shift, he contends, stems from the Republican Party's departure from evidence-based policy and scientific inquiry. He cites historical examples of GOP-led science initiatives: President Richard Nixon signing the Clean Air Act in 1970, and President Ronald Reagan championing the Montreal Protocol in 1987, which successfully addressed ozone depletion.
"Since then, beginning with President George W. Bush, who withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, the Republican Party and conservatives have become ever more hostile to scientific facts, evidence-based policy and the research that underpins them," Seager writes.
He criticizes the current Republican administration as one that "lies regularly" and conducts "an assault on scientific research in both universities and the federal government," disrupting countless studies. Seager argues that a scientist who votes Republican risks empowering those determined to undermine science.
Still, Seager holds out hope for change: "If the Republican Party were to once again embrace the value of science, research and facts, then I am sure some of my colleagues would drift back to them." Until then, he concludes, scientists in academia will overwhelmingly lean Democratic.