At its best, science is amazing. It produces discoveries that change our understanding of the world—and the world itself. Human lives have been transformed by scientific knowledge and technology, often for the better. It has certainly made my life better than that of my ancestors.

Yet science continues to be under attack. Historically, religious dogma sometimes clashed with scientific progress. It took the Catholic Church more than three centuries before Pope John Paul II formally acknowledged that Galileo was right to claim that the Earth moves around the Sun.

A more recent and devastating example is Nazi Germany, where science was subordinated to ideological pseudo-science in order to justify mass murder. The regime also drove out many Jewish scientists, some of whom later contributed to the Allied war effort. Later still, scientific progress in the Eastern Bloc was hampered by putting party loyalty over scientific excellence rather than evidence. These episodes illustrate a recurring lesson: science requires ethical guardrails, but it does not survive political domination.

Today, science is advancing rapidly in parts of the world, including China, for example through major investments in green energy. At the same time, the United States has increasingly undermined scientific consensus on issues such as vaccines and climate change and has placed growing pressure on scientific institutions. A number of observers warn that these developments threaten academic freedom and risk slowing scientific progress. One prominent justification for attacks on universities is the claim—advanced by some conservative academics, including Jonathan Haidt and Jordan Peterson—that universities are ideological “cesspools” in which naïve students are indoctrinated by hard-left professors.

This image of universities is both inaccurate and unscientific. For example, modern genetics has shown that humans are one species with a single, shared gene pool, not distinct biological races that can be ranked by skin color. This is not “woke ideology”; it is a straightforward empirical fact that only conflicts with racist belief systems.

Critics often argue that universities are repeating historical mistakes by ignoring science in order to impose liberal or radical-left values on campus. But what, concretely, are these alleged policies? Following the murder of George Floyd, many North American universities examined whether systemic racism contributes to a hostile climate for Black students or whether hiring practices unfairly favor applicants from privileged backgrounds. For example, universities may prefer a White applicant from Harvard whose parents also attended Harvard over a Black applicant from Michigan State University—despite comparable or superior qualifications.

Whether such policies reduce inequality or create new inequalities is an important and difficult empirical question. However, the underlying goal of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs—to promote fairness and equal protection—is grounded in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Efforts to bring social outcomes more in line with these principles are not radical; they are consistent with constitutional ideals and basic human rights. Opposition often aligns with existing power and status hierarchies rather than with empirical evidence.

It is understandable that politically conservative professors may feel out of place in departments where most colleagues are liberal. But the same is true for female police officers or Black lawyers in elite law firms. Ironically, DEI initiatives could also benefit politically conservative academics by ensuring that universities foster inclusive environments and avoid discrimination based on political orientation. In practice, this is rarely a major problem. Most professors interact with colleagues infrequently outside formal meetings, and promotions depend far more on student evaluations, publications, and grant funding than on political views.

Concerns about ideological repression are often fueled by highly visible but rare cases. Data from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE, 2023) show that sanction campaigns against scholars originate from both the political left (about 52%) and the political right (about 41%), and that most cases do not result in formal discipline. When sanctions do occur, universities typically cite violations of institutional policies or professional standards. Since early 2025, however, campus politics have become more volatile. In the aftermath of the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, several universities removed or suspended faculty and staff over controversial social media posts (Inside Higher Education, September, 19, 2025) Similar controversies have been reported in Canada as well (RIndex, 2025).

Debates about universities and politics also ignore a crucial body of scientific evidence concerning political orientation itself. Research in behavioral genetics and personality psychology shows that political orientation is surprisingly trait-like—closer to being an extravert or introvert than to preferring Pepsi over Coke (Hatemi, 2010). Like personality traits, political orientation has a heritable component and shows substantial stability across adulthood. This stability helps explain why political campaigns spend billions of dollars targeting a small number of swing voters while most citizens vote consistently over time.

Another widespread misconception is that parents exert a strong and lasting influence on their adult children’s political views. Parents do influence political attitudes during childhood and adolescence, but this influence declines sharply in early adulthood (Hatemi, 2009). By adulthood, similarity between parents and their children is explained largely by genetic similarity rather than by parental socialization (Hatemi, 2010). This helps explain why political disagreements within families are common—and why Thanksgiving dinner conversations so often avoid politics.

The most important conclusion from this research is that adolescents are not blank hard drives waiting to be programmed by parents or professors. Adolescence and early adulthood are periods of exploration in which individuals actively gravitate toward ideas that fit their underlying dispositions. Students may encounter certain arguments or perspectives for the first time at universities, but they choose how to interpret and integrate them. Exposure is not indoctrination.

Longitudinal studies of university students support this conclusion. There is little evidence that conservative students enter university and reliably graduate as “flaming liberals” (Mariani & Hewitt, 2006). Where changes in political attitudes do occur, they are typically modest and better explained by self-selection, maturation, and peer sorting than by classroom instruction.

So why does the belief in widespread university indoctrination persist? One explanation lies in a common cognitive error: people often infer causation from temporal coincidence. When parents observe that their child goes to university and later adopts different political views, it is tempting to assume that university caused the change. Yet similar changes would often have occurred anyway, regardless of whether the student attended a secular university, a religious institution, or none at all.

In conclusion, universities create and transmit scientific knowledge. Societies that invest in science and higher education tend to produce citizens who are healthier and live longer lives. Scientific inquiry can challenge traditional beliefs that are not grounded in evidence, and this tension is unavoidable in knowledge-based societies. The solution is not to vilify universities, but to recognize that diversity of viewpoints is inevitable—and valuable. Creating learning environments that benefit all students while tolerating disagreement is central to the mission of universities. Anyone who genuinely cares about students’ learning and wellbeing should support efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. This includes tolerating different political viewpoints—but tolerance cannot extend to intolerance, racism, sexism, or ideologies that deny equal rights or basic human dignity.