The purge of heretical scholars and ideas in academia is intensifying.1 Many job applications now require loyalty oaths to woke orthodoxy in the form of “diversity statements.”2 In the humanities and social sciences, large numbers of faculty are being hired to engage in what is effectively leftist activism.3Simply ranting about how much you hate conservatives, Christians, or straight white men can be considered “scholarship” and the basis for a distinguished career. Entire departments devoted to ideology-driven fields like gender studies have been established to promote “social justice” and provide sinecures to activists.4 Academic papers that undermine the woke narrative are being retracted,5 and journals are adopting implicit or explicit polices to ensure that crimethink is never published again.6 Many undergraduate and graduate programs have stopped asking for standardized test scores and are increasingly making admissions decisions based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and ideological conformity.
Seven years ago, Heterodox Academy (HxA) came on the scene to promote “ideological diversity” in academia. Cofounder Jonathan Haidt—a prominent social psychologist who is now chair of the board of directors and the person most associated with the organization—spoke forcefully about the scholarship-corrupting effects of liberal groupthink. The leaders of HxA led people to believe that they were going to organize a meaningful resistance.
Seven years later, you can count HxA’s accomplishments in promoting heterodoxy on the fingers of zero hands. It has focused mainly on aggrandizing celebrity academics who hold conventional leftist views, and giving a platform to liberals to engage in empty virtue signaling about their alleged commitment to free inquiry. Scholars whose work is genuinely heterodox have been systematically marginalized. In at least one instance, a psychologist known for his work on race differences (Helmuth Nyborg) was denied membership.