You know, I am excited about going to graduate school. Even though it might turn out that I only got into one program, I still got in somewhere and will be pursuing my PhD in the fall. Yet at this stage I am a bit more scared than I am excited. Have I made the right choice? I don't have much doubt that I can swing the academics; after all, I can read and write (although it will take time to get back to my old and higher standards), and am great at talking to groups and enjoy teaching very much. But I do have doubts whether I can survive in the environment given my personality and philosophy.
I tend to discount conservative lamentations on the state of the academy, even when they come from those who should know (like Roger Kimball and The New Criterion crowd, Stanley Kurtz, etc.). After all, it can't possibly be that bad and surely things will start changing now, right? Reading things like this article in The Washington Post I begin to have doubt about that.
Of course, while surveys like this show how liberal or Left academia is, they don't give insight into the practical effect of these statistics, like if there is a bias in hiring or in the evaluation or treatment of graduate students. Without any scientific study showing these things they can continue to use the "conservatives just don't want to be academics" dodge and continue to dismiss as anecdotal the personal testimony of those who felt that there was discrimination against them.
After all, is it not conservatives that say that the fact that minorities feel they are victims of discrimination does not prove that there is, in fact, discrimination?