“Shut up.”
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard those two words. In almost all cases, they are meant helpfully. What they really mean is, “You don’t have tenure yet, keep your head down. It’s best if no one at your large public university finds out that you’re conservative.” And while I am in Missouri, I know the same message is heard by my conservative university colleagues in other states.
I heard them again recently at a leadership development seminar hosted by my university system, but, for the first time, it hit me—the advice is wrong. Higher education does not need conservatives who are hiding their identity; it needs conservatives who can speak to the value of the academy.
Recent polling by the Pew Research Center found that 58 percent of Republicans say colleges have a negative
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