"There are three big reasons that conservatives are hard to find in university faculties: intellectual consistency, anti-science trends by conservatives and social pressure."

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COMMENTS: 
*  Conservatives pander to the less educated. All problems are simple and have a simple solution: Get really angry and vocalize your emotions a lot. The louder you yell the better you feel. Real solutions take time and patience--not a conservative way. Jump to conclusions with no evidence whatever--use your "gut feelings". Not the way of a fact-finder, an analyst and thinker. This dichotomy has been around for generations and is not going away.
*  Free and open thinking is liberating and cannot be constricted by conservative ideals.
*  I am a professor of religion and anthropology at a small Catholic college in the south. The primary issue I have with the GOP is their utter disdain for a sound, reasoned, data-based epistemology. They will eschew sound science for purely ideological reasons (e.g., creationism, global warming, the impact of genetics on sexual orientation, etc.). And this tendency just got worse when the religious fundamentalists took over. Being a southerner, I never forgave them for their "southern strategy" where they set themselves up as the party for all those who wanted to make the democrats pay for civil rights. No, I personally cannot associate myself with such a party.
   *  Religion a sound science? Lost your argument there and no amount of your reasoning will help what ever you have to say.
*  I would add that the leaders of the Republican Party based many of their decisions on maintaining power and control of their environment. The right-wing conservatives had to acquiesce to Civil Rights for Blacks, then women, then non-Christians, then Homosexuals and now the larger LGBT community. While Civil Rights for all is a good thing for the world this has been too much for the right-wing conservatives to handle. Their small, highly controlled community world-view has gone away with the advent of the Internet. They no longer control the message for their communities and that frightens them.
*   there are reason that Trump does not release his tax returns --- he is a liar; he is a greedy narcissist that gives nothing to charity; he is a lousy businessman (though a good liar)......
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WHY ARE THERE SO FEW CONSERVATIVES IN ACADEMIA?
By Quora Contributor and Jordan Boyd-Graber, May 21, 2016

I'm a professor. I'm fairly centrist (fiscally conservative, socially liberal, generally pro-market libertarian), which makes me very right-wing compared to my colleagues. I would have definitely been a Republican in the last century (before the southern strategy), and was actually registered as one until recently (partially for game theoretic reasons). At the national level, I've donated to more Republicans (Romney, Huntsman, and Ron Paul) than Democrats (Lessig).

There are three big reasons that conservatives are hard to find in university faculties: intellectual consistency, anti-science trends by conservatives and social pressure.

Intellectual consistency. As a professional "thinker" (however pretentious that sounds) academics value intellectual consistency and people who can articulate sound policies. However, all of this century's top ticket Republicans have lacked this essential trait. Thus, philosophical consistency has prevented me from voting for any Republican presidential candidate since I've been able:

• George W. Bush was a big government Republican, was unabashedly anti-intellectual and surrounded himself with evil, lying people; he expanded the debt, entitlements and brought more religion into government (all anathema to me). He also handled the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan completely incompetently.
• I really wanted to vote for John McCain, and I'm still upset for Bush's dirty tricks in South Carolina (see above) that stole the primary from one of the most honorable politicians in the US. I think campaign finance reform is the most important issue in America, and I think McCain would actually have the guts to do something about it. However, when such an old candidate chooses a vapid religious fundamentalist as his running mate, I simply cannot vote for him (if only he'd picked (Joe) Lieberman, (Mitt) Romney, (Tim) Pawlenty or (Jon) Huntsman).
• I liked Romney until he completely abandoned Romneycare, which was completely intellectually dishonest (it was developed by the Heritage Foundation!). I ended up voting for Gary Johnson instead out of protest.
• 2016 is so much worse ...

I suspect that many of my colleagues who are also prone to be centrist feel similarly.

(The local level is a different matter. There, Republicans are more consistently pro-development and anti-NIMBY. They also are more supportive of nuclear energy and reasonable policies on GMOs. I’ve often voted for Republicans at county/city level, but given the places I’ve lived they never have a chance anyway, so it’s a bit of a protest vote.)

Another issue is that Republicans have been increasingly anti-science, hounding federal funding agencies looking for "fraud" and "waste" and pursuing witch hunts against climate scientists. That deeply offends intellectuals both at a philosophical level and at a practical level (we depend on state and federal funding).

Social pressure. Finally, the few "conservatives" that are in academia tend to keep their mouths shut. If we're in a science discipline, we can just steer conversation to our personal lives or business to keep things running smoothly. Or we concentrate on issues where we agree with our peers (education, equal rights, immigration reform, how Trump is a buffoon).
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