Cold Spring Shops updates his comments on my post about the Lichter study of political attitudes of academics, questioning the direction of causality. He also points me in the direction of University Diaries (reminder to self -- read UD more often) who points out that libertarian views could get called liberal by that study.

UD skews liberal for the purposes of the study about which Kurtz is writing. �The professors and instructors surveyed are, strongly or somewhat, in favor of abortion rights [yup]; believe homosexuality is acceptable [acceptable? I think we can do better than that], and want more environmental protections �even if it raises prices or costs jobs.� [UD is an enviro-freak].� But on international politics UD looks much more conservative than her colleagues, and it�s too bad that it�s pointless for her to open a conversation about this anywhere on campus.

Except with her students, of course. They�re far more conservative than any of us.

Thank God. I am no enviro-freak (I hope ANWR gets drilled as often as ARod in the ribs with fastballs) , but on the others her views are at least within a standard deviation of my own.