""Conservatism", at least the modern variant, and "exploring and expanding knowledge for a greater good, while entertaining ideas that you don't necessarily agr

""Conservatism", at least the modern variant, and "exploring and expanding knowledge for a greater good, while entertaining ideas that you don't necessarily agree with" are literally antithetical." This is completely not true. I think you might confusing 'popular' liberalism (i.e. progressivism) and 'popular' conservatism (i.e. evangelicals, social conservatism, small government etc.) - with actual liberalism and conservatism. Universities were always fairly Conservative, it started to change in the 1940s-1960s. The 'liberals' in University that people are complaining about are progressives - not liberals: 1) There is a lot of 'social justice ideology' that is not particularly scientific and more perversely 2) a lot of ideas are openly suppressed because they don't promote the ideological narrative of many academics. The banishment of speakers, not allowing profs to talk about certain things because of potential 'trigger warnings', historical revisionism, and the shaping of courses to meet ideological narratives (CLASS Montreal protestors demanded a 'feminization' of the entire course material etc..) - none of this is remotely liberal by any definition. In short: Universities liberal arts faculties are are illiberal institutions. On the whole - I think it has much more to do with the admins and Uni culture - as defined by a vocal subgroup of students - than the course material itself. The student unions are more than 50% of the problem.