Academic Follies In Iowa

Everyone knows about the left’s dominance of “elite” educational institutions. The truth is, though, that state universities and lesser-known schools are often worse. The University of Iowa is a case in point. Iowa’s History Department has 27 professors, every single one of whom is a Democrat. Given the university’s commitment to diversity, you might think that when the next opening occurred, the department would take the opportunity to hire someone not associated with the Democratic Party or with political liberalism.
You would be wrong, of course. Iowa’s History Department had such an opening, and had at least one such applicant, Mark Moyar. Nor was Moyar underqualified by any conceivable measure: a graduate of Harvard with a Ph. D. from Cambridge University, he currently teaches at the U.S. Marine Corps University. But Moyar was not one of the eight applicants who made it past the screening of resumes. The problem, apparently, is that he is the author of a history of the Vietnam War titled Triumph Forsaken, which does not hew to the liberal line about the Vietnam War. Still, one might not think that being the author of Triumph Forsaken would be a black mark on the resume of an applicant for a teaching position. Here is a smattering of excerpts from reviews of the book, from Amazon:

“a stunning performance”

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