Social Science Research editor Jim Wright is fighting to save his professional reputation. Wright is under fire from fellow sociologists and left-wing bloggers for publishing an article in June by sociologist Mark Regnerus, which concluded that children of parents who had engaged in same-sex relationships fared worse than children from intact, heterosexual families. (Andrew Ferguson reported on the controversy in a July cover story for THE WEEKLY STANDARD.)

Conservatives contend that Wright and Regnerus are merely the latest casualties of the left’s hegemony in higher education. In truth, the social sciences and humanities are more tolerant of conservative perspectives than this scandal might suggest. There is, however, a growing divide between academic disciplines willing to tolerate a wide range of political perspectives and those, like sociology, increasingly in the business of punishing heretics and their accomplices. It will shape the future of American academia.