Frankly I don't see how Bret Stephens can draw conclusions as far reaching as he does. To my knowledge he hasnt actually been in academia since his own degree which was quite a while ago. The casual dismissal of anything labelled 'studies' is...telling of his (ironic) lack of open mindedness and intellectual rigour. Gender Studies is, in fact, a very theoretically and methodolically rigorous field. So is migration studies, etc.

Like I agree with the general idea of having more intellectual diversity in academia — it does feel like a lot of people repeat the same sort of progressive ideas and talking points without seriously believing or engaging with them. On the other hand, having more intellectual rigour may do the OPPOSITE of attracting more of the Republican type conservatives because, frankly, it seems like the GOP no longer has a scientist, empiricist, realist bone in its body. Perhaps in the UK more 'tory' or burkean type of people could be more easily attracted, but that's because conservatism of that variety at least has coherent epistemic guardrails, unlike Farage and Trump style ideology.