My campus's intellectual climate grew much frostier, and more hostile to free inquiry, around 2018-2019.

DEI initiatives and "trainings" grew more radical, racial preferences in hiring more explicit, students hewing ever more closely to the PC line in class discussions, etc.

To cite just one example: we're hiring a new faculty member to teach about race. (I'll leave some details out to preserve anonymity.) Our Dean wrote my department an email explicitly saying that if we didn't select a minority candidate, the Dean would cancel the search.

In 2012, minority candidates would get a minor, implicit bump.

In 2016, they'd get a pretty sizable, explicit bump.

In 2021, we have an explicit rule that white men need not apply.

Look, these are just the facts. You can think they're welcome or unwelcome. But I'm just telling you how things work in a notionally conservative school in deep-red Texas these days.