University of Colorado absurd "hire a conservative" mission.

Edumacation: The obvious thought is why most of higher education is so lopsided in its diversity of thinking in the first place. The second thought is this is just the dumbest idea in hiring practices to make sure you have a diversity of thinking on campus. A campus which is notorious for being a liberal hotbed to the point its students think of it as the correct kind of reeducation camp.

Lopsided Politics

Jack Roldan, vice chair of the College Republicans, has felt the lopsided politics keenly during his four years studying international affairs. He longed for a conservative mentor, and says he graduated last week with many questions left unanswered: When is military intervention necessary? Why does the GOP focus so much on economic policy? And what's up with the neo-cons?

"There's a lot more about what I'm about that I'd like to know," Mr. Roldan says.

Other students don't have much sympathy. They love Boulder precisely because of its liberal swagger.

Sophomore Marissa Malouff sees the campus as a sort of re-education camp. Sheltered rich kids from out-of-state might come for the snowboarding, but while they're here they get dunked in a simmering pot of left-wing idealism. And that, in her view, is how it should be.

"They need to learn about social problems and poverty and the type of things liberal professors are likely to talk about," says Ms. Malouff, a Democrat.

Hiring a conservative professor in this way is like getting a rare monkey for a zoo. I applaud hiring professors based on qualifications and to make the intellectual makeup more diverse but this way seems more like headline grabbing than a serious move.