I would be more concerned about the politics inside academia skewing results than the politics outside. I have seen promising Grad Students destroyed because they said the wrong thing in answer to a question at a conference. These have nothing to do with Left/Right politics, and everything to do with what school or tradition of thought you belong to.

I weep for those who take up higher level social studies or other fuzzy subjects in college. The sheer arbitrariness (is that a word?) of it all is stunning. I've never really had to deal with it first hand, but know people who have. Imagine doing math if the value of pi was subject to a vote of your superiors.

Even if you make the somewhat odd assumption that academia has nothing to do with the political end of Left and Right, it still has a lot to do with the philosophical base of these political views. It is no coincidence that if there is a single Republican in many sociological departments, it's probably the janitor, and if you are going to get anywhere in academia you had damn well better peel that Bush sticker off your car and keep your opinions to yourself.

A number of blogs have been tracking this subject in relation to some writings from Duke University, which have been very entertaining, but I decided not to shove it in here.