Even if someone doesn't know a Muslim personally, they are exposed to Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi regime, ISIS, Hezbollah, etc.
1. The elected officials and thought leaders of a group are much more representative of a group's beliefs than rogue actors.
2. The point you're trying to make is that evangelicals may not be a monolith. That's a completely fair argument abstractly - but what does it mean concretely? After all, Evangelical is much more specific than Muslim. Specifically, in the context of the last 30 years of American politics, Evangelicals have been a socially conservative movement, often standing in the way of gay rights & women's rights. "Muslim" is just a much broader term, and doesn't carry that political weight.
If your argument is that there are evangelicals outside of that movement that aren't bigoted that deserve to be heard, well you have to explain what that group looks like. Also, you have to change your thesis to "We need more moderately right leaning people in the academy" which as you can see is a much less bold and interesting claim, and is one about goal posts, not the intolerance of the left.
3. Internal politics are more reliable. The average American can understand more of the nuance of what's happening in their country because it's reported & discussed more, and competing sources are more readily available.
4. Let's be honest, it's not like the academy is swimming in Muslims either.
Kristoff agrees that blatant homophobes, racists, misogynists, etc don't deserve to be hired.
What evidence do you have to suggest this is the case and that these conservative hypotheses are fairly investigated?
Sociologists are under a lot of pressure to prove leftist memes and there are many cases of fraud and very poor scientific standards.
Sociology research is effectively useless to me because of leftism. In fact, most political reporting is useless because I have to spend many more cycles tying to figure out if the person isn't just trying to virtue signal instead of be pragmatic and truthful.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/article/chump-effect/610143
> First of all, discriminating against someone because they hold intolerant beliefs is categorically different from discriminating against someone based on their religion
Religion is a set of beliefs... What?
Mainstream Islam literally calls for people to be put to death for drawing pictures of Mohammad or renouncing Islam.
> he needs to provide examples of the useful discourse we are missing out on.
Ben Shapiro is a great example.
> Frankly, the center-left vs hard-left feel like the debates we should be having as a society
No thanks, let's have a discussion about right vs left vs hard left.
I had a discussion on Reddit about how we could fix the problem with the police and race in America. One thing that came up was that, culturally, "don't be a rat." That is a cultural nuance that stands in the way of resolving the issue.
In terms of wealth, I routinely witness white privilege in South Africa. I pissed about far too much in school, dropped out of university and yet I'm still successful. Contrast this with my Uber drivers: highly motivated blacks who have to work 10 times harder than I ever did. One is on his 2nd degree and is still battling to be successful. I very clearly have an unfair advantage. However, culturally, "you must vote for the ANC." The ANC are responsible for the continuation of inequality in South Africa. I believe that there would be slightly more opportunity (certainly not as much as I have) were it not for that cultural law.
This particularly is incredibly disingenuous:
> I suspect many liberals disdain evangelicals in part because they don’t have any evangelical friends.
The comparison to Muslims is an awful false equivalence. First of all, discriminating against someone because they hold intolerant beliefs is categorically different from discriminating against someone based on their religion (and let's be honest, given that Sikhs and other South Asians get targeted, it's really a racial issue). Second, he's postulating this without any evidence. Lots of academics grew up in the South or the Midwest, and a lot of great universities are in those areas as well. Thirdly, even if someone doesn't know an evangelical personally, they are exposed to Jerry Falwell, the Bush administration, Fox News, Kim Davis, etc.
If Kristoff wants to make the claim that individual conservatives shouldn't be judged based on the plethora of conservative thought leaders that represent them in the media, he needs to provide an actual argument for that distinction. If he doesn't want racists, homophobes, misogynists, etc. in the academy, he needs to provide examples of the useful discourse we are missing out on.
Frankly, the center-left vs hard-left feel like the debates we should be having as a society, e.g. how do we reconcile the racist history of our most esteemed institutions with our modern values, or how do we deal with the consequences of tech rapidly eliminating the livelihoods of millions of working class citizens.