Apparently, the department of agriculture is the last bastion for ideological pluralism in the modern American academy. Almost everywhere else, according to research by Stanley Rothman et al., a monolithic liberal orthodoxy holds sway, rewarding its own and conferring career disadvantage upon scholars deemed politically inconvenient. As his acceptance address for the NAS's highest award, Professor Rothman proffers statistical corroboration, from his team's survey analyses, of the anecdotal impression that many who aspire to the centers of intellectual curiosity are excluded simply for thinking different thoughts. (Contains 17 notes and 4 tables.)