Recently John McGinnis and Matthew Schartz had an article titled Conservatives Need Not Apply in the Wall Street Journal. FrontPage Magazine has since put it online. They argue that diversity is not the real motivation behind Michigan's use of it as a basis of affirmative action.

In its upcoming Supreme Court case, the University of Michigan Law School justifies its very substantial preferences for selected racial and ethnic minorities on the ground that a "critical mass" of African-American and Hispanic students is needed to assure that all students have the benefit of a variety of views and experiences. But professors even more than students set the intellectual tone in university life. Generating ideas is their job. These same law schools almost uniformly lack a "critical mass" of conservatives to offer an alternative to the reigning liberal orthodoxy.

We have conducted a study that provides evidence of the ideological imbalance at elite law schools -- of which we have heard no plans to rectify. We reviewed all federal campaign contributions over $200 by professors at the top 22 law schools from 1994 to 2000. During that time, close to a quarter of these law professors contributed to campaigns -- a proportion far greater than the average citizen. The proof is stark: as the Anglican church was once described as the Tory Party at prayer, the legal academy today is best seen as the Democratic Party at the lectern. America splits evenly between the GOP and Democrats, but 74% of the professors contribute primarily to Democrats. Only 16% do so to Republicans.

These overall percentages substantially understate the effect of the partisan imbalance at most schools. Republican-contributing law professors are very disproportionately concentrated at two schools -- the University of Virginia and Northwestern. In contrast, many other elite schools have few or no politically active Republicans. At Yale, where almost 50% of the faculty donate, almost 95% give predominantly to Democrats. At Michigan itself the ratio is eight to one. Sometimes the amounts donated can be instructive: in the last six years Georgetown law professors have donated approximately $180,000 to the Democratic Party, $2,000 to the GOP and $1,500 to the Green party. Conclusion? Mainstream conservative ideas are no better represented than those on the leftist fringe...

When law schools make no progress (and no discernible effort) in correcting the patent absence of diversity in viewpoints, it is fair to assume that their true goal is racial patterning, not educational diversity.

Read the whole thing for a good basis for one more good argument against affirmative action.