What if its just self selection?

Conservatives spread propaganda about woke universities -> conservative kids are less likely to go. Do this for decades and you end up in the situation we're in.

Either that or conservatives are just stupider and less likely to be academics; which is, in my opinion, more likely than your hypothesis about grand conspiracy.

And it's more than the self selection force of conseratives being too frightened that college will change their worldview. Take a liberal and a conservative with equivalent postgraduate degrees. Now offer them their choice of a faculty position or a C-suite career track. Based on the values that define their respective ideologies, is it a coin toss for which path either chooses?

Or even that the categories are shifting. People who hold perfectly reasonable classical Conservative viewpoints are now excluded from the Republican party. An institution failing to shift more right doesn't make it biased.

What if it's not that?

Let me give you a hint: the concept of DEI statement to apply for a position exists