I guess it never occurred to Republicans that perhaps the problem isn't that liberal arts departments in universities are almost universally left-of-center due to any form of indoctrination, but rather that intense academic study and research inclines these individuals towards a left-of-center worldview. For example, as a Sociology student, there's very little in the discipline that'd incline someone to adopt right-wing politics unless they're sociopaths. This isn't simply because our professors are left wing or the texts we read, but because we're exposed to so many injustices and how they're largely socially constructed (sexism, transphobia, homophobia, racism, xenophobia, white privilege, heteronormativity, etc). Thus, to be rightwing would be, essentially, to embrace those phobias and the unjust privileges associated with them.
But, considering Republicans are terrified of education because it's all "indoctrination," they'd never understand that. They'd rather place ignorant people in charge of education as if that'll somehow fix things.
Or it could be that these subjects develop a certain ideological bent where certain ideological points of view are ruthlessly purged whilst others are heavily promoted.
For example you may study the fact that different ethnic groups in the US and elsewhere have widely differing average income and wealth rates as well as very different academic success rates. Now why might that be?
As this article here in the Guardian of all places points out it is well established that most of the differences in academic ability between individuals is the results of genetic differences
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jul/23/genes-influence-academic-ability-across-all-subjects-latest-study-showsCould genetic differences between different ethnic groups wholly or party explain differences in average academic outcomes? I do not propose to discuss such questions here (apart from anything else I imagine the moderators wouldn't be happy to allow such a discussion). My point is that it is impossible to know the answer to this question from the consensus in the social sciences. If a scientist so much as asks that question they are subjected to a campaign of villification, pressure to leave or be sacked from their job, the end of any prospects of career advancement even if they do keep their jobs and sometimes even mob violence winked and excused by the authorities (see the recent
case of Charles Murray being attacked by a mob)
Now the motives of those carrying out these 'social consequences' are purely social and political, they have nothing to do with the evidence or the truth. In other words we cannot know if the 'scientific consensus' in this question is true because the parameters of that consensus are being set but social/political, not scientific reasons.
