An astute professor once said that political wrangling in universities is so vicious because the stakes are so small. There are those in proverbial ivory towers who will struggle to get control of a faculty or become an assistant dean with an animus that would ill befit a general in battle. There is one caveat here, though, and it is this: the stakes are not so small when you consider that professors can shape the minds of a whole generation. A recent letter in The New York Times signed by Catholic academics, objected that a columnist had no right to...