I have no doubts about your story. I’m guessing your friend was attempting to teach in a business school, too, right? That such an anti-Republican bias would exist there is truly scary.
I had originally considered becoming an art historian, and after talking to several professors, I was told that:
1) I would have to change my political views if I wanted to consider even applying to top Ph.D. programs
2) That I would have to shy away from my faith and avoid discussing it as a reason to pursue graduate study in medieval art. This in a field where men dedicated their entire lives towards building churches which they would never see through to their completion. Where practically all art centered about the church.
3) That I would have to keep my mouth sealed and speak the party line, at least until I gained tenure or had attained the standing I so desired.
Lovely, isn’t it?
With more than a handful of artists in the family, everyone here knows that artists are not motivated in their work by anything ever taught in an art history course of anykind, anywhere, anytime.