There are two models for how a professor should treat his or her underlying political beliefs: put them all on the table, and let students (or any other audience members) take them into consideration, or obscure them, and let the logic and observations speak for themselves. The former approach is the one favored by theorists like Max Weber. Your biases are always there, so let them be known, and let the audience adjust for them. Fine, as far as it goes, but here's the problem, in politics. Audience members look for simplistic reasons to reject uncomfortable claims, and if those claims are made by an ideological opponent, then the audience will do so, not on the basis of logic or evidence, but on the basis of who made the argument. Similarly, audience members prone to trust an ideological ally will fail to show the proper scientific skepticism of claims made by that perceived ally, when they need to be especially careful. That, too, is a problem. Don't trust me, just because you think I might be on your side! My solution, prior to Trump, was to put nothing on the table other than the logic and evidence.
Trump really has changed a lot, for so many in this profession. It pressed my model to a breaking point. There is a point at which failure to cast moral judgment becomes moral judgment, and the more despicable a person gets, the more neutrality itself becomes normative evaluation. Complicity.
The breaking point for my classroom model was the Access Hollywood tape. It was not "just locker-room talk," and anyone stupid enough to believe that lie has no place in intellectual discourse, although the same can be said for almost anything that comes out of Trump's mouth, but that's kind of the point about Trump and what the article refers to as norm-breaking behavior. His over-the-top lying is norm-breaking. It also crosses moral and ethical lines that cannot be ignored, as does his over-the-top racism. Let's be clear, though. The problem is not that he said the word, "pussy," nor that the comment was, "lewd." I detest the lazy journalistic tic of referring to the comments as, "lewd," as a dodge because some useless dipshit in Standards & Practices told the journalists they can't say what the now-President said. The problem wasn't his diction. The problem was that he bragged about his ability to get away with sexual assault. I don't care what wording you use. I care about actions. I have no respect for pearl-clutchers who enable Trump's predations by drawing attention away from his violence by falsely describing his comments as "lewd." The problem isn't the word, "pussy." The problem is the assault, and the bragging about his ability to get away with it.
And notice that he does get away with everything. Anyone more focused on the word, "pussy," than the violence of the act is part of the reason why.
My point is that, when the major party nominee, and now-President is someone who brags about sexual assault, lies about everything, goes over-the-top with his racism, and so forth, the cast-no-judgment model cannot work. Failure to cast judgment on someone like Trump is to permit him a status that he does not deserve. Donald Trump is a special kind of monster. It is the only thing truly special about him.
In the past week, it has become increasingly difficult for even Republicans like Will Hurd to ignore that the President of the United States is subservient to a hostile foreign power. The phrase, "this is not normal" does not begin to convey how problematic Trump's behavior is. Those of us who study empirical reality have a very difficult time dealing with this. We don't want to walk into the classroom and just have to deal with the daily vileness of Trump, but at the same time, we have an obligation to empirical reality. We cannot pretend that 2 + 2 might be 5 just because the Republican Party has decided that it must defend every Trump lie. And yes, he's just lying. It is as simple as that. I'm not going to bother specifying what he's lying about, because I don't need to do so. If he is talking, or tweeting, he's lying. Period.
And all of that serves to exacerbate the hostilities between the Republican Party and academia. This sucks.