"Education is conservative."
These statements confuse me. Are they sarcastic, or actual statements of fact about US education?
At the Collegic level, American Universities are pretty much run on Precedent, and Tenure. So, the senior professors get the most privilege, on up to near immunity/cover-ups to protect them from Scandals.
"History is written by the Victors."
~W. Churchill.
Look at the old institutions in Oxford, and Cambridge. The traditions, the Greek fraternities that we got from you. I'm sure the media wants to paint that system as "Liberal," but only to appeal to those who want more Traditional/prestigious schools, for the next generation.
I can't show pictures, but look at the uniforms for Boarding Schools. Not just the Catholic, and Anglican ones, the state run Preparatory schools. The media says a lot of things, but "Conservative," and "Liberal" don't mean the same thing on either side of the pond, nor in Oregon the same as the Ivy League of New England. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, though.
There are Progressive Schools, like Caltech, and MiT, but the wealth, and power goes to the traditional schools like Yale, and Harvard. If they don't send their kids to European (Old World) schools to study abroad, or forge their records to put them on the Crew team.
I guess you can substitute the term Traditional in my answer.
answering a question here. I saw that as an invitation to psisplain on an intrinsically Academic subject.