Are professors born pinkos? A new way to test

Patricia Cohen's article in the New York Times last week got a lot of attention, because of its explanation of why academics generally had liberal political views. University life didn't make them that way, according to evidence discussed in the article; they were that way before they arrived. Ie, according to this theory nascent liberals start out* more interested in academics than young conservatives are, so the professoriat naturally ends up on the left.
 
A reader originally from China who now teaches at a major US university wrote about a way to test this "born not made" claim:

"While I can agree that some conservatives are turned away by the notion of a liberal academia, it seems to me that this hypothesis can be tested out on foreign nationals studying in the US. For example, many Chinese nationals have become professors in the U.S. Few of them had serious exposure to western liberalism before coming to the U.S., and certainly few of them chose academia because of its alleged left leaning ideology. Many of them, while studying as graduate students in science and engineering, probably cared little about ideology and politics. Therefore it would make sense to study this group, especially those who are just beginning their academic careers.

"My bet is that the outcome of the study will show that most of them are not conservative in the Fox News sense. I believe that overwhelmingly people who can think more critically are not conservatives in the Fox News sense. It is very hard for me to imagine someone who can think critically could be enamored with Sarah Palin and view her as a serious presidential candidate, for example. For the very same reason I do not believe Jesse Jackson has much support in academia either. The problem in the current political environment is that almost anything not religious right is viewed as left."

Yet another reason to keep welcoming in those foreign graduate students! A reason apart from my long-standing pitch that they are part of America's biggest advantage over the rest of the world (that we can attract a disproportionate share of the world's talent). Now we learn that, as a bonus, they provide a control group for our socio/political experiments.
____
* Whether or not it applies in academia, I am sure this is true of journalism. People drawn to this line of work aren't mainly interested in maximizing their "net worth" -- the ones who are, soon realize their mistake! Though we're all happy to earn as much as we can, and I feel grateful every day to be making a good living -- really, to have stayed employed -- doing something I love.