The American Academy for Liberal Education (AALE) used to be beloved by conservatives for its staunch advocacy of traditional liberal arts education, not the politically correct, pseudo-intellectual pabulum conservatives think is dribbling out of most American schools.

But then AALE got in the way of the Bush administration’s obsession with declaring itself the head of all education, and has like St. Thomas More ever since been languishing in the college accreditors’ version of the Tower of London, waiting as the U.S. Department of Education has seemingly searched for ways to have it “legally” killed. Inside Higher Ed has more on what has happened to these one-time conservative friends since they’ve dared to say that higher education can’t be reduced to simple, standardized-test scores, and to resist big-government conservatives’ most unconservative education power-grab.