Very sad.
Professors disagree with each other all the time. Politics. Economics. Philosophy. If any advanced educational institution is only providing a singular narrative in any domain, then they are doing a disservice to their students. Students are there to learn. To think. To examine. While they may hear many well reasoned arguments that seem to make sense (and indeed may make sense), without the opportunity to examine other positions, students lack the perspective needed to come to their own conclusions. Your undergraduate years should be a time to question everything. Top liberal arts schools like Smith have a moral and practical obligation to encourage this discussion, not repress it. Life is very complicated and doesn’t lend itself to uniform, ideologically unilateral pronouncements. Everyone has some piece of the puzzle. While some ideas are more integrated, more complete, more deeply reasoned than others, at the individual level, they did not start out this way.
The principle problem is that Associate and Assistant non-tenured professors do not feel that they have the freedom to discuss alternative points of view. They are afraid that if they do, they will be attacked, penalized, and possibly dismissed from their academic institution. This is a disservice to that institutions students. Ideas that you do not agree with are uncomfortable by nature. They are threatening. This is the nature of civil debate. No student, however, has a right to shut down a civil debate solely because it makes them uncomfortable. This is the essence of a liberal arts education.
My daughter has applied to Smith (along with three other, small, female schools) + Macalester + Bowdoin. She is very liberal so I am not concerned with her fitting in at any of these schools. She is also very closed minded. Not open to discussion about opposing political and economic viewpoints. Again, should she be accepted, I am sure that she will fit in nicely with the culture.