Inside Higher Ed reports this morning, unsurprisingly, that college presidents “have been in virtual lockstep — through legal briefs filed by scores of groups and associations, newspaper op-eds by individual presidents, and the like — in asserting that curtailing affirmative action would hurt the quality of the education students receive.”

Imagine its surprise, therefore, when its own new survey survey of   “841 college presidents, 27 percent of those invited to participate,” revealed that not to be the case.

As unified as they have been in their public stances, college leaders do not hold uniformly positive views on affirmative action, especially when it comes to the question at the core of the Fisher v. Texas…. Only 70 percent of campus leaders agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that consideration of race in admissions has had a “mostly positive effect on higher education generally,” and only 58 percent said the use of race in admissions has had “a mostly positive effect on education” at their institutions.

Too bad we haven’t heard more from these timid shrinking violets.

Perhaps they lack a “critical mass” of supporters among their faculties — most of which no doubt also “have been in virtual lockstep” support of racial preferences — that would give them the courage to voice their opinions in public.