Rice University professors Michelle Hebl and Randi Martin and graduate student Juan Madera, now an assistant professor at the University of Houston, reviewed 624 letters of recommendation for 194 applicants for eight junior faculty positions at a U.S. university.
During Mr. Ryan's junior year as an undergraduate at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, he took a class with a professor named Rich Hart, an outspoken and engaging libertarian with a bust of Elvis Presley in his office and an arresting contempt for the direction his university has taken over the past 20 years.