Actually, Huntington's vocation, properly pursued, makes him unsuited to the academy as it evidently wants to be understood. And his civic virtue would make him uncomfortable in the academy as it is currently composed.
Huntington, a political scientist who understands the irreducibly philosophical nature of his vocation, should be content to leave the academy to the "hard" scientists whose vocations, although dignified, are different. However, the academy, by the undignified political bigotry that was a component of its action against Huntington, calls into question its fitness, and that of its subordinate organization, the National Research Council, to receive public funds for research projects that result in advocacy on public policies.
The academy was founded during the Civil War to advise the government in military-engineering problems. Since then, there seems to have developed an inverse relationship between the technical virtuosity and civic virtue of the scientists controlling the academy.
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