The trouble is that very little of what conservatives believe, about taxes, immigration, race, criminal justice, you name it, can be backed up by empirical studies. No sooner would a conservative studies department get launched than it would fizzle out for want of actual conservatives willing to submit to a process that slaughtered all their sacred cows. The liberals who remained doing the work of conservative studies would be viewed by lay conservatives as bad faith actors, whether that were true or not.