Sure

https://www.aei.org/articles/partisan-professors/

I'd be shocked to find anyone surprised by this.

It’s a pretty commonly repeated theory amongst far right / reactionary “thought leaders”. They call it the “Long March Through the Institutions”. I think the comment you were responding to was ironically referencing it.

More likely that conservatives turned liberal once the right went all in on anti-intellectualism.

Of course the real question is: what does conservative even mean any more? The joining of Falwell and Reagan fucked both conservatism and evangelical Christianity.