Are students leaving the politics out of economics?

The NY Times argues that they are. According to a poll of 230 of graduate economics students of University of Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, students are leaving the politics out of economics. Graduate students are interested in empirical analyses but they do not want to advocate specific policies on the bases of their research results: they do not want to “take the next step, from research to advocacy” .
The NY Times article Students Are Leaving the Politics Out of Economics was pointed out in the January 27th post of Marginal Revolution.