I'm not completely sure what you mean by "putting up with core-demographic provincialism" - I assume it's the "Yay hard sciences boo humanities!" subtext, no?

I believe the subtext is more about LW's racial and gender makeup than our favorite parts of academia.

Edit: Though I suppose part of it would be a typical anti-humanities reaction to, say, departments of gender studies, African-American Studies, Queer-studies etc. and their manifestation in, e.g. English departments.