The Political Orientation of College Faculty

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Many studies have been done to measure the political inclinations of college faculty members. These have repeatedly shown a leftward-leaning ideology. One recent study was performed in 2007 by two professors (Harvard and George Mason). Here are some summary statistics that they found:</p>

<p>% , Political Orientation</p>

<p>9.4% , Extremely Liberal
34.7% , Liberal
18.1% , Slightly Liberal
18.0% , Middle of the Road
10.5% , Slighty Conservative
8.0% , Conservative
1.2% , Very Conservative</p>

<p>As lopsided as these numbers are for the liberal viewpoint, this tendency is even stronger at the nation's most elite colleges.</p>

<p>Liberal , Moderate , Conservative , Political Orientation by Institution Type
56.6% 33.1% 10.2% Elite, PhD
44.3% , 51.9% , 3.8% , Non Elite, PhD
61.0% , 35.1% , 3.9% , Liberal Arts
38.8% , 48.5% , 12.7% , BA, non Liberal Arts
37.1% , 43.9% , 19.0% , Community College</p>

<p>44.1% , 46.6% , 9.3% , Total</p>

2

<p>Liberals are smarter, thats why.</p>

3

<p>Regardless of personal political position, faculty should objectively present various perspectives on political issues while in the classroom. Faculty who actively promote their political positions in the classroom are spewing propoganda. They are not doing their jobs. They should present unpopular opinions and views as objectively as popular views.</p>

<p>I always respected faculty who could effectively debate both sides of an issue. That is more informative than one-sided presentations.</p>

4

<p>There is a positive correlation between educational level and liberalness, so the results are not surprising. That doesn't mean that liberals are smarter, but that intelligent people tend to be more liberal.</p>

5

<p>Hope you guys don't strain anything while patting yourselves on the back over your perceived intellectual superiority. What's the old saying? "Those can can, do - Those that can't, teach". Intelligence has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative. There are plenty of smart folks and plenty of morons on both sides of the table. Get over yourselves.</p>

6

<p>"presenting both sides of every argument" is sort of a simplification of a seemingly admirable idea. I think the higher you go up the food chain in academia, the more likely you are to be taught by people who have done original, peer-reviewed, research. Certainly, there should be some attempt to place their own work into a wider context; and, more ofter than not, that's going to entail discussing differing points of view. But, let's not confuse that with "affirmative action" for every viewpoint under the sun. If a professor has a proven track record in a certain area, people are generally in that classroom to hear what he has to say, and, how he supports what he has to say. If they haven't already heard all of the opposing viewpoints by that time, they should probably take a lower level course.</p>

7

<p>johnwesley,
While I appreciate your comments, I think many in the liberal camp underestimate the distrust that many non-liberals have for those in academia. The frequent impression is that there is a firmly-established (and entrenched) liberal orthodoxy on many college campuses that does not tolerate opposing viewpoints. Tales abound of tenure-seeking teachers with conservative leanings being denied that status, with patterns similar to what have been seen by groups such as minorities and women in the workplace. Similarly, there are many examples of outrageous behaviour by leftist college faculty with little to no professional or career impact. </p>

<p>I liken the world of academia to a media outlet, eg, the NY Times, which has a wealth of liberal viewpoints and far fewer conservative contributions. Is there real debate taking place within that institution or is it just window-dressing (if even that)? Are staffers rewarded by challenging the prevailing orthodoxy and providing a different perspective or are they penalized for this? I also think that similar criticism can be directed at the few more conservatively-oriented media players. Are both sides of an argument truly being given a platform or is one side being (regularly) favored in the presentations? </p>

<p>I think it is difficult to make any universally true statements about the way such matters are handled on college campuses (or in media institutions), but there is lots of data that makes one wonder. One such data point is the following:</p>

<p>% of College Faculty , Voting Affiliation</p>

<p>32.4% , Strong Democrat
18.6% , Weak Democrat
19.8% , Independent-Democrat
8.5% , Independent
7.0% , Independent-Republican
8.7% , Weak Republican
5.0% , Strong Republican</p>

<p>As bad as these numbers are, they are likely far worse at America's top colleges. Liberals may cheer, but I assure you that more conservative and/or moderate students, parents, families, alumni, employers reach different conclusions about the moral and intellectual authority of those in higher education.</p>

8

<p>hawkette - get over it. Conservatives seem to have little interest in going into academia, so there are very few of them there. In the vast majority of departments there's no bias against hiring them. As someone who has been around academia his whole life (both my parents are professors at major research universities) I can assure you that academics have far more petty things to squabble about and use as reasons not to hire people than whether they are Democrats or Republicans (though certain political issues will often become important if they are the actual subject of a professor's work- Israel/Palestine for instance, though different departments will bias different ways on that one). But in the many stories of infighting I've heard about hiring decisions, it's been based on factionalism that bears no relation to politics.</p>

<p>Conservatives are more likely to go into business, liberals are more likely to go into academia. It's not about political bias in hiring, it's about liberals mistrusting corporations and conservatives participating in the anti-intellectualism that is currently rampant in the American conservative movement (this is a fairly new phenomenon, you don't have to go back too many decades to find the conservative domination of many fields).</p>

9

<p>lutefisk:</p>

<p>You are in denial, my friend. A lot of conservatives go into business because they are naturally inclined towards a capitalist mentality and know there is much more financial reward and faster upward mobility than there is in academia. However, there are many conservatives in the workplace who are deeply dissatisfied and disillusioned with the corporate world and would go into teaching BUT FOR the well grounded perception they would not be welcomed at most schools, save except prestigious MBA programs or perhaps law schools. But even there, the perception of a liberal bias for hiring and tenure exists. </p>

<p>Further, there are MANY liberals in the corporate world. Even some CEO's and wallstreet IBankers. Some rather famous people you may see everyday on CNBC and Bloomberg are in fact liberal democrats. </p>

<p>What needs to change is a, pardon the pun, sea-change in the mentality of academic institutions. They need to stop the lip service of being equitable and justice seeking institutions and start practicing what they preach, then reach out to conservatives to enter the professional teaching ranks. And professors need to encourage young conservative undergraduates to continue their studies to the PhD and not fear losing their souls or home as the case may be. And not just in the classic majors of economics, math or accounting. But all the liberal arts.</p>

<p>This has to come from the top down: from the Office of the President of each school. A declaration that they will seek to recruit a more balanced faculty and not tolerate any political discrimination. </p>

<p>Its also a complete misrepresentation to imply that conservatives cant get along with liberals, seek harmony and compromise in internal academic administrative problems. </p>

<p>And I concur with CollegeHelp that it is the supreme duty of ANY professor to not preach and use his/her podium to advance a singular point of view. That is antithetical to what the college or university is supposed to be about: the exploration of many ideas, the research of and search for truth, and fostering an environment of mutual respect and advancement of ideas, not curtailing them. There are many outstanding examples of professors of one political wing or another who represent the finest of teaching professionalism and who frankly desire and thrive in an environment of healthy exchange of ideas, including playing devil's advocate and switching sides often, using the ancient Socratic method to bring about enlightenment in the minds of all students, regardless of their own personal point of view. I rarely had an experience of a biased (and evil) professor in college. They were out there, and in one case, the complaints were so vociferous, that person was terminated shortly thereafter. </p>

<p>And a professor should never ever engage in any level of grade deflation because of a bias on a particular issue. Does it happen? Yes, sadly too often. And meek students are often afraid of filing complaints with the Dean for Students for fear of recrimination. So what do students do? Hammer profs on ratemyprofessor.com.</p>

<p>It may well be that true conservatives will always be in the minority, which is entirely different from an overall "conservative" value system we see in most american families. I have seen "permissive parenting" going on in both liberal and conservative families, with largely the same sad result, though perhaps different circumstances.</p>

10

<p>svalbardlutefisk,
Your comments remind me of people who once said women had no interest in business, so quit complaining about it. This is still the case with some industries. Do the corporations bear any of the responsibility for this state of affairs or is it just the fault of women? For topics favored by liberals, the practice has been that they would be at the ramparts fighting for equal representation or equal rights or whatever. Now, in a situation where they (liberals) are the dominant group, do you believe that they have a responsibility to act to balance the gross overrepresentation of one perspective?</p>

11

<p>
[quote]
I liken the world of academia to a media outlet, eg, the NY Times, which has a wealth of liberal viewpoints and far fewer conservative contributions.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>If you think the gray lady is liberal, Hawkette, you need to do some re-reading. Sure, it has liberal viewpoints on the op-ed pieces, just as the Wall Street Journal has conservative viewpoints. But at the end of the day the Times is centrist and corporatist. </p>

<p>The <em>worst</em> you can say about it is that it strives to be more reality-based than many other newspapers.</p>

12

<p>hawkette - you claim that "conservative and/or moderate students, parents, families, alumni, employers reach different conclusions about the moral and intellectual authority of those in higher education."</p>

<p>That's fine. True conservatives live and die by the marketplace. Where is the new, "conservative Ivy League"? I'd like to see it.</p>

13

<p>hawkette - you're equating one's sex with one's political affiliation - and it's an entirely ridiculous comparison. An entire value system, an entire society in fact, was built up to exclude women from the workforce (and to some extent these forces continue to be strong). But Conservatism is a political movement, not a natural part of one's identity. People choose to participate in the anti-intellectualism that pervades most strains of American conservatism. And they don't have to, because there are still a few conservative schools of thought that value education, knowledge, and learning, they just aren't the ones that dominate, say, the Republican Party, which bases much of its success on demeaning the supposed "elitism" of higher education (while having no problem with class-based elitism). If a conservative chooses to follow the anti-intellectual conservatism of a George Bush, a Bill O'Reilly, and the like, rather than the more academic and intellectual conservatism of a Donald Kagan or a William F. Buckley, Jr, I fail to see how that is the fault of liberal academics. Academics care about what they do and about making their students value it, and they care about making all their students value it, regardless of political affiliation. Are there a few professors who let politics infect everything they do academically, including their participation in hiring decisions? Of course. But there are a few people like that in every area (the massive pressure on upper-management in some corporations to donate to a preferred political candidate, for instance). </p>

<p>Also, I have trouble taking seriously someone who can write the phrase "equal rights or whatever." Your total dismissal of a very serious issue in favor of complaining about something that is not at all comparable problem is mindboggling. </p>

<p>alGorescousin, you need to work on reading comprehension. I never said that there aren't liberals in the corporate world, just that they are comparatively less likely to enter it, same as conservatives in academia (there are lots of prominent academic conservatives, and there were more before recent Republican anti-intellectualism turned a lot of academics, particularly in the sciences, away from the conservative movement. Things like global warming denial and the intelligent-design movement have made a lot of scientists into Democrats). I also never said that professors shouldn't encourage conservative students to follow academic pursuits, I think they should, just as they should encourage liberal students to do the same. I certainly agree that political discrimination in hiring shouldn't be tolerated, but I think conservatives have massively exaggerated the scale of the problem (and ignored the fact that other political affiliations are also discriminated against - how many leftist economists do you think teach in elite economics departments?) I think the fact that you say that you rarely had a professor use his or her class to propagate his or her political beliefs supports everything I've said - that having the vast majority of the overwhelmingly liberal professoriat is entirely professional and do not allow their political beliefs to control their teaching or their participation in hiring decisions.</p>

<p>But the notion that having political balance in the faculty is a high priority is ridiculous. A diversity of academic perspectives is essential, not of political perspectives. Different professors favor different methodologies, different tools, and different approaches. It's far more important for a political science department to have a balance between quantitative and qualitative approaches to the field, to take a simple example, than to have a balance in Republicans and Democrats. </p>

<p>One a somewhat unrelated point, CayugaRed is entirely right about the NY Times. The "Liberal Media" consists of The Nation, Mother Jones, etc, not of the NY Times and the Washington Post.</p>

14

<p>Based on the numbers in post #1, one could say that the faculty members are not, in fact, particularly liberal.</p>

<p>56% are very conservative to slightly liberal.
43% are liberal to extremely liberal.</p>

<p>At the nation's elite colleges,</p>

<p>56% are conservative to moderate.
44% are liberal.</p>

15

<p>Svalbard,
I'm not looking for a political argument as we are sure NOT to convince one another of anything. However, I think you are blind to the perspectives of those in the opposing camp, just as I think most in academia are blind to most conservative perspectives. This happens consistently with the national media (most of which is based in the northeast) and consistently leads to a misunderstanding of other parts of the USA and other political perspectives. Furthermore, I think you're equating of conservatism with anti-intellectualism is disingenous and places a broad, inappropriate label on a large group of America. IMO, someone like Peggy Noonan is much more representative of conservative thinking than Bill O'Reilly or others you name. Would you consider her as anti-intellectual?</p>

<p>As for your and cayugared's belief that the NYT is centrist, we must be reading different editions.</p>

16

<p>


</p>

<p>Ever considered that the intellectualism that has always been rampant in the American liberal movement could be nothing more than pseudo-intellectualism.</p>

<p>Despite the utter contentment expressed by liberals about the distribution of faculty along political lines, the numbers posted by Hawkette are nothing short of appalling, regardless of the reasons that contributed to the current baneful situation. </p>

<p>While there is little escape possible from the corrupt and rotten to the core K-12 system dominated by liberals-minded unionized goons, our higher education deserves a lot better. One of the primary duties of our universities and colleges should be to make a moderate effort to hire a faculty that better mimics the political distribution of the country.</p>

17

<p>
[quote]
Based on the numbers in post #1, one could say that the faculty members are not, in fact, particularly liberal.</p>

<p>56% are very conservative to slightly liberal.
43% are liberal to extremely liberal.</p>

<p>At the nation's elite colleges,</p>

<p>56% are conservative to moderate.
44% are liberal.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Such creative use of numbers would make Obama and Clinton ... conservative to moderate. :D</p>

18

<p>^ I agree with you, Hawkette. The NYT is centrist?! LOL!</p>

<p>One thought as to why there are less conservatives in academia that was mentioned in a recent article I read (believe it was WSJ) was that conservatives have different values and are more likely to get married and start families sooner, so they don't have the time to pursue PhDs.</p>

19

<p>Hawkette, if you're going to deny that the Republican party (which, for better or worse, is the face of conservatism in this country) is massively anti-intellectual, there is really no hope for this discussion. Anti-intellectualism is, in fact, the basis of much of the party's success. It rejects science (most prominently re: evolution and global warming), and its negative portrayal of Democrats rests on phrases like "elitist Ivy League liberals." This latter is particularly interesting because often the Republican candidate is also an Ivy League grad in the economic elite - what actually seems to be meant by inclusion of "Ivy League" (or for the more broad-minded, "Ivory Tower") is a disdain for associated intellectualism. George Bush isn't an "elitist Ivy Leaguer" (despite his Harvard and Yale degrees) because he consciously rejects that intellectualism in favor of faux-ordinary folk-ness. The message of the Republican Party seems so often to be "don't trust those out of touch academics who don't understand the real world." I would call that anti-intellectual.
Of course, some conservatives aren't like that. William F. Buckley, though no longer with us, had an intellectual's understanding of conservatism, and, much though I disagree with most of what he believed, he was deserving of respect. Peggy Noonan is a hack (and certainly not an intellectual), but even if if she weren't, do you really think she has more influence on most conservatives than O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, et. al., whose disdain for anything intellectual is astounding? Maybe in your Wall Street-conservative crowd she does, but Wall Street hardly makes up the majority of American conservatives. Besides, anti-intellectualism doesn't just mean "I don't like those academics because they say things that contradict the Bible," it also includes "what matters is money, and all that academic stuff is a waste of time." Look at all the posters on CC whose sole interest in college is to go to the one that will allow them to get the "best" (read: highest-paying) job. That's a form of anti-intellectualism too, and the notion that only "useful" things (read: those things which allow me to get rich) matter, is pervasive among the Wall Street conservative set. </p>

<p>I'm not trying to get into a political argument either - I haven't even stated any of my political beliefs (though they are radically left in the American political spectrum). </p>

<p>As for the New York Times, on its editorial page, it represents the American elite centrist consensus - liberal on social issues, but only liberal in the sense of "classical liberal" on economics. That is, they're as staunchly pro-free trade as they are pro-gay rights. Their news pages vary between well-balanced and unwilling to challenge the dominant viewpoint of the time. That is, they failed to question the Administration to any real extent in the run-up to the Iraq War, but they now slant very much against it, in both cases falling in line with the opinions of most Americans.</p>

20

<p>
[quote]
Ever considered that the intellectualism that has always been rampant in the American liberal movement could be nothing more than pseudo-intellectualism.

[/quote]

The American liberal movement has hardly always been intellectual. The Populist-era liberalism of a William Jennings Bryan was in fact very much anti-intellectual. And through the 50s and 60s, the conservative intellectual tradition remained strong. And sure, there are plenty of pseudo-intellectual liberals, but even a pseudo-intellectual movement is more likely to encourage young liberals to pursue academic careers than is an explicitly anti-intellectual one. </p>

<p>I still don't understand why in the vast majority of fields, with the possible exceptions of 20th century American history and political science (particularly American and IR), the balance of political affiliations has any relevance - assuming that professors aren't using their classes as a soapbox (and if they are, then that's the problem, not their beliefs. No soapboxes is the right answer, not a lot of liberal soapboxes balanced by a lot of conservative ones). I honestly do not know the political beliefs of almost any of the professors I've had (except to the extent that guessing liberal is more likely to be right). Given that, I would say their political affiliations were irrelevant. Why does it matter if a classicist, or a physicist, or an anthropologist is liberal or conservative? And if it doesn't matter, then why do conservatives get so worked up about it?</p>