Colleges have been more liberal than the rest of society for at least a century.
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Since 1923? Depends on whether you mean by faculty affiliation or student body. Harvard was overwhelmingly populated by Republicans even at the height of the New Deal when one of their own was president for a record 12 years.
I was thinking of faculty. The student bodies had shifted by the 1960s.
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I donât actually agree with this part of his argument. I think the 2 parts finishing school would prefer that the other 2 IPs be grateful and content with their lot; certainly that would be easier. But if the other 2 IPs are a bit uppity, that is fine too as long as they continue to serve their purpose.
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My reaction dropbox wonât let me do this: 
so I did this.LOL
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I note college-educated people were more likely to be Republican up to 2004 or so. Party affiliation is not quite the same as ideology, of course, and it also doesnât address what they were like as students. Still, it does put a little context around the sorts of âfuture leadersâ that colleges were educating for quite a long time.
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Of course, a century ago, the parties were not generally liberal or conservative on both social issues and fiscal / economic issues (since then, they switched sides on social issues). Were the Democrats (socially conservative, fiscally / economically liberal) or Republicans (socially liberal, fiscally / economically conservative) the âmore liberalâ party of the 1920s?
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Republicans were the party of Lincoln, therefore ceding Southern whites to the Democrats for the better part of a century after the Civil War. Then as now, Republicans tended to be the party of business and Democrats the party of big city labor although you had Grover Cleveland Democrats who were also pro-business. Overall, Democrats had the more difficult coalition to maintain as it included the rural South as well as large swatches of the urban North. The Temperance Movement, the Labor Movement, the League of Nations were huge divisions within the party. Overall, Republicans were more Protestant and more prosperous than the Democrats which I think tended to make them the more conservative party as well as the party most represented on American college campuses well into the 1960s.
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I note this dovetails with the observation that the college-educated were more likely to be Republican through the early 2000s. A lot of that was explainable simply by the fact college was (and remains) a conduit to the upper parts of the U.S. household income distribution, and for a very long time that was sufficiently correlated with being a Republican to basically explain that educational attainment correlation.
And actually, that income/party-affiliation correlation still existsâwhen you control for educational attainment. But there is a growing split between upper-half-income households with or without college degrees, such that now the ones with college degrees are much more likely to be not-Republicans (could be Democrats, could be Democratic-leaning Independents) than before.
I also note if you are into deep US political history, you could see these people as the socioeconomic descendants of the Northern Whigs, who became the core of the Republican Party when the Whigs broke up over slavery and the Republican Party was formed. And if you are into that sort of thing, it is quite remarkable the Whiggish part of the US political system has finally changed its dominant affiliation.
Anyway, I point this all out just because it helps explain why for a very long time, a multi-generational legacy strategy at most elite âNorthernâ colleges (basically meaning every elite college not in the South, and maybe Princeton which had long been the Southern Ivy) would have de facto involved more Republicans than not. Because most such colleges were naturally associated with Whiggish families, who were mostly Republican for a very long time.
But that party affiliation of Whiggish people has changed. And undoubtedly the colleges which do forward-planning on generational scales are aware of that change. But I suspectâand indeed things like the Chetty study we looked at in detail in another thread strongly support this suspicionâthat doesnât mean these colleges are going to lose their strong affiliation with the Whiggish parts of US society. It is more that the party coalitions have changed, while the college coalitions mostly have not.
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ETA: Wesleyanâs legacy rate is in line with Williamsâ, which also experienced an increase in class size due to coeducation:
Legacy at Williams College - Colleges and Universities A-Z / Williams College - College Confidential Forums
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Indeed, by 1967, the paradigm shift was already being noticed by the Whigs over at The New Yorker:
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The only thing I remember about the Whig Party from school was the insult hurled at them by members of an opposing party: âWhig, Whig, Big Fat Pig.â
The list is kind of funny and random. I wonder if ChatGPT generated it. I like how they give Dartmouth credit for Merlyn Streep who attended for one semester as a visiting student while she earned degrees from Vassar and Yale which are not mentioned.
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Not sure which college has had the most celebrities, but I am pretty sure I know which college supporters are are most likely to mention their many celebrities.
Yeah, but I donât feel sorry for Yale; they got credit for Hillary Clintonâs law degree though she is probably Wellesleyâs most famous undergrad.
I think the folks at LSU would be shocked to learn Shaquille Oâneal went to Syracuse.
This must have been photo shoppedâŠ
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He did. For two days:
NBA superstar Shaquille OâNeal, a current member of the Phoenix Suns, is in Syracuse completing a two-day broadcast journalism course called âSportscaster Uâ at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
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Interesting Washington Post letter on the topic:
Opinion | Why legacy admissions are a good thing - The Washington Post
Yes, the rather pointed references to an unnamed âopposing cornerâ have been duly noted:
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