Homogeneous: The Political Affiliations of Elite Liberal Arts College Faculty

In this article I offer new evidence about something readers of Academic Questions already know: The political registration of full-time, Ph.D.-holding professors in top-tier liberal arts colleges is overwhelmingly Democratic. Indeed, faculty political affiliations at 39 percent of the colleges in my sample are Republican free—having zero Republicans. The political registration in most of the remaining 61 percent, with a few important exceptions, is slightly more than zero percent but nevertheless absurdly skewed against Republican affiliation and in favor of Democratic affiliation. Thus, 78.2 percent of the academic departments in my sample have either zero Republicans, or so few as to make no difference.

My sample of 8,688 tenure track, Ph.D.–holding professors from fifty-one of the sixty-six top ranked liberal arts colleges in the U.S. News 2017 report consists of 5,197, or 59.8 percent, who are registered either Republican or Democrat. The mean Democratic-to-Republican ratio (D:R) across the sample is 10.4:1, but because of an anomaly in the definition of what constitutes a liberal arts college in the U.S. News survey, I include two military colleges, West Point and Annapolis.1 If these are excluded, the D:R ratio is a whopping 12.7:1.

www.nas.org...

It is scary at just how homogeneous and ideological universities are becoming.

Around 40% of the 51 universities that were included in the report had 0 republican faculty.

This becomes a huge problem because as the article goes on to show, this skews what is taught toward more left leaning causes.

Hence why we see the rabid hate and demand for censoring of coneservative views on campuses.

And the biggest irony is that all of these people preach the mantra of "DIVERSITY" as the greatest thing to strive for, when by far diversity of thought should be the most important diversity, and it is totally absent from most of these universities.

And this is important, because these universities seek to indoctrinate people that will be coming into the real world, and are doing so on a large scale.

Remember, most of these universities recieve large government subsidies. Perhaps its time to stop funding such one sided indoctrination.

the vocal minorities day is coming to an end, the pendulum is beginning to swing

What is next complaining most painters are liberals?

I honestly believe the right now believes stooping down to the traits they were once opposed to is how we solve problems.

We need more conservatives like Jordan Peterson. Not cry babies.

We need liberals like Sam Harris not antfa nut bags.

Liberals chose to be professors what are we suggesting here affirmative action?

It would be nice if more crybabies realized bringing people to the middle and promoting unity more than "gotcha" your wrong is the solution.

The solution is not to create conservative safe spaces and cry about how life isn't fair.

I used to like Ben Shapiro. Now I realize he has no solutions and wants to just make money off of stupid people's ideas. His whole point is to call out dumb ideas. Yet provides no pathway to find the solution and create a pathway where people can learn how to handle each others differences.

Of course that isn't sexy and doesn't get you likes or stars.

originally posted by: luthier
What is next complaining most painters are liberals?


We need more conservatives like Jordan Peterson. Not cry babies.

Peterson does not call himself conservative.

But funny you would bring his name up, cause he is big on fighting against the left wing echo chamber at universities.

In fact the article I listed cites professors like peterson coming together to form Heterodux academy, which was created by aanother brilliant prfessor, Jonathan Haidt.

So pervasive is the lack of balance in academia that more than 1,000 professors and graduate students have started Heterodox Academy, an organization committed to increasing “viewpoint diversity” in higher education.4 The end result is that objective science becomes problematic, and where research is problematic, teaching is more so.

Here is a video of Pterson and Haidt discussing how horrible univerities have become because of this bias, and why Haidt started Heterodux Academy.

a reply to: Grambler

I think you don't quite get it.

Peterson has thoughtful explanations. He has actual rebuttals. He also has real solutions.
Peterson is a classical liberal/libertarian who normally fit into the conservative party because the left have moved towards progressivism.

Now the real issue is that "Republicans" don't want to be professors and often are less qualified based on there experience.

Now if you are talking MBA or engineering things change.


Perhaps more conservatives should be interested in learning about the humanities?

Liberal arts is becoming a better degree than going after business degrees because of the flooding of that degree as well as people loosing touch with communication skills through ultra specialization.

Schools like Middlebury have gone off the deep and are also taking 17 million a year losses for it.

My point here is bringing up these points without substance and insight into how we can do better is truly a disservice for the future generations.

I have never seen the right act like children so badly until recently. The loud dogs are pulling further right and left and making the discourse seem worse than it is.

Now it's a serious problem the far left having a hold in certain schools but it's also a problem to get into an ideological fist fight over it.

a reply to: luthier

Liberals chose to be professors what are we suggesting here affirmative action?

Good question. By looking at this "study", which seems to be a bit flawed and the author admits he had to make some assumptions, it would appear that gender plays a big role in the make-up of the faculties political affiliations.

How would the NAS wish to rectify that? Do they push for less women to be hired? I'd like to know what they propose as a solution.

That being said, I'll have to look in to this study a bit more when I have more time. The NAS is a conservative non-profit group that has been at the forefront of the debate...producing quite a bit of propaganda on political correctness and trying to fundamentally revert the education system to standards of the 1950's.

So anything they produce is suspect until it can be verified.

originally posted by: toysforadults
the vocal minorities day is coming to an end, the pendulum is beginning to swing

We should always hope there is a vocal minority in this country and their voices, no matter what their politics are, should never come to an end.

If and when that day comes, it means we have become a 1 party state and democracy would of have been tossed in the trash bin.

a reply to: introvert

There is a little bit of "most athletes like sports" going on here.

The discussion IMO is how do we stop people from moving so far from the center they can't tolerate each other.

Is the response to demonize being a liberal or is it to try and explain the danger of moving to far from the middle into intolerance.

Heck I don't care if you are far left or right as long as you understand the rest of the world exists and they don't have to be you.

a reply to: Grambler

What info told you progressive diversity is only skin deep. They want you to see how progressive they are. When it comes to ideas or fact, not so much.

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: introvert

There is a little bit of "most athletes like sports" going on here.

Obviously.

The discussion IMO is how do we stop people from moving so far from the center they can't tolerate each other. Is the response to demonize being a liberal or is it to try and explain the danger of moving to far from the middle into intolerance. Heck I don't care if you are far left or right as long as you understand the rest of the world exists and they don't have to be you

The internet tends to highlight the extremes in people and those with extreme (or extremely idiotic) beliefs. ATS for example, not by it's design or desire, gives an outlet for many of those extremes, but I do not think it is indicative of how most of us act or interact in real life.

I hope you do not let the extremes you see on sites like this and think it applies to the world in general. But I do agree with your sentiment, overall. We cannot push to sterilize institutions or build them to consist of the people we find politically-desirable, just because we do not like the numbers some doofus put together to push an agenda.

I suppose all that means there are roughly 0.0% libertarians.

Progressive hive mind BS.

F them.

originally posted by: introvert
I hope you do not let the extremes you see on sites like this and think it applies to the world in general. But I do agree with your sentiment, overall. We cannot push to sterilize institutions or build them to consist of the people we find politically-desirable, just because we do not like the numbers some doofus put together to push an agenda.

Okay maybe not to the whole world, but the future political elites are all of your kind of scene judging by the numbers herein. But do downplay it all so we can go bitch about other stuff that doesnt actually matter one way or another.

a reply to: introvert

It's the tolerance part that matters. When professors are injured (a liberal mind you) at Middlebury for instance because the students can not control their behavior. When it moves to violence beyond deplatforming things need to be discussed.

Now what is the reality. Is it social media? Electeonics, and the general behaviour patterns of youth in general...meaning areally the youth in general struggling to be tolerant whole human beings or is it simply progressives suck...

The democratization of knowledge is absurd. Meaning if I am an expert say in economics and some loud mouth on twitter with no knowledge can be treated the same because he says some rude stuff and gets 100 likes we have these stupid ideas spread and common sense and actual knowledge fade.

People aren't looking to expand their knowledge IMO in many cases. They want to be right and defend turf. They don't want to understand the problem they want their team to win.

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: introvert

It's the tolerance part that matters.

Look at how well their Hitler'sYouth'esque agenda has been playing out across society in a mere couple decades of critical mass. Look at the extremism that has increased each election year thru 2016. What comes next?

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Probably internal strife and a "hero" to come in and pretend to save us...

Or we start trying to build bridges and tolerate each others ideas.

Liberals are fine. Conservatives are fine. Most people like art. Most people don't want artists to do their taxes.

We can all find a place to exist and have a certain level of respect to make things better.

Of course I was using sterotypes. Just as a contrasting example.

a reply to: Grambler

So you can be different, but make sure your difference is the same as ours.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: Grambler

So you can be different, but make sure your difference is the same as ours.

Is that just liberals or is it the youth of today in general?

originally posted by: luthier

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: Grambler

So you can be different, but make sure your difference is the same as ours.

Is that just liberals or is it the youth of today in general?

Does it matter? We're at the point now where if someone says anything outside the societal "norm" then it's "Burn the witch!"


I defend free speech and free expression on all sides, and I argue against conservatives and liberals.


Sad that I belong to a party/ideology of 1.

originally posted by: DBCowboy

originally posted by: luthier

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: Grambler

So you can be different, but make sure your difference is the same as ours.

Is that just liberals or is it the youth of today in general?

Does it matter? We're at the point now where if someone says anything outside the societal "norm" then it's "Burn the witch!"


I defend free speech and free expression on all sides, and I argue against conservatives and liberals.


Sad that I belong to a party/ideology of 1.

I think it matters to address the problem instead of one that is perceived as the problem but really something else.

My point was are we seeing a side effect of social media? Or is it simply liberals are hypocrites.

Because an 850 billion deficit we are heading towards makes me think hypocritical ideas are everywhere.

But if we don't attack what it is making people down right violent about opposing ideas we certainly can't find a solution.

originally posted by: luthier



But if we don't attack what it is making people down right violent about opposing ideas we certainly can't find a solution.

There's violence because we are at war.