Study finds most University faculty hold liberal views

Is it possible for a conservative student or doctoral candidate to take a class with a like-minded professor?

A new study released by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture suggests that it may not be.

"Most students probably graduate without ever having a class taught by a conservative professor," wrote CSPR President and well-known conservative David Horowitz in the project's executive summary.

The study -- which found that Penn's faculty members are overwhelmingly Democratic by a ratio of 12 to 1 -- surveyed the faculty and administration of 32 colleges and universities around the country. It included all of the Ivy League schools, in addition to other prominent research institutions like Stanford University and smaller colleges such as Amherst and Pomona.

It also documented the commencement speakers and their political leanings from 1994 to 2003 at these same schools.

The study exposed the voting preference of the tenured or tenure-tracked professors in six departments -- Economics, English, History, Philosophy, Political Science and Sociology -- which it claimed "teach courses focusing on issues affecting the society at large."

At Penn, the study determined that of the faculty in these six departments, 60 are registered Democrats, five are registered Republicans and 69 are unaffiliated. According to the study, the political affiliations of 55 professors were undeterminable due to external factors.

Of the University's commencement speakers over the last 10 years, three were labeled as Democrats, five labeled as liberal. Only one, U.S. Senator John McCain, was labeled a Republican, and one, poet Seamus Heaney, was labeled as neutral.

Andrew Jones, who directed the study for the CSPC, said that the center conclusively identified the voter registration of approximately one-third of the professors on campus, and while they would have liked to identify more than half, the ratio likely would not have changed.

"The way I conducted most of these surveys was to use Lexis-Nexis voter database," Jones said. "This is certainly a valid, up-to-date voter database. However, it only searches on a statewide level. If a professor had a generic name, his or her political affiliation could not be determined."

In addition to having a liberal faculty, the study noted, not a single conservative administrator could be identified at Penn.

However, Penn was certainly not the only school identified as leaning liberal. In fact, according to the study, not a single department -- let alone school -- surveyed had as many registered Republicans as Democrats.

Among all 32 schools surveyed, the total number of registered Democrats was 1,397, the number of registered Republicans was 134 and the number of unaffiliated professors was 1,891.

Jones and Horowitz argued the large number of liberal faculty members means that the viewpoints of conservative students never get to be heard.

"The impression that conservative values and ideas aren't welcome on campus is driven home daily to students until it becomes second nature," Horowitz wrote. "Professors generally do not grade politically, but a large enough percentage do that students -- and not just conservative students -- will take the prudent course of concealing what they actually think in order to protect their academic standing."

Political Science Professor Avery Goldstein disagreed with the study's conclusions, however, saying that a professor's political preference should have no effect on the subject matter taught in a class.

The idea, he says, is not to hire or tenure professors based on their political preference, but rather on their academic credentials.

He added that tenured professors do not have to worry about losing their job over their changing viewpoints, and a department cannot predict how a professor will end up leaning politically.

"Like Supreme Court justices, you can't predict how [tenured professors] will change their minds," he said. "You just hope you hire the best and brightest minds."

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