Republicans Outnumbered in Academia, Studies Find
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James Joyner | Thursday, November 18, 2004 |
Republicans Outnumbered in Academia, Studies Find [RSS] (NYT)
At the birthplace of the free speech movement, campus radicals have a new target: the faculty that came of age in the 60’s. They say their professors have been preaching multiculturalism and diversity while creating a political monoculture on campus. Conservatism is becoming more visible at the University of California here, where students put out a feisty magazine called The California Patriot and have made the Berkeley Republicans one of the largest groups on campus. But here, as at schools nationwide, the professors seem to be moving in the other direction, as evidenced by their campaign contributions and two studies being published on Nov. 18.
One of the studies, a national survey of more than 1,000 academics, shows that Democratic professors outnumber Republicans by at least seven to one in the humanities and social sciences. That ratio is more than twice as lopsided as it was three decades ago, and it seems quite likely to keep increasing, because the younger faculty members are more consistently Democratic than the ones nearing retirement, said Daniel Klein, an associate professor of economics at Santa Clara University and a co-author of the study.
In a separate study of voter registration records, Professor Klein found a nine-to-one ratio of Democrats to Republicans on the faculties of Berkeley and Stanford. That study, which included professors from the hard sciences, engineering and professional schools as well as the humanities and social sciences, also found the ratio especially lopsided among the younger professors of assistant or associate rank: 183 Democrats versus 6 Republicans.
This is hardly surprising; I’ve written on this issue numerous times. As Ann Althouse points out, this is mostly a case of people on hiring committees trying to replicate themselves. It’s also true that graduate schools, from which the professoriate comes, are more likely to attract students who don’t feel alienated by their leftist culture.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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Yet another Blinding Flash of the Obvious™ from our indispensable news media.
Wow. It's a sad state of affairs (and denial?) if the national media considers this newsworthy. Doesn't anyone read Mike Adams???
This is another example of the "No s***, Sherlock!" affect in action.
While this is admittedly just restating the obvious, the interesting part of this is that there is already a slight shift, and it may be increasing. Furthermore, with the economy in the tank, more folks are making the choice to go to grad school.
And some of us are pretty good at faking the party line :)
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