Inside Higher Ed: The Liberal (and Moderating) Professoriate
Faculty members identify as liberals and vote Democratic in far greater proportions than found in the American public at large. That finding by itself won’t shock many, but the national study released Saturday at a Harvard University symposium may be notable both for its methodology and other, more surprising findings.
The Chronicle: Few Conservatives but Many Centrists Found in American Academe
Conservatives are a small minority within the American professoriate, according to a major study whose results were released on Saturday. The study — which is arguably the best-designed survey of American faculty beliefs since the early 1970s — found that only 9.2 percent of college instructors are conservatives, and that only 20.4 percent voted for George W. Bush in 2004.
But at a symposium on Saturday at Harvard University, the study’s authors cast doubt on certain claims made by conservative critics of academe. They emphasized that American faculty members are not uniformly left-wing. On most issues, they said, college instructors’ views are better characterized as “centrist” or “center-left.” And there is evidence of a convergence toward moderation: Faculty members who are 35 or younger are less likely than their elders to be left-wing (and also less likely to be conservative).
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