College more liberal than thought

WaPo reported College faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined, a new study says.

By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans.

The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative.

"What's most striking is how few conservatives there are in any field," said Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University and a co-author of the study. "There was no field we studied in which there were more conservatives than liberals or more Republicans than Democrats. It's a very homogenous environment, not just in the places you'd expect to be dominated by liberals."

And this came as a surprise?

I wonder if they will do another study and find that the MSM leans very far to the left.

Hugh Hewitt blogged "By their own description 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative." Which makes universities and colleges significantly more inclusive of conservatives than major media.

Betsy Newmark blogged Gee, what a surprise this study's result is. Maybe universities will decide that they need to have a "critical mass" of conservatives on campus just like they need such numbers of minorities so that people feel comfortable.

Rickheller @Centerfield blogged Being a sometime fiction writer, I've noticed that English lit departments have a heavy representation of Marxist ideas long discredited in Marx's original domains of economics and politics. As far as religious studies departments, I assume that the conservatives are all in seminaries.