A new FIRE-commissioned study using campaign contribution data found that politically active faculty donors at leading U.S. universities are heavily concentrated on the political left, with wide differences by academic field and region.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A new study commissioned by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression found that campaign donations from faculty at top U.S. universities are overwhelmingly concentrated on the political left, raising questions about viewpoint diversity among politically active professors.
The study, released Thursday by FIRE, examined campaign contributions rather than relying only on party registration or stated political affiliation. Researchers said the method was intended to provide a more detailed measure of faculty ideology by looking at where professors directed political money.
Faculty Ideology – Measuring Faculty Viewpoint Diversity Using Campaign Contribution Data by yourNEWS Media
Earlier research, including similar studies, has found that U.S. university faculty tend to lean more liberal than conservative. The new report sought to refine that assessment by using donation patterns to assign ideological scores to faculty contributors.
According to Just the News, the study cross-referenced the names of about 100,000 faculty members at 55 universities with state and federal campaign contribution records.
University of Rochester professor David Primo compiled the faculty list and matched names against a Stanford database containing more than 850 million state and federal campaign contributions. Faculty members whose names were matched to political donations were then assigned an ideology score based on those contributions.
“Studying faculty campaign contributors provides a unique window into the views of politically active professors,” Primo said. “These data allow us to systematically measure viewpoint diversity at top universities and lay a foundation for strengthening discourse, teaching, and research on college campuses.”
FIRE Vice President of Research Angela Erickson said the findings show that politically active faculty donors are not only left-leaning but grouped within a relatively narrow ideological range.
The results suggest faculty donors are clustered within a “narrow ideological band, which raises serious concerns about whether students and scholars are getting the full benefit of the open inquiry universities promise,” Erickson said.
FIRE said the average ideology score among faculty donors in the 55-school sample was only slightly less left-leaning than some of the most left-wing members of the U.S. Senate, including Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren. The organization said it did not find a comparable concentration of Republican-side giving.
The study also used the donation-based scores to estimate which campuses and academic areas may have more or less intellectual diversity.
According to FIRE, humanities and fine arts departments showed the lowest levels of political diversity among faculty donors, while business and agriculture showed the highest levels. The report also found that eight of the 10 most politically diverse faculty bodies were at universities in the South. The two others were Kansas State University and Brigham Young University.
Among the 10 least intellectually diverse campuses, four were located on the West Coast and four were Ivy League schools in the Northeast, according to the study.
FIRE Campus Advocacy Chief of Staff Connor Murnane said the findings point to a broader problem in higher education.
“The lack of viewpoint diversity in academia is a crisis,” Murnane said.
Murnane said he does not believe ideological testing or hiring quotas would solve the issue. Instead, he said universities should “recommit to creating a culture that makes room for students and faculty to challenge ideas from the left, right and center.”
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