Greenbeard
Gold Member
Interesting study here:
- The overall ratio of Democrats to Republicans we were able to identify at the 32 schools was more than 10 to 1 (1397 Democrats, 134 Republicans).
- Although in the nation at large registered Democrats and Republicans are roughly equal in number, not a single department at a single one of the 32 schools managed to achieve a reasonable parity between the two. The closest any school came to parity was Northwestern University where 80% of the faculty members we identified were registered Democrats who outnumbered registered Republicans by a ratio of 4-1.
- At other schools we found these representations of registered faculty Democrats to Republicans:
Brown 30-1
Bowdoin, Wellesley 23-1
Swarthmore 21-1
Amherst, Bates 18-1
Columbia, Yale 14-1
Pennsylvania, Tufts, UCLA and Berkeley 12-1
Smith 11-1
- At no less than four elite schools we could not identify a single Republican on the faculty:
Williams 51 Democrats, 0 Republicans
Oberlin 19 Democrats, 0 Republicans
MIT 17 Democrats, 0 Republicans
Haverford 15 Democrats, 0 Republicans
Conflating partisan affiliation with ideology is silly. I look at his list and see my alma mater is listed as having 8 Republicans. And yet it's known historically (and presently) for its contributions to conservative thinking. Horowitz worries that Hayekians and Straussians are getting shafted--yet Hayek and Strauss both taught there! Moreover, almost a quarter of the undergrads there choose a major that brings them through the most conservative department (no word on how many Republicans are among the faculty).
The ratio of registered Democrats to registered Republicans tells me nothing about ideological persuasions, teaching style, ideas introduced (is the high D:R ratio supposed to tell me that undergrads don't read Hayek next to Marx? because I know for a fact that there they do), or really anything interesting for that matter. But I do know that at my alma mater that kind of lazy scholarship and overreaching to justify pre-conceived conclusions wouldn't fly.