Faculty, students diverge on nat'l issues

Author: Michael Stefanik

A recent survey based on data from a 1999 North American Academic Study Survey (NAASS) that questioned 1,643 teachers at 183 four-year higher-education institutions nationwide seems to shed light on a political bias toward progressivism on college campuses across the country.

Students and faculty seem to be heading in divergent directions. The study claims that 72 percent of professors identify themselves as liberal, compared to a minute 15 percent of conservatives. Fifty percent are Democrats and 11 percent Republicans. These present-day figures represent a sharp increase from data obtained in 1984, where only 39 percent of college faculty identified with liberalism in the heyday of Reaganism.

The shift has pervaded all departments. In English literature, 88 percent were liberal and 3 percent conservative. In sociology, 59 percent were Democrats and none were Republicans, demonstrating the tendency of the humanities and social sciences to lean left. Physics and chemistry, on the other hand, are 66 and 64 percent liberal, respectively.

Students, conversely, seem to be heading in a different direction. Traditionally regarded as free-thinking liberal strongholds, college campuses are now seeing a shift in the political views of students. A study, conducted by the Institute of Politics at Harvard University, claims 27 percent of college students claim to be Democrats, 31 percent Republican, and 38 percent independent or unaffiliated. Sixty-one percent of the students surveyed approved of President Bush's job performance, nine percent higher than the general public.

A possible reason for this may be the more-than-$35 million poured into college campuses by conservative groups every year. Another claim has been made that the right is a more unified, concise and passionate movement on college campuses and the left undisciplined and segmented along ideological and issue-based lines. Some have argued that the left is now being seen as reactionary and cliché to students on campuses. Student conservatives have positioned themselves as underdogs on oppressively liberal campuses. The overwhelming majority of liberal professors at academic institutions has been a cause for alarm with some, most notably reactionary author David Horowitz. Through his promotion of his "Academic Bill of Rights," an eight-point manifesto in which he seeks to eliminate political bias at universities in hiring and grading. He claims that a "liberal bias" at universities systematically excludes Republicans from joining college faculties. Until this happens, Horowitz claims, no diversity at the college level can be absolute.

However, critics like Horowitz and studies like the NAASS tend to look only at the present state of affairs rather than postulating possible explanations, such as the tendency of liberals to value public service and their possible subsequent willingness to take low-paying jobs such as those in education.