Political Attitudes in the Classroom: Is Academia the Last Bastion of Liberalism?

Abstract

Academia is under attack from those who believe that college professors are uniformly leftist politically, which creates an environment of bias against conservative students and professors. Advocates have proposed an “Academic Bill of Rights” that may lead to policies to achieve intellectual diversity in faculty hiring and tenure decisions. However, little rigorous scientific research has been conducted on the political attitudes of students and faculty. Based on a survey of students and professors at the State University College at Buffalo, we find evidence that the “intellectual diversity” movement is unfounded. In particular, we find that the political views of students and professors are quite diverse, and that professors do not impose their political views upon the classroom. Our research points to the need to extend our model to other universities to place our results in a larger context, and provide valid data for use in the burgeoning intellectual diversity debate.