Fair and Balanced, eh?

By Katie Racicot and Alana Finley | Friday, January 23, 2004

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. This dictum is perhaps nowhere more prescient than on college campuses. For years, conservative students have accused professors and administrators of using their positions of power as a platform for expressing their own political views. Recently the debate has strengthened.

Last year, students at the University of Texas decided to fight back by starting a professor "Watch List" for faculty the College Republicans felt were overly biased in their teachings. The professors named, of course, were almost entirely liberal. The response was swift and absurd. Some of the teachers targeted immediately cried foul and called the lists—which gave detailed explanations of the professors and examples from class—a "New McCarthyism." The back-and-forth banter created a minor uproar that eventually went national. East coast newspapers picked up on the story, and it even earned a spot on ABC's Nightline.Other Colege Republicans have since followed suit with extensive criticisms of professors on campus—similar to The Dartmouth Review's annual Best and Worst list.

At a time when college students in equal numbers identify themselves as Democrat and Republican, the question has become: Is academia as biased as some—especially on the Right—like to think. In 2002, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture (CSPC) released a study on the political affiliation of professors at thirty-two of the nation's elite universities. They investigated how many professors were registered as Republican or Democrat in the schools' Economics, English, History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Sociology departments. At every college investigated, the results revealed an overwhelming number of Democrats and very few Republicans. Four of the institutions—Williams, Oberlin, MIT, and Haverford—recorded no Republicans in any of the departments studied. These results seem to demonstrate an overwhelming slant in political affiliation—the ratio of Democrat to Republican voters in the adult population is roughly equal.

With these statistics in mind, The Dartmouth Review decided to investigate the political affiliations of professors on our own campus. The results were not at all that surprising: Of the 193 professors registered to vote in Hanover, 117 are Democrats, compared with only thirteen Republicans. Sixty-one were undeclared.

Departments in the humanities and social sciences had by far the most registered Democrats. For instance, of the sixteen members of the Government faculty registered to vote in Hanover, eleven are Democrats and five are undeclared. There are no Republicans.

Meanwhile, of the thirteen English professors at Dartmouth, eleven are Democrats and two are undeclared. Once again, no Republicans. Even less surprisingly, the greatest abundance of liberals was found in the Women and Gender department, with an astounding twenty out of twenty-six Democrats; the other six, to no one's great surprise, are undeclared. And the Republicans? Not a chance. The Sociology Department showed similar results: five Democrats. Nothing else. Budding philosophers need not lean Right: Once again, only Democrats. And History? No Republicans, but, with Professor Edsforth's recent departure, there's now one less Lefty.

Of the ten Dartmouth professors who registered Republican, only two are outside the social sciences—one in Jewish Studies and one in Studio Arts. The majority of the others are found in various science departments: two in Biology, one in Computer Science, one in Earth Sciences, one in Psychological and Brain Sciences, and two in Mathematics. Economics had the most Republican professors of any department; of the eighteen professors, four are Republicans, four are Democrats, and ten are undeclared.

When the Center for the Study of Popular Culture conducted its study in 2002, it found that in the eight departments it examined at Dartmouth, there were 38 Democrats and four Republicans. Now, two years later, according to the Review's study of Hanover voters, these eight departments contain forty Democrats and no Republicans. Twenty-one faculty members were undeclared.

Given the overwhelming predilection for Democratic affiliations, it comes as no surprise that, according to The Daily Dartmouth, only 3% of Dartmouth professors support President Bush. While this study in no way suggests that all Democrats bring their biases into the classroom (some do, for sure), it does make one pause. On a campus that claims to support a vibrant, accepting academic community, conservative professors clearly don't feel welcome.

Fair and Balanced, eh?

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