So Many Democrats, So Little Time

By Alana T. Finley | Sunday, June 12, 2005

The employees of what organization contributed the most to John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign? A huge law firm? Nope. A leading labor union? Not a chance. According to a study from the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, it was Harvard University, followed by the University of California system.

Despite the roughly even distribution of the nation's voters between the two parties, as starkly exhibited by the last two presidential elections, a recent nationwide study by professors from George Mason University, Smith College, and the University of Toronto revealed that 72 percent of the faculty at American universities and colleges describe themselves as liberal, while only 15 percent are conservative.

With these statistics in mind, The Dartmouth Review decided to revisit its investigation of the political affiliations of professors on our own campus. The results were not all that surprising: of the 341 professors registered to vote in Hanover, NH, Lebanon, NH, and Norwich, VT, 225 (66 percent) are Democrats and eighteen (5 percent) are Republicans. Ninety-eight (29 percent) did not register a party. Put another way, there are 12.5 registered Democrats for every registered Republican.

Moreover, since we last collected this same information, several professors have changed their affiliation to Democratic, presumably to vote in last year's presidential primary. None became Republicans.

When the Center for the Study of Popular Culture conducted a narrower study in 2002, it found that there were 38 Democrats and four Republicans in the eight Dartmouth academic departments it examined. Now, according to the Review's study of Hanover, Lebanon and Norwich voters, these departments contain 70 Democrats and still only four Republicans.

The 2002 CSP study also revealed that in the fields of economics, English, history, philosophy, political science, and sociology, colleges and universities nationwide employ an overwhelming majority of Democrats and very few Republicans, by a ratio of nearly ten to one. This is certainly true of Dartmouth, where the humanities and social science departments have by far the most registered Democrats and the fewest Republicans. The main concentrations of Republicans appear in the departments of engineering sciences, where there are four Republicans, and economics, where there are three.

Though political affiliation alone should be no basis for hiring, one would imagine a balanced faculty would make it easier for the government department to meet its mission of providing students with a variety of political perspectives. As it stands, Democrats dominate that department's registered voters by a margin of 17 to one, with five undeclared.

Not surprisingly, the women and gender studies department features not a single Republican. Of the 48 women and gender studies professors registered in the towns we surveyed, 40 are registered Democrats, eight were undeclared, and none were Republicans. Since the women and gender studies faculty is composed entirely of professors whose primary appointments are in other departments, one could argue that this particularly biased faculty is especially influential, as one of its cross-listed classes might draw students from three different departments in need of major credits.

No Republican professor teaches in interdisciplinary departments, and many teach in very narrow fields, such as engineering or mathematics, which are not likely to attract non-majors, thus limiting their influence and profile on campus. Conservatives might anticipate safety within fields in which politics should have no bearing, but even the computer science department includes a professor who uses text in programming classes to praise Democrats and condemn President George W. Bush.

Many conservatives have fought back against the overwhelming number of liberal academics for some time. The Dartmouth Review, for instance, has published a list of best and worst professors each year since the fall of 1980, taking bias into consideration. Other institutions have recently begun to follow suit. The Bruin Standard recently emerged at UCLA to combat the liberal agenda of the daily paper, and includes in every issue a feature entitled "Academian Nut," which denounces intellectual comrades of Dartmouth's Shelby Grantham.

So Many Democrats, So Little Time

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