Thursday, October 19, 2006

Are College Professors Liberal?

From today's Chronicle of Higher Education:

"The report, by the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, was based on an online, nationally representative survey of 1,259 professors at four-year colleges and universities in the spring of 2005. It found that, in general, professors are critical of American business and foreign policy and are skeptical of capitalism.

Among other findings, the report, "A Profile of American College Faculty: Volume 1: Political Beliefs & Behavior," says that:

Professors are three times as likely to call themselves "liberal" as "conservative." In the 2004 presidential election, 72 percent of those surveyed voted for John Kerry.

Almost one-third of professors cite the United States as among the top two greatest threats to international stability -- more than cited Iran, China, or Iraq.

Fifty-four percent of professors say U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is partially responsible for the growth of Islamic militancy.

Sixty-four percent say the government's powers under the USA Patriot Act should be weakened."

A separate report showed that there are 2.5 Democrats for every 1 Republicn amongst economics professors (That means 71% are Democrats) Actually, it was 58% Democrat, 23% Republican, 2.66% Libertarian and 0.76% Green Party.

For more info go to:

Institute for Jewish & Community Research
A PDF File of Their Survey
The Economists Survey

7 comments:

champ said...

Professor Morong,
I love your topics and I think I learn so much from them. Considering you've just began, I see that you don't have many readers, but you've gained a faithful reader now. I have a blog, but it may not be of interest to you. I only have a couple of Economic topics, but of course they are elementary to you.

Cyril Morong said...

Thanks for dropping by. How did you find my blog?

champ said...

It was in one of your papers on your website. There is a link pointing to it. To be exact, it is under "Congressional Legislations during the Federalist Period." In the Non Baseball work by me.

Anonymous said...

Thanks. That is interesting. Had you done as search on the Federalist Period?

champ said...

no, I hadn't. I was just reading your papers and ran across it.

Gregory Frieden said...

I don't know that college professionals are liberals, per say. They may proclaim to be liberals, however, a liberal can be either a democrat or republican. Some could even argue that there are some liberals who also have conservative beliefs.

The purpose of my comment is that I wanted to share that I am in agreement with the 1/3 of professors citing the United States as the top two greatest threats to intenational instability. I say this because, in this country there is now this gung ho belief that we have to be everyone's liberator and take democracy across the globe. I say this is crazy. You can not force every country to model their laws and constitutions, etc. after your own. It will only cause incredible uprisings and possible civil wars as is the current situation in Iraq.

I also do agree that the U.S. foreign policyt with regards to the Middle East is partially responsible for the Islamic militancy that is growing across the globe.

Cyril Morong said...

Gregory:

You're right that liberal does not always mean Democrat and conservative does not always mean Republican. The quote below from the report might clarify things a little more:

"Social science and humanities faculty are the most liberal and Democratic, and least diverse in their political culture. Fully 54% of the social science and humanities faculty identify as Democratic and 60% as liberal, and only 11% as Republican and 12% as conservative, a 5-to-1 ratio."

So they did specifially ask if they were liberal or conservative and not just Democrat or Republican.