Content uploaded by John F. Zipp
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by John F. Zipp on Sep 09, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 70, No. 3, Fall 2006, pp. 304–326
doi:10.1093/poq/nfj009
© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.
All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.
IS THE ACADEMY A LIBERAL HEGEMONY?
THE POLITICAL ORIENTATIONS AND EDUCATIONAL
VALUES OF PROFESSORS
JOHN F. ZIPP
RUDY FENWICK
Abstract In the last several years, conservatives have argued that
an overwhelmingly Left and liberal faculty has taken over American
colleges and universities. In particular, two main claims have been
advanced: (1) a disproportionate percentage of the faculty is liberal; and
(2) these liberal faculty are pushing their values on students and colleagues,
skewing the educational process. However, data to support these
contentions come from unrepresentative institutions and/or disciplines
and mistakenly equate party identification with political ideology. In
contrast, we use two nationally representative surveys done by the
Carnegie Foundation (in 1989 and 1997) to address these concerns. We
have several key findings: (1) although left-of-center faculty increased
slightly, the best overall description of these trends suggests increased
movement to the center, toward a more moderate faculty, between 1989
and 1997; (2) there are sizable differences across disciplines and institu-
tional types, with conservatives being the plurality in some fields and in
two-year colleges; (3) changes in age and gender have offsetting effects
on changes in liberalism; and (4) there are significant differences in edu-
cational values between liberal and conservative professors.
In the last several years, right-wing activists and scholars, especially David
Horowitz and the Center for the Study of Popular Culture (CSPC) and the National
Association of Scholars, have claimed that an overwhelmingly Left and liberal fac-
ulty has taken over universities, imposing political correctness and suppressing
dissent (e.g., Tierney 2004; Wall Street Journal 2004; Wisse 2004). The “thought
police,” the argument goes, have made conservative views unwelcome on campus,
and college students are being exposed only to liberal and leftist perspectives.
JOHN F. ZIPP is professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Akron.
RUDY FENWICK is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Akron. We would like to
thank the Bliss Institute at the University of Akron for its support in acquiring the Carnegie sur-
veys and John Green and Eric Plutzer for their comments. Dana Williams also provided helpful
suggestions and a great deal of assistance with this research. All the conclusions remain our own.
Address correspondence to John F. Zipp; e-mail: jzipp@uakron.edu.
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
Is the Academy a Liberal Hegemony? 305
Although hunting for subversives in the academy has been a favorite sport
of conservatives for at least a century (Hamilton and Hargens 1993; Ladd and
Lipset 1975), this recent effort has begun to have serious consequences
for higher education. A 2004 survey sponsored by the Chronicle of Higher
Education found that 51 percent of Americans believed that faculty “improperly
introduce a liberal bias in what they teach” (Bauerlein 2004). Perhaps more
important, numerous states have introduced a version of the CSPC’s “Academic
Bill of Rights,” legislation at correcting the alleged liberal monopoly of the
ivory tower, with Colorado university officials adopting the provisions of the
bill in order to ward off legislative action and Pennsylvania holding hearings
on accusations of political bias in the classroom (Jacobsen 2005).
It is important to note that two related, but somewhat different, claims are
being advanced: (1) a disproportionate percentage of the faculty is liberal; and
(2) these liberal faculty are pushing their values on students and colleagues,
skewing the educational process. Although these claims have gained a great
deal of public attention and political currency, there have been very few sys-
tematic, scholarly analyses of the topic. The last was published in 1993, using
the most recent data then available from 1984 (Hamilton and Hargens 1993).
The purpose of this article, then, is to update the analysis done by Hamilton
and Hargens by addressing two main questions: (1) Have faculty become
increasingly liberal? and (2) Are these liberal faculty pushing their agendas on
their students?
These questions strike at the very heart of higher education. Universities
earn the public trust to the degree that they welcome all points of view. If they
are the exclusive enclave of leftists and places where faculty use classrooms to
push their ideology, public trust would dissipate, and universities would lose
their moral authority.
The Liberal Professoriate?
The contention that faculty are overwhelmingly liberal is based on several
data sources. In 2002, the CSPC studied the voter registration of faculty mem-
bers in economics, history, English, political science, sociology, and philosophy
in 32 elite colleges and universities, finding that registered Democrats out-
numbered Republicans by a ratio of 10 to 1 (Horowitz and Lehrer 2002).
Klein and Western (2004) tried to check the accuracy of the CSPC study by
analyzing the voter registration records of University of California–Berkeley
and Stanford faculty; finding that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 10:1
at Berkeley and 7.6:1 at Stanford, they conclude that Republicans were an
“endangered species” on these campuses. Recognizing the limitations of these
sorts of analyses of selective colleges and universities, Klein and Stern (2004)
surveyed anthropologists, sociologists, economists, historians, philosophers,
and political scientists, asking them about which party they primarily voted
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
306 Zipp and Fenwick
for in the last decades, and discovered that there were at least seven Democrats
for every Republican in these departments.
These data are surely not representative of American colleges and univer-
sities. The voter registration analyses draw on some of the most selective
institutions, ones that attract an extremely narrow range of students. The
department surveys also do not span much of the disciplinary breadth. Not-
ably missing are science, business, and engineering faculty, all of whom
tend to be much more conservative than those in the social sciences and
humanities (Hamilton and Hargens 1993; Ladd and Lipset 1975). In addi-
tion, these studies treat party identification or voting behavior as equivalent
to political ideology, and although these two are clearly related and getting
more so over time (Abramowitz and Saunders 1998), they are not the same.
Moreover, as Fiorina (2005) points out in his recent book, Culture War?,
partisan and voting choices are more polarized than ideological differences
among nonelites.
Second, these contentions have ignored much better data and research.
The most comprehensive study of the political leanings of professors is
Ladd and Lipset’s (1975) The Divided Academy, which uses data from the
1969 Carnegie survey as well as a smaller follow-up survey done in 1972.
Hamilton and Hargens (1993) updated and extended Ladd and Lipset’s work
by analyzing similar Carnegie surveys done in 1969, 1975, and 1984.
Another source of data on faculty political attitudes comes from the Higher
Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA), which has conducted triennial surveys of faculty attitudes since
1989 (Lindbolm et al. 2005). Several conclusions can be drawn from these
works, all of which measure political orientations via questions about ideo-
logical placement along a liberal to conservative scale. First, although the
proportions have varied over time, faculty are more likely to be left of center
than right of center. The ratio of Left and liberal faculty to moderately con-
servative and conservative faculty has varied from 2:1 in 1969 (Ladd and
Lipset 1975), to 1.2:1 in 1984 (Hamilton and Hargens 1993), to 2.6:1 in the
2004–05 UCLA survey (Lindblom et al. 2005). Although there are more lib-
eral than conservative faculty, there certainly are not seven to ten liberals for
every conservative on campus.
The scholarly analyses of Ladd and Lipset (1975) and Hamilton and
Hargens (1993) offer other key points. Ladd and Lipset note that liberal-
ism varied appreciably by discipline—the social sciences were the most
liberal, while engineering and business were dominated by conserva-
tives—and by university quality—surprisingly, the most prestigious uni-
versities were the most liberal. Although Hamilton and Hargens also note
differences by discipline and prestige, overall they found declining liberal-
ism and increasing conservatism among faculty between 1969 and 1984.
1
1. One difference is that they found that liberal arts colleges were now the most liberal.
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
Is the Academy a Liberal Hegemony? 307
Thus, they conclude that the “public discussions of a growing and influen-
tial left in the universities and colleges appear to be seriously misleading”
(1993, p. 621).
A second key claim by conservative critics of higher education is that lib-
eral faculty are exceedingly narrow and doctrinaire in their outlooks, not
very tolerant of dissenting views, thus restricting academic freedom and dis-
cussion on campus. Stephen Balch, president of the conservative National
Association of Scholars, has written that liberals so dominate departments
that they “grind down [their] opponents” (2004). Conservative columnist
George Will opines that universities “cultivate diversity . . . in everything
but thought” (2004, p. B7). Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory
and research director at the National Endowment for the Arts, has remarked
that “liberal orthodoxy is not just a political outlook; it’s a professional one”
(2004).
These are serious charges, as they refer not just to the political leanings of
faculty but, more importantly, to how faculty members interact with each
other, their values, and their goals. Again, the evidence for these claims is
rather spotty. Much of it can be described mainly as evidence by argument:
the emphasis on multiculturalism, pushes for affirmative action, the introduc-
tion of speech codes, the ascendancy of postmodernist thought—all are cited
by definition as evidence of liberal biases (D’Souza 1991; Kimball 1990).
Anecdotal accounts by faculty and students also appear to play far too central
a role in this conservative campaign. For instance, the CSPC’s “Students for
Academic Freedom” group is supposed to publicize incidents of alleged lib-
eral bias at colleges (Dubner 2005). Similarly, stories of conservative faculty
being denied jobs, having trouble getting tenure, or being social outcasts have
appeared in various places, including the Chronicle of Higher Education
(Jacobsen 2004).
Despite little evidence for an overwhelmingly liberal faculty pushing its
values on campus, the clamor continues to ring out regarding liberal control
over U.S. colleges and universities. Although much of this outcry surely is
based more on partisan politics than on dispassionate scholarly inquiry, it is
also quite possible that there has been a change in the last two decades. For
one, it may be that the anecdotal reports of left-wing bias (e.g., Jacobsen
2004) are the warning signs of a real problem. Or it may be that as colleges
students have grown more conservative over time (Chronicle of Higher Edu-
cation 2004), liberal faculty stand out more. More generally, generational
replacement has meant that baby boomers, the cohorts that helped shape the
movements of the 1960s and early 1970s, are now the modal group of faculty
members on most campuses. With public opinion being swayed and hearings
being held in legislative chambers, it is important to determine if indeed our
campuses are overwhelmingly liberal and if, as some conservatives charge,
those former 1960s radicals are pushing their values and restricting academic
freedom on campus.
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
308 Zipp and Fenwick
Data
Data used for the following analyses are drawn from the 1989 and 1997
National Surveys of Faculty, conducted under the auspices of the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Both surveys employed a two-
stage, stratified random sampling design. Universities and colleges were
selected in the first stage, with questionnaires distributed by mail to faculty
members in the second stage. Response rates of slightly more than 50 percent
were achieved in each survey (5,450 questionnaires were returned in 1989;
and 5,151, in 1997).
2
Responses in each survey were weighted to match the
national representation of faculty by Carnegie Classification category.
3
Both
the 1989 and 1997 surveys included measures of the political attitudes and
educational values of faculty, along with a series of questions that tap basic
demographic information.
Changes in Political Orientations, 1989–97
Our first key question was to understand changes in the political orientations
of faculty between 1989 and 1997. We will assess this using a single question
that asks: “How would you characterize yourself politically at the present
time? Liberal, moderately liberal, middle-of-the-road, moderately conserva-
tive, or conservative.”
4
These data are listed in table 1, and there are several inter-
esting findings. To begin with, there was a statistically significant (χ
2
= 33.684;
p = .005) change in political orientations across the 1990s.
5
The biggest
changes were in the ideological center: faculty seeing themselves as “moderately
conservative” declined by 3.5 percentage points, while “middle-of-the-road”
identifiers increased 3.1 percent, and “moderately liberal” faculty grew
1.6 percent. There was less movement at the ends of the ideological spectrum,
as the number of faculty seeing themselves as “liberals”—the furthest left
choice—declined by 1.3 percentage points, while self-identified “conservatives”
held constant across these years. Overall, however, although left-of-center
faculty (liberals and moderate liberals combined) outnumbered right-of-center
faculty (conservatives and moderate conservatives) in both years, this ratio
only increased slightly (from 2:1 to 2.3:1) between 1989 and 1997. Thus, the
2. The Response Rate 2 figures were 54.5 percent in 1989 and 51.6 percent in 1997 (for details on
the calculation of these rates, see “Best Practices for Survey and Public Opinion Research,” on the
American Association for Public Opinion Research Web site: www.aapor.org). A similar survey
was fielded in 1992, but it did not ask faculty about their political orientations. Data from the
UCLA surveys were not analyzed because they are not in the public domain.
3. The complete text of all the questions is contained in the appendix.
4. Hamilton and Hargens (1993) also relied on a single measure of faculty liberalism, but the
1984 and earlier Carnegie surveys that they analyzed included different response choices: “Left,
Liberal, middle-of-the-road, moderately conservative, or strongly conservative.” For this reason,
we did not analyze data from 1984 and earlier.
5. All statistical tests reported here take into account departures from simple random sampling.
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
Is the Academy a Liberal Hegemony? 309
best overall description of these trends is an increased movement to the center,
toward a more moderate faculty, between 1989 and 1997.
Even though these are small changes, it is worth probing them in more
detail. Previous research has found notable differences by academic discip-
line; not surprisingly, we find similar differences in our data (table 2).
Because only 7 percent of faculty saw themselves as conservative, in the
remainder of the analyses we treat moderate conservatives and conservatives
as “conservative.” As can be seen in table 2, fine arts, humanities, and social
sciences were the most liberal departments, while business, engineering, physical
education, and vocational fields were the most conservative. Thus, although
there were four liberals (including moderate liberals) for every conservative
(including moderate conservatives) in social science departments, this is far
lower than the ratios found by Klein and the CSPC. Also interesting along
these lines are findings for departments not covered in their analyses. As indi-
cated in table 2, almost half the faculty in business and technical/vocational
fields were conservatives, with conservatives also outnumbering liberals
(again, this includes moderate liberals) in engineering and computer science
and approximately equal to them in physical education and allied health
fields. Thus, although more faculty members clearly were liberal, there were
substantial conservative enclaves and even dominance in important scholarly
fields.
Perhaps more interesting, however, again are the trends. Through the
1990s, the percentage of both liberals and conservatives declined in most aca-
demic disciplines. This was especially true for conservatives, who witnessed
growth only among biologists and, interestingly enough, social scientists.
Much of the decline in liberalism was associated with the shift from “liberal”
to “moderate liberal” (e.g., seven fields saw decreases in liberals and increases
in moderate liberals). At the same time, centrists increased in every field
except for fine arts, social sciences, and “other.” For social sciences, however,
this shift was not toward liberalism but toward conservatism. There are two
conclusions based on disciplinary trends: (1) liberals dominated in some fields
(e.g., fine arts, the humanities, and social sciences), while conservatives did so
T
a
bl
e
1
. Po
li
t
i
ca
l
O
r
i
entat
i
ons o
f
Facu
l
ty,
1989
an
d
199
7
Political Ideology 1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change
Liberal 24.6 23.3 –1.3
Moderately liberal 31.0 32.6 1.6
Middle of the road 16.5 19.6 . 3.1
Moderately conservative 21.2 17.7 –3.5
Conservative 6.7 6.7 0.0
N
5,323 4,944
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
Table 2. Political Orientations by Academic Discipline
Academic
Department
Liberal Moderately Liberal Center Conservative
N (1989/
1997)1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change 1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change 1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change 1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change
Allied health fields 22.6 8.4 –14.2 19.0 29.2 10.2 14.3 26.0 11.7 44.0 36.4 –7.7 84/154
Biological sciences 24.3 17.9 –6.4 36.7 37.4 0.7 17.0 20.9 3.9 22.0 23.8 1.8 259/273
Business 13.7 8.7 –5.0 17.8 23.0 5.2 17.8 19.6 1.8 50.8 48.7 –2.1 416/357
Communications 18.8 20.5 1.7 44.4 42.7 –1.7 13.9 17.3 3.4 22.9 19.5 –3.4 223/185
Computer/
information science 13.3 8.7 –4.6 25.2 14.1 –11.1 24.4 44.6 20.1 37.0 32.6 –4.4 135/92
Education 24.8 22.7 –2.1 37.4 40.6 3.2 14.3 17.0 2.7 23.5 19.9 –3.6 294/278
Engineering 11.4 12.2 0.8 27.0 21.3 –5.7 23.2 30.5 7.3 38.4 36.4 –2.0 211/188
Fine arts 26.2 29.6 3.4 35.0 44.2 9.2 15.4 11.9 –3.4 23.4 14.2 –9.2 423/301
Humanities 40.3 40.9 0.6 33.1 31.6 –1.5 10.2 15.7 5.5 16.4 11.8 –4.6 884/753
Mathematics/
statistics 18.8 19.7 0.9 28.5 22.9 –5.6 19.2 24.9 5.7 33.5 32.7 –0.8 260/310
Physical education 8.9 5.3 –3.6 25.6 35.1 9.5 16.2 18.1 1.9 49.7 41.5 –8.2 180/94
Physical sciences 20.7 15.4 –5.3 33.8 33.6 –0.2 18.9 25.5 6.6 26.5 25.5 –1.0 328/298
Psychology 28.2 25.6 –2.6 40.1 37.2 –2.9 15.4 26.7 11.3 16.4 10.5 –6.0 202/172
Social sciences 37.7 35.8 –1.9 31.0 32.5 1.5 15.9 13.7 –2.2 15.3 18.0 2.7 522/467
Technical/vocational 8.0 4.9 –3.1 25.0 21.8 –3.2 16.5 24.1 7.6 50.5 49.6 –0.8 212/142
Health professions 15.4 12.7 –2.7 32.5 35.6 3.1 19.2 19.8 0.7 32.9 31.3 –1.6 240/251
Other 23.9 26.7 2.8 27.5 35.6 8.1 20.8 17.3 –3.6 28.0 19.9 –8.1 444/610
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
Is the Academy a Liberal Hegemony? 311
in others (e.g., business, vocational/technical areas); and (2) the clear trend
over time for most disciplines was toward the center.
We also analyzed changes in political leanings over time by the quality of
the institution, using the Carnegie Classifications to rank institutions (table 3).
There are several key findings. First, “conservatives” declined and “centrists”
increased in every institutional type.
6
“Liberals” declined at Research I and
Comprehensive universities and two-year colleges, while “moderate liberals”
were down at Doctoral I and II and Comprehensive II schools. Second, there
were sizable differences in political orientation across the different types of
colleges and universities. “Liberals” were dominant at the elite liberal arts
colleges, while “conservatives” were more common at two-year colleges and
Comprehensive II universities. This latter finding is especially significant
given some of the previous research and the relative number of students in
each type of institution. Recall that the oft-cited CSPC study that found ten
Democrats for every Republican drew only from elite liberal arts colleges,
colleges that we have shown are the most liberal institutions. But in 1994 only
5.8 percent of all students were in these “liberal” elite liberal arts colleges,
while 42.3 percent attended two-year colleges—the most conservative type of
institution (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching 1994). In
other words, the most conservative faculty teach where the greatest number of
students are.
Both Ladd and Lipset (1975) and Hamilton and Hargens (1993) used cohort
differences in political orientations to shed light on past and likely future
trends. In table 4, we have presented these results in terms of ten-year birth
cohorts. Although the sample sizes are too small in the earliest and most
recent cohorts to compare changes over time, we can do so for those born in
the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. There are several findings of note. First, echoing
Hamilton and Hargens, the changes over time were rather small and a bit con-
tradictory. If anything, there are no clear trends.
A bit of probing, however, leads to a second set of interpretations: over
time, faculty in each of these cohorts grew less liberal and less conservative
and more centrist in their political orientations. The rate of decline in liberal-
ism has increased over birth cohorts, being larger for the more recent cohorts
than for the earlier ones, while the retreat from conservatism has slowed.
Although there were too few in the youngest cohort, those born in 1960 and
6. At the time of these surveys, the Carnegie Classification grouped colleges and universities into
these categories. Research I and II universities both award 50 or more doctorates annually, but
Research I universities receive more than $40 million in federal research support, while Research II
obtain between $15.5 and $40 million annually. Doctoral I universities annually award at least
40 doctorates in at least five disciplines, while Doctoral II award at least ten in three or more dis-
ciplines or 20 in one or more disciplines. Comprehensive or Master’s universities offer the full
range of baccalaureate programs; Comprehensive I grant 40 or more M.A.s in at least five discip-
lines, while Comprehensive II award at least 20 in one or more disciplines. Liberal Arts I colleges
have selective admissions criteria and award at least 40 percent of their baccalaureate degrees in
liberal arts; Liberal Arts II are less selective and award less than 40 percent of their baccalaureate
degrees in the liberal arts.
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
Table 3. Political Orientations by Institutional Quality
Carnegie
Classification
Liberal Moderately Liberal Center Conservative
N
(1989/1997)1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change 1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change 1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change 1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change
Research I 36.1 29.7 –6.4 34.0 38.4 4.4 15.4 18.0 2.6 14.5 13.8 –0.6 941/1,020
Research II 25.8 28.0 2.2 30.5 31.7 1.2 17.4 17.9 0.5 26.1 22.4 –3.7 298/246
Doctorate I 23.1 24.1 1.0 33.4 28.3 –5.1 16.1 22.6 6.6 27.4 25.0 –2.4 299/212
Doctorate II 24.1 28.0 3.9 31.0 29.7 –1.3 15.5 21.3 5.7 29.3 21.3 –8.0 232/175
Comprehensive I 26.8 25.7 –1.1 33.1 35.6 2.5 14.7 18.3 3.6 25.4 20.5 –4.9 1,159/1,051
Comprehensive II 23.0 15.7 –7.3 30.9 31.4 0.5 14.5 22.5 8.0 31.5 30.4 –1.1 165/102
Liberal Arts I 39.0 41.5 2.5 30.9 36.7 5.8 11.9 12.3 0.5 18.5 9.6 –8.9 136/147
Liberal Arts II 16.1 19.1 3.0 35.5 33.4 –2.1 16.1 23.9 7.8 32.3 23.6 –8.7 217/314
Two Year 17.6 16.4 –1.2 27.4 27.9 0.5 18.6 20.7 2.1 36.3 35.0 –1.3 1,877/1,680
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
Table 4. Political Orientations by Birth Cohort
Birth
Cohort
Liberal Moderately Liberal Center Conservative
N
(1989/1997)1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change 1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change 1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change 1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change
1904–29 26.2 19.5 –6.7 29.4 26.6 –2.8 16.4 18.2 1.8 28.1 35.7 7.6 841/154
1930–39 19.6 19.0 –0.6 28.4 35.9 7.5 15.4 16.9 1.5 36.5 28.2 –8.3 1,576/1,042
1940–49 25.1 23.5 –1.6 32.8 32.2 –0.6 17.8 20.9 3.1 24.3 23.3 –1.0 1,900/1,839
1950–59 29.9 25.6 –4.3 33.2 34.4 1.2 14.8 18.9 4.1 22.0 21.1 –0.9 885/1,377
1960–73 21.4 26.7 5.2 17.9 25.8 8.0 35.7 21.9 –13.8 25.0 25.6 0.6 28/484
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
314 Zipp and Fenwick
later, to analyze in 1989, their results for 1997 are intriguing. As indicated in
table 4, there is some evidence of a shift toward the center and Right: as com-
pared to earlier cohorts, there are substantially fewer moderate liberals
(though slightly more liberals) and solid increases in centrists and conserva-
tives. The combination of these trends suggests that generational replacement
may make universities more centrist and conservative and less liberal.
There has been a sizable increase in the number of women faculty, and this
may have had an important impact on the political leanings of faculty (table 5).
Two interesting points emerge from table 5: women faculty were more liberal
than their male counterparts in both 1989 and 1997, and the genders were
moving in opposite directions. Women were becoming increasingly identified
as moderately liberal and less conservative, while men were becoming less
liberal and less conservative but more centrist over time. For each of the four
political orientations, the gender gap was larger in 1997 than in 1989. This is
especially true for moderate liberals (women versus men: +0.6 in 1989 to +7.2
in 1997) and conservatives (women versus men: –4.2 in 1989 to –8.7 in 1997).
If these trends continue and if more women enter academe, this would suggest
an increasingly liberal faculty over time.
7
We can draw several conclusions: (1) although left-of-center faculty
increased slightly, the best overall description of these trends suggests
increased movement toward a more moderate faculty between 1989 and 1997;
(2) there are sizable differences across disciplines and institutional types, with
conservatives being the plurality in some fields and in two-year colleges; and
(3) age and gender might have contradictory effects on future orientations, as
more liberal cohorts are being replaced by younger, less liberal ones, while the
ideological gap between women and men may liberalize the faculty. Overall,
however, our results clearly indicate that it is misleading to claim that faculty
at American colleges and universities are overwhelmingly and increasingly
liberal.
An interesting aside, however, is how we can reconcile these conclusions
with the results of conservative critics who have found an overwhelming share
of Democrats within the academy. In addition to methodological differences
noted previously (in data, the coverage of academic fields, etc.), the disparities
in our results also hinge on the differences between relying on party identifi-
cation versus political ideology.
7. We also used regression standardization (Duncan 1969; Iams and Thorton 1975) to examine
the degree to which changes in political ideology depend on compositional changes in the profes-
soriate. We ran separate regression equations for 1989 and 1997, each time regressing political
ideology on a series of dummy variables representing age, gender, discipline, and institutional
type, and then conducted the decomposition analysis. These results, available on request, show
that the only compositional effect of any magnitude is related to age: as suggested above, the
replacement of older, more liberal cohorts by younger, less liberal ones has helped to produce a
less liberal faculty. Compositional changes in gender, discipline, and institutional type had rela-
tively trivial effects on overall differences in political ideology across the 1990s. It is worth not-
ing, however, that the slope or regression effect of gender grew stronger across the decade,
indicating that the gap in ideology between male and female faculty increased appreciably.
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
Table 5. Gender and Political Orientations
Gender
Liberal Moderately Liberal Center Conservative
1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change 1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change 1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change 1989 (%) 1997 (%) Change
Male 23.0 20.4 –2.6 30.8 29.9 –0.9 16.9 22.0 5.1 29.3 27.8 –1.5
(N) (825) (612) (1,106) (897) (607) (660) (1,052) (835)
Female 28.0 27.9 0.0 31.4 37.1 5.7 15.5 15.9 0.4 25.1 19.1 –6.1
(N) (483) (540) (542) (717) (267) (307) (434) (369)
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
316 Zipp and Fenwick
Because the Carnegie surveys did not ask about party identification, we
cannot assess this directly with our data. We can, however, shed some light on
this by drawing on four different years of the General Social Survey (GSS):
1988, 1990, 1996, and 1998. The initial two years bracket the first of our
Carnegie surveys (1989), while the latter two years bracket the 1997 Carnegie
data. The GSS is perhaps the best-known and highest-quality omnibus survey
done in the United States and is readily available online (http://sda.berkeley.edu)
for anyone to use. In each of these surveys, the GSS asked questions on both
party identification and political views, and the relationship between political
ideology and party identification has interesting implications for the claims
about faculty liberalism.
8
Democratic identifiers are drawn broadly from
across the ideological spectrum. In 1988–90, only 22.3 percent of Democrats
(“Democrat” and “Not Strong Democrat”) were liberals (“extreme liberals”
and “liberals”), while 11.0 percent were conservatives (“extreme conserva-
tives” and “conservatives”); these percentages were virtually unchanged by
1996–98—23.4 percent and 10.7 percent, respectively. Thus, in both sets of
years, there were only slightly more than two liberals for every conservative
in the Democratic Party. On the other hand, however, there was a substantial
shift in the makeup of the Republican Party across the 1990s. In 1988–90, the
ratio of conservatives (27.5 percent of the party) to liberals (7.2 percent)
among Republicans was 3.8:1; by 1996–98, conservatives (37.5 percent) out-
numbered liberals (4.1 percent) by more than 9:1.
Taking these two together suggests that (1) it is very misleading to equate
Democratic identification with liberalism; (2) conservatives and extreme con-
servatives make up an increasingly large share of the Republican Party; and
(3) as there are relatively few conservatives in the academy, the large number
of Democratic identifiers found in previous studies may say less about the
political orientations of faculty and more about the growing conservatism of
the Republican Party. Academics may look more liberal to Republicans, but
that is not because academics’ political ideology has moved to the Left but,
rather, because the Republican Party has moved appreciably to the Right.
Liberalism and Educational Values
A second contention by conservatives is that liberal faculty have increasingly
pushed their values on students and colleagues, imposed political litmus tests
8. The exact question on party identification was: “Generally speaking, do you usually think of
yourself as a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or what?” Response choices were strong democ-
rat; not strong democrat; independent, near democrat; independent; independent, near republican;
not strong republican; strong republican; and other party. The exact question on political views
was: “We hear a lot of talk these days about liberals and conservatives. I’m going to show you a
seven-point scale on which the political views that people might hold are arranged from
extremely liberal—point 1—to extremely conservative—point 7. Where would you place your-
self on this scale?” The intervening response categories were liberal, slightly liberal, moderate,
slightly conservative, and conservative.
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
Is the Academy a Liberal Hegemony? 317
of what constitutes good scholarship, and stifled academic freedom—hence
the need for universities to adopt an “Academic Bill of Rights.” Perhaps not
surprisingly, there is little evidence, other than anecdotal (e.g., Jacobsen
2004), that bears on any of these claims. Fortunately, however, the Carnegie
surveys contain seven items that shed some light on these claims. First, there
is a series of questions that tap what faculty see as the goals of undergraduate
education. Faculty were asked to rate the importance for them on a scale of
1(very unimportant) to 5 (very important) for each of the following: (1) pre-
pare students for a career, (2) provide an appreciation of literature and the arts,
(3) enhance creative thinking, and (4) shape students’ values. Two of these
items focus on how faculty view the mission of higher education—the lofty,
traditional goals of providing an appreciation of arts and literature and
enhancing creative thinking—while the remaining items focus on a narrow
careerist orientation and on a key charge that conservatives level at liberals:
that liberals are on a mission to guide students toward left-wing values.
Also included in both years of the Carnegie data are several items that meas-
ure intellectual freedom and disciplinary standards of scholarship. Each of
these was rated on a five-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly
agree): “(5) Faculty members should be free to present in class any idea that
they consider relevant, however much I may disagree with their views”;
“(6) In my discipline, most faculty agree on the standards of good scholar-
ship”; and “(7) The abolition of faculty tenure would, on the whole, improve
the quality of American higher education.” These latter questions are central
to claims about the narrowing of political discussion in the academy (items 5
and 6) and to academic freedom itself, as tenure is a primary defense for aca-
demic freedom (item 7).
Taken together these seven items represent a reasonable test for at least
some of the claims advanced by conservatives. Some of the measures are
rather straightforward—preparing students for a career, appreciation of litera-
ture and arts, and enhancing creative thinking. Others, particularly shaping
students’ values and the abolition of tenure, may be more open to alternative
interpretations. For instance, both liberals and conservatives may want to
shape students’ values; the key, of course, is what those values are. In a simi-
lar vein, both liberals and conservatives may see abolishing tenure not in
terms of a threat to academic freedom but as a way to remove unproductive
faculty, opening positions for more qualified ones, or as a way to allow market
forces to operate more freely in the academy (e.g., Kahn and Huberman
1988). Although it is impossible to determine how respondents interpreted
these questions, these measurement shortcomings will attenuate the relation-
ships between political ideology and these items, thus making it more difficult
to detect any interaction.
To test if political leanings shape goals for undergraduate education and
views on academic freedom, we ran a series of regression equations. In each
model, we have included dummy variables for political beliefs (liberal,
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
318 Zipp and Fenwick
moderately liberal, and middle of the road, with the omitted category being con-
servative); the time of the survey (0 = 1989, 1 = 1997); and control variables
assessing the faculty member’s age, gender, discipline, and type of university
(Carnegie Classification). Also, to see if there were any changes over time in the
impact of political beliefs we included interaction terms of political leanings by
survey year. To conserve space, we only report the coefficients for political
beliefs and the year of the survey. Complete results are available from us.
The regression results are contained in table 6. Because conservatives are
the reference category, the coefficients for liberal, moderately liberal, and
middle of the road represent deviations from the views of conservatives. Tak-
ing the results as a whole, there are several significant findings. First, there are
substantial and widespread differences by political ideology. Conservatives
were significantly different from liberals on all seven items, from moderate
liberals on five questions, and from centrists on four measures.
9
In this sense,
the conservative critics of higher education may be correct: conservative and
liberal academics have remarkably different educational values.
The second set of key findings sheds light on the nature of these differ-
ences, for both the goals of undergraduate education (columns 1–4) and sup-
port for academic freedom (columns 5–7). Conservatives were more likely
than all other faculty to value preparing students for a career. However, all
faculty, regardless of political orientation, were more committed to this goal
in 1997 than in 1989. At the same time, conservatives were also more commit-
ted than liberals or moderate liberals to the importance of shaping students’
values. On the flip side, conservatives were less committed to the appreciation
of arts and literature than were other faculty. And conservatives were moving
in the opposite directions from other faculty. Between 1989 and 1997, conser-
vatives were becoming more committed to shaping values, while all others
were becoming less committed. Conservatives were also becoming less com-
mitted to creative thinking as an educational goal, whereas all other faculty
were becoming more committed.
Columns 5–7 contain the results for the impact that political leanings have
on issues of academic freedom and standards, and once again, conservative
faculty stand apart. Conservatives were less likely than all others to think that
faculty should be able to present any idea in class and more likely to believe
that the abolition of tenure would improve universities. Similarly, liberals
were less given to thinking that most faculty agree on standards of what con-
stitutes good scholarship in their disciplines.
10
9. Although the main effects for liberals on creative thinking and for centrists on shaping values are
not significant, in each case the respective interaction term with survey year is statistically significant.
10. Once again we considered the alternative explanation that these changes may in part be related
to compositional changes between 1989 and 1997. To address this, we conducted a regression stand-
ardization analysis for six of these dependent variables (there were no differences across surveys in
“discipline standards” of scholarship). Similar to our results for political ideology, compositional
changes had little impact; in fact, in none of the models did compositional effects play anything
more than a trivial role in accounting for changes over time in these educational goals and values.
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
Table 6. The Impact of Political Orientations on Educational Goals and Academic Freedom (Unstandardized Regression
Coefficients)
NOTE.—Educational goals: importance (1 = very unimportant, 5 = very important) of “prepare students for a career,” “provide an appreciation of literature and
arts,” “shape students’ values,” and “enhance creative thinking.” Academic freedom: strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5) with any idea—“Faculty members
should be free to present in class any idea that they consider relevant, however much I may disagree with their views”; discipline standards—“In my discipline, most
faculty agree on the standards of good scholarship”; and abolition of tenure—“The abolition of faculty tenure would, on the whole, improve the quality of American
higher education.”
* p < .05.
Variable
Educational Goals Academic Freedom
Prepare for
Career
Arts and
Literature
Shape
Values
Creative
Thinking
Any Idea
in Class
Discipline
Standards
Abolition
of Tenure
Liberal –0.596* 0.289* –0.115* 0.063 0.602* –0.177* –0.487*
Moderately Liberal –0.364* 0.137* –0.140* 0.010 0.396* –0.101 –0.384*
Centrist –0.127* 0.159* –0.035 0.005 0.186* –0.077 –0.165
Survey Year 0.241* 0.002 0.307* –0.498* –0.193* 0.060 –0.227*
Liberal × Year 0.310* 0.018 –0.670* 0.167* 0.052 0.068 –0.133
Moderately Liberal × Year 0.210* 0.071 –0.333* 0.140* –0.051 0.057 –0.052
Centrist × Year 0.126 –0.081 –0.251* 0.093 0.006 0.055 0.018
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
320 Zipp and Fenwick
Taking our findings together suggests the following picture: conservative
faculty were more interested in preparing students for careers and in shaping
their values and less interested in teaching creative thinking or an appreciation
of literature and the arts. Conservatives also appear less committed to aca-
demic freedom, as they were less supportive of both tenure and the free
exchange of ideas in the classroom.
The juxtaposition of conservatives being less interested in teaching an
appreciation of literature and the arts, more interested in shaping values, and
less supportive of academic freedom is quite ironic given recent claims by
conservative critics. A common lament among conservatives has been that lib-
eral faculty (in the humanities in particular) have substituted politically cor-
rect literature for the great books of Western culture, thereby depriving
students of a true appreciation of the important contributions to human
thought. Also, conservatives have criticized liberals for using their classrooms
to push their values on vulnerable undergraduates—yet it is conservatives
who were the ones most given to thinking that shaping students’ values is an
important goal of higher education. Finally, conservative faculty were less
supportive (and becoming even less so over time) of important components of
academic freedom—the free exchange of ideas in the classroom and in tenure.
Discussion
We began this article by asking two questions: Have faculty become increas-
ingly liberal? And are these liberal faculty pushing their agendas on their stu-
dents? Based on our analysis of these Carnegie surveys, we have reasonably
clear answers to both of these questions. First, the American academy has not
become a liberal hegemony; if anything, there has been a slight trend to moder-
ation—from both ends of the political spectrum toward the center. Second, there
is little evidence that liberal faculty see pushing their agendas as an important
aspect of their jobs. Indeed, liberal faculty are more committed to what can best
be described as the traditional goals of higher education: an appreciation of lit-
erature and the arts, creative thinking, and the free exchange of ideas.
Before accepting these data as settling all questions regarding the political atti-
tudes and behavior of faculty, however, we need to acknowledge that we cannot
use them to contend that all is well within the academy. With more than 4,000
colleges and universities, 1.1 million faculty, and almost 16 million students
(U.S. Bureau of the Census 2004, p. 168), there surely have been and will con-
tinue to be instances of faculty, both liberal and conservative, using the class-
room in ways that those with other political orientations might not like. Based on
our findings, however, there appears to be little danger that these sorts of prob-
lems exist because an increasingly liberal faculty has taken over universities and
that this liberal faculty is concerned more with using its position of power to
advance its own views rather than supporting traditional educational values.
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
Is the Academy a Liberal Hegemony? 321
Although we are comfortable with these conclusions, there is some evi-
dence, partly from our data and also in the work of others, that indicates the
presence of a growing shift in higher education away from its traditional
goals. Recall that the one educational goal in which there was increasing con-
sensus among faculty is perhaps the least “traditional” academic value: the
growing importance that faculty attached to preparing their students for
careers. Overall, faculty seeing preparing students for a career as a “very
important” goal in undergraduate education increased from 31.7 percent in
1989 to 45.2 percent in 1997. This becomes even more interesting when con-
sidering that those seeing “shaping students’ values” as very important also
increased from 40.9 percent to 45.0 percent; meanwhile, the importance of
providing an appreciation of literature and the arts held constant at roughly
50 percent, but the importance of enhancing creative thinking fell precipit-
ously, from 70.8 percent to 48.1 percent.
For many this may be alarming in itself, but another way to see this is
that in 1989 there was a clear hierarchy of educational goals: seven out of
ten faculty felt that the traditional aims of creative thinking were very
important, five out of ten felt so about an appreciation of literature and the
arts, and three to four out of ten emphasized career preparation and shaping
students’ values. Yet, by 1997, all four goals essentially were seen as
equally important among faculty (45–50 percent of faculty held them to be
very important).
This is a tremendous swing in less than a decade, away from education’s
traditional goals and especially away from enhancing creative thinking and
toward career preparation. Even though this shift from education to training is
much more pronounced than the supposed rise of liberalism and may signify
one of the most important changes in the academy in the last two decades, it
has been all but ignored by conservatives as they hunt for “liberals” in the fac-
ulty. Quite ironically, in contrast to conservative laments about liberals nar-
rowing political discourse and debate, the real change may instead be the
move away from the importance of the critical appraisal of ideas and toward
the teaching of job-related skills. Thus, the traditional mission of higher edu-
cation may be in jeopardy of being compromised, but not in the ways that con-
servative commentators have described.
Appendix: Exact Wording of Questions
1989 Survey
Gender (’89-Q53)
“53. Your gender:
1. Male
2. Female”
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
322 Zipp and Fenwick
Age (Birth Year; ’89-Q50)
“50. What is your year of birth? 19 — —”
Carnegie Classification (’89-CARNEGIE)
The code for each respondent’s school was printed on the top of the back page of each
survey.
Academic Discipline (’89-Q11)
“11. From the following list, circle the department of your teaching appointment.
Where your discipline does not appear, circle the most similar discipline.
Agriculture/Forestry/Natural Resources
Allied Health (Medical Technologies)
Architecture/Environmental Design
Area/Ethnic Studies
Biological/Life Sciences
Business/Management
Communications/Journalism
Computer/Information Science
Economics
Education (including Administration and Counseling)
Engineering
Fine Arts (Art, Drama, Music)
Foreign Languages
Geography
Health Professions (Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Veterinary)
Home Economics
Humanities (Literature, History, Philosophy, Religion, Theology, Rhetoric)
Industrial Arts
Law
Library Science
Mathematics/Statistics
Military Science/Technologies
Physical and Health Education
Physical Sciences
Psychology
Public Affairs
Social Sciences (Anthropology, Political Science, Sociology, Social Work)
Vocational/Technical Training
Other Discipline”
Political Ideology (’89-Q51)
“51. How would you characterize yourself politically at the present time?
Liberal
Moderately liberal
Middle-of-the-road
Moderately conservative
Conservative”
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
Is the Academy a Liberal Hegemony? 323
Abolish Tenure (’89-Q23c), Standards of Scholarship (’89-Q22i), Free to
Express Ideas in Class (’89-Q22d)
“23. Please indicate the extent of your agreement or disagreement with each of the fol-
lowing statements. A ‘neutral’ response is provided.
Strongly agree
Agree with reservations
Neutral
Disagree with reservations
Strongly Disagree
The abolition
of tenure would, on the whole, improve the quality of American higher
education.
In my discipline, most faculty agree on the standards of good scholarship.
Faculty members should be free to present in class any idea that they consider relevant,
however much I may
disagree with their views”
Goal of Undergraduate Education: Shape Student Values (’89-Q32b),
Enhance Creative Thinking (’89-Q32c), Appreciate Literature and the Arts
(’89-Q32a), Prepare for a Career (’89-Q32f)
32. Many goals have been proposed for undergraduate education. Please indicate the
importance of each of the following goals. To . . .
Very important
Fairly important
Fairly unimportant
Very unimportant
No opinion
Shape student values
Enhance creative thinking
Provide an appreciation of literature and the arts
Prepare students for a career”
1997 Survey
Gender (’97-q65)
“65. Your sex: (Please circle appropriate number)
Male
Female”
Age (Birth Year; ’97-q66)
“66. Year of birth: 19 — —”
Carnegie Classification (’97-CC94)
The code for respondents’ schools were printed on the bottom right-hand corner of
p. 12 of each survey.
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
324 Zipp and Fenwick
Academic Discipline (’97-q8)
“8. In which discipline would you classify the primary department or unit in which you
are employed? (Please circle appropriate number)
Allied Health Fields
Biological Sciences
Business
Communications
Computer & Information Science
Dentistry
Education
Engineering
Fine Arts
Humanities
Law
Mathematics/Statistics
Medicine
Nursing
Pharmacy
Physical Education
Physical Sciences
Psychology
Social Sciences
Technical/Vocational
Other: _________”
Political Ideology (’97-q68)
“68. How would you characterize yourself politically at the present time? (Please circle
appropriate number)
Liberal
Moderately liberal
Middle of the road
Moderately conservative
Conservative”
Abolish Tenure (’97-q49e), Standards of Scholarship (’97-q49b), Free to
Express Ideas in Class (’97-q53d)
“49. Please indicate the extent of your agreement or disagreement with each of the fol-
lowing statements. (Fill in number)
Strongly agree
Agree with reservations
Neutral
Disagree with reservations
Strongly Disagree
The abolition of tenure would, on the whole, improve the quality of American higher
education.
In my field, most people agree on the standards of good scholarship.
Faculty members should be free to present in class any idea that they consider relevant.”
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
Is the Academy a Liberal Hegemony? 325
Goal of Undergraduate Education: Shape Student Values (’97-q55b),
Enhance Creative Thinking (’97-q55c), Appreciate Literature and the Arts
(’97-q55a), Prepare for a Career (’97-q55d)
55. Many goals have been proposed for undergraduate education. On the following list,
please indicate how important you consider each of the following possible outcomes
for the undergraduate (Fill in number)
Very important
Fairly important
Not too important
Not at all important
Not applicable/Don’t know
Firm moral values
Enhanced creative capacities
Appreciation of literature and the arts
Preparation for a career”
References
Abramowitz, Alan I., and Kyle L. Saunders. 1998. “Ideological Realignment in the U.S. Electorate.”
Journal of Politics 60:634–52.
Balch, Stephen H. 2004. “The Antidote to Academic Orthodoxy.” Chronicle of Higher Edu-
cation, April 23. Available online at http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i33/33b00701.htm.
Bauerlein, Mark. 2004. “Liberal Groupthink Is Anti-intellectual.” Chronicle of Higher Education,
November 12. Available online at http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i12/12b00601.htm.
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 1994. A Classification of Institutions of
Higher Education. Princeton: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Chronicle of Higher Education. 2004. “Facts and Figures: 2003–4 Freshmen Survey.” January 30.
Available online at http://chronicle.com/prm/premium/stats/freshmen/2004/opinions.html.
D’Souza, Dinesh. 1991. Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus. New York:
Free Press.
Dubner, Jeffrey. 2005. “College Try.” The American Prospect 16 (April):12–14.
Duncan, Otis Dudley. 1969. “Inheritance of Poverty or Inheritance of Race.” In On Understand-
ing Poverty, ed. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, pp. 85–110. New York: Basic Books.
Fiorina, Morris P., with Samuel J. Abrams and Jeremy C. Pope. 2005. Culture War? The Myth of
a Polarized America. New York: Pearson Longman.
Hamilton, Richard F., and Lowell L. Hargens. 1993. “The Politics of the Professors: Self-
Identifications, 1969–1984.” Social Forces 71:603–27.
Horowitz, David, and Eli Lehrer. 2002. “Political Bias in the Administrations and Faculties of 32
Elite Colleges and Universities.” Center for the Study of Popular Culture. Available online at
www.frontpagemag.com/Content/read.asp?ID=55.
Iams, Howard M., and Arland Thorton. 1975. “Decomposition Differences: A Cautionary Note.”
Sociological Methods and Research 3:341–52.
Jacobsen, Jennifer. 2004. “Conservatives in a Liberal Landscape.” Chronicle of Higher Edu-
cation, September 24. Available online at http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i05/05a00801.htm.
———. 2005. “Pennsylvania Lawmakers Hold Hearings on Political Bias in the Classroom.”
Chronicle of Higher Education, November 25, p. A32.
Kahn, Charles, and Gur Huberman. 1988. “Two-Sided Uncertainty and ‘Up-or-Out’ Contracts.”
Journal of Labor Economics 6:423–44.
Kimball, Roger. 1990. Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Higher Education. New
York: Harper and Row.
Klein, Daniel B., and Charlotta Stern. 2004. “How Politically Diverse Are the Social Sciences and
Humanities? Survey Evidence from Six Fields.” Available online at http://swopec.hhs.se/ratioi/
abs/ratioi0053.htm.
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
326 Zipp and Fenwick
Klein, Daniel B., and Andrew Western. 2004. “How Many Democrats per Republican at UC-
Berkeley and Stanford? Voter Registration Data across 23 Academic Departments.” Available
online at http://swopec.hhs.se/ratioi/abs/ratioi0054.htm.
Ladd, Everett Carl, Jr., and Seymour Martin Lipset. 1975. The Divided Academy: Professors and
Politics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lindbolm, Jennifer A., Katalin Szelényi, Sylvia Hurtado, and William S. Korn. 2005. The American
College Teacher: National Norms for the 2004–2005 HERI Faculty Survey. Los Angeles:
University of California, Los Angeles, Higher Education Research Institute.
Tierney, John. 2004. “Republicans Outnumbered in Academia, Studies Find.” New York Times,
November 18, p. A23.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. 2004. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2004–2005. 124th ed.
Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census.
Wall Street Journal. 2004. “Taste: A Chill in the Classroom.” Weekend Journal, December 3,
p. W15.
Will, George F. 2004. “Academia, Stuck to the Left.” Washington Post, November 28, p. B7.
Wisse, Ruth R. 2004. “John Kerry U.” Wall Street Journal, October 25, p. A18.
at University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System on March 14, 2011poq.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from
