UPDATED
ANALYSIS: Recipients included Obama, Biden, and other Democratic presidential campaigns
About 93 percent of top-ranked U.S. universities’ presidents who donated to political campaigns gave to Democrats, according to a College Fix analysis of federal and state political campaign donation data.
Among the top 25 presidents listed by U.S. News World & Report, 10 did not have appear to have donated, according to records.
But of the 15 presidents that The Fix found data on, 14 gave to Democrats, including 12 who gave exclusively and two who gave primarily to Democrats but also donated smaller amounts to Republicans; only one donated only to Republicans. That amounts to about 93 percent donating to Democratic campaigns, according to the analysis.
Information for the analysis came from the Federal Election Commission and the nonpartisan campaign research group Open Secrets, as well as individual state government campaign finance reports. Searches were conducted using the individuals’ names, including maiden and middle names, and current and past employers.
The Fix’s analysis includes donations records from 2002 to 2024. Donations were classified according to the listed party of the candidate or campaign.
The presidents included in the analysis were based on the top universities listed in U. S. News and World Report’s Best National University Rankings, as they were ranked in June.
Chance Layton, spokesperson for the National Association of Scholars, told The Fix in a phone interview Tuesday the analysis is consistent with their research findings showing professors in the liberal arts and humanities also tend to skew strongly left politically.
“The numbers do not surprise me whatsoever, it’s just a further piece of evidence that shows the lack of diversity on college campuses,” Layton said.
And personal politics do affect how universities are run, he said, pointing to administrations “run amuck” with “hard-core leftist policies” that push out conservative and moderate scholars with things like diversity statements in hiring practices.
The largest set of donations came from Brown University President Christina Paxson, who collectively gave $26,750 to Democrat candidates and fundraising platforms, The Fix found.
Her largest individual donation went to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the amount of $15,000 in 2014, according to FEC data. Paxson also donated to Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and John Kerry.
The second largest came from Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber, who gave $19,550 to various Democratic congressional candidates’ campaigns, and $3,500 to former President Obama.
The only university president who donated exclusively to Republican campaigns was Lee Roberts at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, who gave $17,650 to Republican candidates, including U.S. Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina.
Two of the presidents gave to mostly Democratic candidates and funds but also made some donations to Republicans.
Paul Alivisatos of the University of Chicago donated $50 to the Republican platform WinRed in 2024 and $125 in 2023. The remaining $5,688 of Alivisatos’ donations went to Democratic candidates and funds including $200 to the Democrat fund ActBlue in 2024.
Carnegie Mellon University President Farnam Jahanian also gave to both, including $2,000 to Democrat Pennsylvania Congressman Mike Doyle in 2019 and $3,400 to a campaign fundraiser for former Republican Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder in 2010.
The Fix emailed Paxson, Eisgruber, Roberts, Alivisatos, and Jahanian asking about their reaction to the analysis’ findings twice this week, but none responded.
Other presidents who gave to Democratic campaigns were Martha Pollack of Cornell University, Sally Kornbluth of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, J. Larry Jameson of the University of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Rosenbaum of California Institute of Technology.
Ronald Daniels of Johns Hopkins University, Carol Christ of University of California Berkeley, Santa Ono of the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Daniel Diermeier of Vanderbilt University, Gregory Fenves of Emory University, and James Ryan of the University of Virginia also gave exclusively to Democratic campaigns.
The findings are consistent with past College Fix analyses as well. In a 2022 analysis of public election donations records, The Fix found that 96 percent of approximately $2.5 million in political donations from Ivy League professors went to Democrats.
Meanwhile, only 4 percent of donations from a larger sample of U.S. colleges went to Republicans, according to another 2022 College Fix analysis of campaign contributions.
Editor’s note: This post was amended to reflect that while 25 presidents were reviewed, only 15 donated.
MORE: Nearly 100 percent of college’s political donations go to Democrats: report
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