ANALYSIS: Democratic professors far outnumber Republican ones, voter registration database shows
Only nine registered Republican professors could be identified within nine different humanities departments at Oklahoma State University, according to research conducted by The College Fix.
The investigation sought to develop a snapshot of professors’ political party affiliations at one of the largest public universities in the Sooner State, in which Republican Donald Trump won the majority of votes in all 77 of Oklahoma’s counties in the 2024 presidential election.
Among the 222 professors researched in the public Oklahoma Election Data Warehouse, the largest group, 94 people, are of unknown affiliation, which means they are either not registered to vote, or not registered within Payne County, where the campus is located and where The Fix focused its research, or their identities could not be confirmed within the database.
The second-largest identified group are Democratic professors, followed by registered Independents, and coming in dead last are Republican professors. Of the 222 professors:
42.3% (94) unknown,
34.7% (77) Democrats,
18.9% (42) Independent,
4.1% (9) Republican.
Among the nine humanities departments researched, not a single Republican professor could be identified within four of them: economics, geography, political science and sociology.
The Fix cross-referenced against public information, such as curriculum vitae and research papers, to match names with registrations. Other information, including estimated birth year, was matched against birthday data included in the election statistics. The Fix only looked at professors, not lecturers, adjuncts, or emeriti faculty.
Oklahoma State University’s media affairs division declined to comment on the results.
Only one of the nine Republican professors responded to a request for comment from The College Fix, saying his political affiliation “has literally never come up as an educator.”
The Fix has chosen not to publish its spreadsheet of specific names to protect the identity of the Republican professors.
Brandon Dutcher, senior vice president of the center-right Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs think tank, told The College Fix that the OSU professor party affiliation results are not a shock.
“Sadly, this doesn’t come as a surprise at all,” he said. “Just a couple of months ago, an OSU professor published an article saying that not all Republicans are evil, ‘but if they support Trump, what else can I call them?’”
Dutcher said job openings at OSU paint a clear picture of bias.
“All you have to do is look at some of OSU’s job postings in recent years, such as when they were hiring an ‘Assistant Professor in Inequality-Race/Ethnicity’ or another position for which ‘scholars with marginalized identities, including women, gender, and sexual minorities’ were encouraged to apply,” he told The Fix via email.
“Heck, they even wanted a sort of DEI statement from applicants for an assistant professor in plant physiology. Regrettably, examples like this could be multiplied,” he said.
The College Fix in September also researched University of Oklahoma professor political party registrations and found similar disparities.
Zero Republican professors could be found across six humanities departments at U. Oklahoma: anthropology, English, psychology, philosophy, religion, and African American Studies.
At Oklahoma State University earlier this year, campus leaders shut down its bias response team to settle a lawsuit filed by a nationwide campus free speech organization.
The lawsuit, filed in 2023 by Speech First, had alleged that under university policies at the time, “students can be disciplined for ambiguously defined ‘intimidating’ speech, discussing politics in emails, commenting in class, or even, in the words of the University, for showing ‘a disproportionate weight in favor of or against an idea or thing.’”
The complaint came a few years after Oklahoma State was listed among 10 of the worst universities for free speech, according to a nationwide student survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
Dutcher of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs told The Fix that a course correction is needed.
“It makes no sense for taxpayers in a red state to subsidize blue universities,” he said. “OSU donors need to become former donors. And state lawmakers need to reduce or eliminate state appropriations, while also expanding higher-ed vouchers in Oklahoma.”
MORE: 37 academic departments across seven universities have zero Republican professors
IMAGE: YouTube screenshot / Oklahoma State University
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