The College Fix

Ten of the top public policy programs at universities across the nation lack significant numbers of conservative professors, new research finds.

Just 32 identifiably conservative faculty could be distinguished across the 10 schools, according to the study, which sorted professors by left, center, or right through publicly listed affiliations.

“Given that, do the faculty in these schools, charged with preparing students for public service and equipping them to navigate charged public debates, reflect the breadth of American thinking on government and policy,” asks American Enterprise Institute education expert Frederick Hess in the research, published by the Manhattan Institute.

Hess and research assistant Riley Fletcher argue that although the lack of conservative professors overall is well documented across universities, schools of public policy should be the exception.

“When studying policy, one’s ideological perspective leanings will almost inevitably color the questions a scholar thinks important and the ideas that they deem foundational. So, the composition of a faculty invariably affects the nature of both research and teaching,” Hess told The College Fix via email.

Nine of the universities listed in the report did not return requests for comment from The Fix.

The Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley told The Fix that it “does not have enough information to provide a comment at this time.” UC Berkeley’s public policy program does not employ a single identifiably conservative public policy professor, according to the findings.

The research coded 443 faculty members with identifiable ideological affiliations; 215 were identified as left-leaning, 196 as center, and only 32 as right-leaning.

However, the methodology was only able to determine the ideological affiliations of “37% of the 462 limited-term faculty and 36% of the 746 tenure-track faculty.”

Harvard employs four conservative professors compared to 56 left-leaning faculty. Princeton employs 31 left-leaning faculty to four conservative faculty members.

These extremely disproportionate ratios are observed at each school.

“Even in red and purple states, prominent policy schools at public institutions like the University of Texas, Indiana University, and the University of Georgia still show a decidedly leftward tilt,” the report states.

Hess told The Fix it is unclear if universities are purposefully sorting for ideological affiliation during hiring processes.

“If they’re not, though, they’re certainly cavalier about the fact that recruitment, selection, and hiring is yielding an ideologically monolithic community of policy scholars,” he said.

Co-author Fletcher told The Fix that “the leftward tilt of academia is not a new phenomenon. The data tells us that academe has been skewed in favor of the left for decades, but it’s gotten worse in the last ten years or so.”

“In a field charged with preparing people to navigate political battles, with a large amount of qualified candidates from the left and right, faculty at leading public policy programs should be balanced,” Fletcher said. “When hiring faculty, policy programs should keep in mind the broader American body politic and the number of qualified candidates across the aisle.”

Hess said he is hopeful that this trend may decline or even reverse given recent backlash against leftist ideology and the reelection of President Donald Trump.

“I’m optimistic, especially given the scrutiny they’re receiving, the political pushback from public officials who have woken up to the problem, and the views expressed by the president-elect,” he said.

MORE: Democrats outnumber Republican professors 7 to 1 at UGA 

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