The truth is less sensational. While professors in the humanities (especially in New England) tend to be quite far to the political and cultural left in comparison to the American mainstream, relatively few of them bring their personal convictions into the classroom. They’re scholars first, committed to research agendas that can certainly appear narrow and antiquarian to non-scholars but that usually stay far away from anything that could be construed as partisan politics. And then there are the social sciences, especially economics departments, where you’ll often find plenty of Republicans, and medical and business schools, where the ideological make-up of the faculty often comes close to reflecting the partisan divisions of the country as a whole.
You’d never know any of this from reading Campus Reform or watching Fox News, which treat every story of extremism or intolerance at any college anywhere in the country as a revelation about what universities are really like. And why not? As with every stupid tweet by a progressive writer, each story about campus radicalism keeps Republican voters whipped up into a froth of indignation that inspires them to keep clicking and watching, and motivates them to show up on Election Day. Everybody wins.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member