Universities have leaned left politically since at least the 1960s. In itself, that’s not a problem. Different professions attract different kinds of people. Artists lean liberal. Soldiers lean conservative. Why should academics be any exception?
But there’s a difference between a lean and a monopoly – and American academia is rapidly approaching the latter. According to a recent paper by Nathan Honeycutt, 74% of US faculty identify as liberal, 15% as moderate, and only 11% as conservative. Remarkably, more faculty identify as “far left” or “very liberal” than with any position right of center.
This matters because intellectual progress depends on disagreement. When dissenting voices vanish, institutions don’t become wiser; they become more vulnerable to groupthink, motivated reasoning, and the comforting illusion that everyone sensible already agrees. If universities lose the capacity to challenge their own assumptions, their claim to be society’s truth-seeking institutions starts to look increasingly shaky.
In this post, I’ll outline five key findings about the political makeup and trajectory of academia, captured in five fascinating graphs.
Hellbound and Down 