With Senate and House elections around the corner, the political atmosphere both in the media and on college campuses is heating up. For example, you may have noticed the College Republicans out recruiting in full force on campus.

Because students attend college during their formative years, many studies have been conducted that examine the political tendencies of the various university departments. While certain groups on campus like the College Republicans and the College Democrats wear their political ideologies on their sleeve, it’s more difficult to establish the political tendencies of academic departments. To that end, the political leanings of the academic departments of UNCW were examined by compiling the number of professors in each department by political party affiliation. The results show that there is an overwhelming majority of professors affiliated with the Democratic Party.

There were four categories the professors could fall under. According to the North Carolina voter roll, voters were democrats, republicans or unaffiliated. The fourth category lists the professors that could not be found in the database. Of the 734 professors polled, 349 were listed as democrats, 107 as republicans, 145 as unaffiliated, and the political affiliation of 133 professors was not found.

There are four reasons why the political affiliation was unidentifiable: 1) The professor could be a registered voter in another state; 2) The identity of the professor could not be verified 100 percent due to registered voters with the same name; 3) The professor might not be a citizen of the United States, which is evident in the Foreign Language Department; and 4) The professor might not be a registered voter.

While the party affiliation of approximately 17 percent of the professors polled was not found, the numbers show a definite tendency for professors to affiliate themselves with the Democratic Party. Approximately 48 percent of UNCW professors are democrats, while only about 15 percent are republicans. In fact, professors listed as unaffiliated outnumber those listed as republicans by 38 people. Of all the academic departments at UNCW, only one had a majority of republican professors: the Cameron School of Business.

UNCW FacultyPolitical Afflilations

48% – Democrat

15% – Republican

20% – Unaffiliated/Other

17% – No Response

What do these numbers mean? Why is there a large majority of democratic professors on campus? Do the numbers indicate a liberal bias on campus?

UNCW isn’t the only university where a majority of democratic professors has been documented. In the article “How Many Democrats per Republican at UC-Berkeley and Stanford?” published in the journal Academic Questions in the winter 2004-2005 issue, authors Daniel Klein and Andrew Western of Santa Clara University tallied the party affiliation of professors in 23 different academic departments at the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University.

Klein and Western found that there was a 9.9 to 1 ratio of democratic professors to republican professors at UC-Berkeley and a 7.6 to 1 majority at Stanford.

Dr. Thomas Barth, chair of the political science department at UNCW, explains, “It’s never been surprising to me that academic institutions would be dominated by democrats because it’s the party of the ‘bigger tent.'” This is the idea that there is more tolerance in the Democratic Party to different lifestyles and ideas commonly seen in universities than there is in the Republican Party.

Dr. John Rice, a professor in the sociology department at UNCW, explains the reason for this tolerance.

“There is long-standing research based on the belief that the more educated you are, as professors generally are, the more you are exposed to different methods, beliefs, and ideas so that in the end you are more open to change and different ways of doing things. Since the Democratic Party is more accepting of these values, you tend to see more professors in this area.”

The tendency of business professors to affiliate themselves with the Republican Party can be explained, according to Dr. Rice, by “the general belief of business professors that the invisible hand of the free market can take care of anything, which are views typically embraced by the Republican Party.”

Since there is a majority of democrat professors at UNCW, and because of their affiliation with liberal values, the question naturally arises: Is there a liberal bias at UNCW?

In a critique of the study published by Klein and Western entitled, “Evaluating Claims of Bias In Academia: A Comment on Klein and Western’s ‘How Many Democrats per Republican at UC-Berkeley and Stanford?'” authors Ethan Cohen-Cole and Steven Durlauf of the University of Wisconsin at Madison explain several flaws in the study.

In the critique Cohen-Cole and Durlauf explain that a problem with Klein and Western’s data “is that they contain limited information about the actual political beliefs of the faculty, since party affiliation reflects neither degrees of liberalism or conservatism, nor intensity of belief.”

Dr. Barth expressed similar criticism to the poll taken of UNCW professors. To use party affiliation to measure political ideologies in the school’s departments “is really a crude tool.” Dr. Barth further explains, “In my own case I’m a registered democrat, but I’m a moderate, and you have democrats who are really left-wing liberals. Just like in the conservatives you’ve got tremendously social conservatives and you’ve got moderates, so you have to be careful in terms of how you interpret these labels.”

While it is this variability within these two parties that makes it impossible to place a label on the university’s political ideological tendencies based on the party affiliation of the professors, several students of UNCW have their own opinion based on their classroom experiences.

Jon Thompson, UNCW student and state chairman of the North Carolina Federation of College Republicans, believes, “There is most certainly a liberal bias on campus.” Thompson then explained, “I do have professors who have told us they are liberal and are democrats, but yet they’ll present both viewpoints. However, I had one professor in the political science department who taught from his liberal perspectives. He’d make fun of conservatives and the president, but when someone brought up Clinton, he’d defend him like crazy. And I hate that he teaches 101 American Government to freshman who do not know any better; I hate that.”

Like Thompson, Aaron Voyles, UNCW student, SGA Treasurer and an affiliate of the Democratic Party, believes there is a liberal bias on campus, only in a different way.

As Voyles explains, “I think you have to admit there is a liberal bias in education because of the nature of the field. UNCW is a liberal arts school; if you didn’t expect there to be a liberal bias then what did you expect? The idea is the exchange of viewpoints and ideas, and that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place for conservative opinions and ideologies. It just means that a university should provide avenues for all viewpoints, which I believe is the definition of liberal.”

While these two accounts provide anecdotal evidence for a liberal bias on campus, to say conclusively that UNCW has a liberal bias would be incorrect. What is needed are cold, dry statistics; however, the poll conducted listing the political affiliation of the professors within each department does not provide evidence for a liberal bias on campus due to its inability to measure the degree of variability within the party affiliations.