Sunday, October 2, 2016

Faculty Voter Registration in Economics, History, Journalism, Law, and Psychology

Daniel Klein, Anthony Quain, and my paper  "Faculty Voter Registration in Economics, History, Journalism, Law, and Psychology" appears in the recently released issue of Econ Journal Watch , and it can be downloaded at 

               

The executive summary of the paper is as follows:

We investigate the voter registration of faculty at 40 leading U.S. universities in the fields of Economics, History, Journalism/Communications, Law, and Psychology. We looked up 7,243 professors and found 3,623 to be registered Democratic and 314 Republican, for an overall D:R ratio of 11.5:1. The D:R ratios for the five fields were: Economics 4.5:1, History 33.5:1, Journalism/Communications 20.0:1, Law 8.6:1, and Psychology 17.4:1. The results indicate that D:R ratios have increased since 2004, and the age profile suggests that in the future they will be even higher. We provide a breakdown by department at each university. The data support the established finding that D:R ratios are highest at the apex of disciplinary pyramids, that is, at the most prestigious departments. We also examine how D:R ratios vary by gender and by region. People interested in ideological diversity or concerned about the errors of leftist outlooks—including students, parents, donors, and taxpayers—might find our results deeply troubling.

Since the article came out, a number of news sources have covered this article. (We forgot to include Florida, and I am working on correcting that, but that won't change the findings.) Some of the coverage is as follows:

Inside Higher Ed

Fox News

Washington Examiner

Minding the Campus

Washington Times

PamelaGeller.com