# Higher education leans left: why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 20, 2006, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859 "2006-01-20T18:58:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/21 "2006-01-21T00:50:10Z")
My take on the situation is that academia skews Left because very few of them have ever held a real job in their lives. Living in the “ivory tower” enables you to be as idealistic and righteous as you like, becuase you never have to meet a payroll or deal with the thousands of petty annoyances that real people with real jobs have to deal with. Note that engineers and the like skew Right, because they actually have to deal with the Real World. Yes, this is a broad brush. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/22 "2006-01-21T01:07:44Z")
Has no one considered the possibility that academics lean left because they’re **smart?!** ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/23 "2006-01-21T01:16:35Z")
> [@Hoodoo Ulove](#): > > They’re called liberal arts. I know, but that name comes from the middle ages, when the current liberal/conserative labels didn’t apply. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/24 "2006-01-21T01:19:14Z")
> [@Anne Neville](#): > > I was in the physical sciences at the University of Maryland in the 1990’s. I don’t even know what the political opinions of most of my professors were- that subject just never came up in science classes. I have the same experience. I’m a computer science major(for another semester, anyway) and politics never comes up in class. The only time it’s ever come up is in the few liberal arts classes I take as electives. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/25 "2006-01-21T01:22:15Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Has no one considered the possibility that academics lean left because they’re **smart?!** Nah. That’s just crazy talk. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/26 "2006-01-21T01:43:04Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > My take on the situation is that academia skews Left because very few of them have ever held a real job in their lives. Living in the “ivory tower” enables you to be as idealistic and righteous as you like, becuase you never have to meet a payroll or deal with the thousands of petty annoyances that real people with real jobs have to deal with. Note that engineers and the like skew Right, because they actually have to deal with the Real World. > > Yes, this is a broad brush. A professor who has to get grants to keep his grad students supported and get himself tenure has to make payroll far more than the vast majority of people who get a check, or even a researcher in industry like me. Saying that professors don’t have to deal with petty annoyances make me think that you’ve never been within miles of a real university. My professor friend go to a lot more bs meetings than I do. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/27 "2006-01-21T01:44:17Z")
That’s professor friends. I have more than one. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Orbifold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orbifold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orbifold)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/28 "2006-01-21T01:53:36Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > My take on the situation is that academia skews Left because very few of them have ever held a real job in their lives. Living in the “ivory tower” enables you to be as idealistic and righteous as you like, becuase you never have to meet a payroll or deal with the thousands of petty annoyances that real people with real jobs have to deal with. Note that engineers and the like skew Right, because they actually have to deal with the Real World. > > Yes, this is a broad brush. Count me in with **Voyager**. Academics never have to deal with petty annoyances? I only wish. My last grant application, job apps that I have to submit up to _nine months_ in advance, the two-hour online course that I had to take on sexual harassment prevention (here’s a tip: grabbing your co-worker’s ass is _right out_), the administrative hoops I have to jump through if I catch a student cheating…anyone who thinks an academic job is some kind of sinecure without petty annoyances has no idea what they’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/29 "2006-01-21T01:55:03Z")
OK. I’ll grant different annoyances. I said it was a broad brush. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/30 "2006-01-21T02:03:14Z")
> [@Richard Parker](#): > > Wealth correlates with conservatism… It’s not necessarily quite as simple as that. If you look at a map of the 2004 US election results broken up by district, you’ll note that the bluest parts of the map are nearest the major cities, where you have (on average) wealthier people. Of course, it’s also not necessarily as simple as saying that the Republicans are conservative and the Democrats are liberal… ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/31 "2006-01-21T02:33:34Z")
> [@Orbifold](#): > > Count me in with **Voyager**. Academics never have to deal with petty annoyances? I only wish. > > My last grant application, job apps that I have to submit up to _nine months_ in advance, the two-hour online course that I had to take on sexual harassment prevention (here’s a tip: grabbing your co-worker’s ass is _right out_), … And that’s just covering HR’s ass. You left out dealing with the Institutional Review Board, Grants and Contracts, your Department’s rigamorole, and then whatever requirements your funding agency wants to lay on you… actually, I could go on quite a while, and then get started on the bullshit involved in private clinical practice, but that’s another story. ---
**Author:** ![Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spatial_Rift_47)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/32 "2006-01-21T05:15:31Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Has no one considered the possibility that academics lean left because they’re **smart?!** This was essentially my point. I’ll admit that the “radical” thing isn’t the best way to demonstrate it. But what do all these supposedly-left leaning professors and students spend all their time doing? Thinking about stuff. Analyzing stuff. Modeling and predicting stuff. It stands to reason that they’re going to be good at critical reasoning, since that’s their livelihood, and so they’re going to have a better take on current events and recent politics. They (on the whole, certainly some of them are total dipshits) will have a better idea of where to go from here. And that makes them progressive, which makes them not-conservative, which makes them “liberal.” ---
**Author:** ![Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spatial_Rift_47)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/33 "2006-01-21T05:18:47Z")
One thing I forgot to add. I’ve spent 2.5 years at [RPI](http://www.rpi.edu), the oldest engineering school in the western hemisphere. The leftist attitudes are just as prevalent here among students of science and technology as they would be at any other school. Granted, students here are far more apathetic about expressing their sentiments, but those sentiments are there nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/34 "2006-01-21T14:49:06Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Has no one considered the possibility that academics lean left because they’re **smart?!** I considered it, way back when. Ultimately, I concluded that it was nonsense. Consider how many science profs I’ve encountered who claimed, “Science is the only way that one can know the truth!” Such a claim is self-contradictory and self-refuting… after all, what scientific methodology would only use to determine that science is the only possible path to knowledge? I eventually concluded that there is an element of self-selection involved; as \*\*Thudlow Boink \*\* said, a liberal atmosphere accomodates liberals and makes conservatives feel less welcome. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/35 "2006-01-21T19:21:24Z")
as an english major in a western new york school, i figure i should chime in and help the status quo. i’d say that professors are more left leaning, and it’s funny. it’s not like they’re forced to have a disclaimer of any kind, but it DOES seem that for the first week or first discussion, they make their stance known. if only there were some smart republicans around here to engage in some debate, we might all learn from it. …i’m kidding about the “smart” comment…but also from my experience, it seems to me that republicans (for lack of another term) tend to be more book smart, whereas the democrats (again, to generalize) tend to actually get worse grades, but they want to be more cyinical and examine things. it could be the small sample of people in this school, which is a perfectly valid criticism. then again, i should just be exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide for no particular reason. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/36 "2006-01-22T01:22:17Z")
> [@Richard Parker](#): > > I think religion is one key part, as \*\*Dalej42 \*\*pointed out. Academics tend to be less religious because they are interested in questions that can be answered by reason and empirical study rather than faith. In our secular western world, religion is usually separated from academic study (and has been since the enlightenment, so it’s unlikely that this is a side effect). This reminds me of a theory I’ve heard. Ideas are spread two ways; “horizontally” between strangers, and “vertically” down a family line/community tradition. Conservative ideas such as traditional religion, homophobia, traditional sex roles and so forth tend to be spread vertically. Left wing ideas like communism and religious tolerance tend to be spread horizontally ( note that communist countries tend to be big on literacy ). Conservativism has an inherent bias against the academic life, as education tends to disrupt vertically passed beliefs, or so the theory goes. > [@silenus](#): > > My take on the situation is that academia skews Left because very few of them have ever held a real job in their lives. They work and get paid; how is it not a “real job” ? ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/37 "2006-01-22T03:49:13Z")
> [@](#): > > They work and get paid; how is it not a “real job” ? I think that **silenus** has nearly got it, but not quite. Students are mostly young and have never had a real job. The left lean is astounding (ever heard anyone seriously propose a gift economy? where else but around a university campus could “The Militant” be sold on the streets?). Being in such an environment would suit left leaning faculty staff more than right leaning, hence the bias. ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/38 "2006-01-22T18:11:09Z")
I guess I’ll take a break from my “fake job” and ring in here. I haven’t seen national results from the HERI Faculty Survey (doesn’t mean it isn’t out there, but faculty research isn’t my area, really). I bring it up, however, because that questionnaire specifically asks faculty to self-identify. Based on previous research, I suspect it would show see a left-leaning faculty, but with the disciplinary differences others have predicted (and with some fields going completely the opposite way). I would trust these results far more than Horowitz’, although I don’t know about participation and response rates. As for why, I don’t know. Or how it all started. To some small extent, I believe the tendency in each field is perpetuated because of “like breeds like.” During the PhD education process, one has to develop a fairly close mentoring relationship with a faculty member. It’s not that I think faculty change students to think like they do (in fact, I don’t think this is the case at all, which is why I find worries about undergraduate “brainwashing” laughable). Rather, it’s possible that students who lean differently then professors in their field do may tend to find other pursuits more appealing. I wouldn’t assume this makes a big difference, though (I’m not putting great stock in my own theory, IOW–hence my statement that it’s to a small extent). One of my fellow grad students was a very conservative Christian who was paired with a lesbian professor. She was his advisor, his thesis chair (the dissertation ended up winning awards), and a co-author on a chapter or two. My own example is less dramatic–my advisor was/is more conservative than I am, but it didn’t really make a difference in our relationship. Gotta run–there is a government teat that needs sucking. ---
**Author:** ![Orbifold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orbifold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orbifold)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/39 "2006-01-22T18:24:37Z")
> [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](#): > > I guess I’ll take a break from my “fake job” and ring in here. > > […] > > Gotta run–there is a government teat that needs sucking. See, now you’re just trying to rile me up. And it’s working. Hey **silenus** : I didn’t take note of that little “never had a real job” comment the first time I read your post. Perhaps you would care to explain how the job I currently have isn’t “real”? ---
**Author:** ![aurelian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f4b2a3/32.png) [@aurelian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurelian)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859/40 "2006-01-22T19:03:02Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > My take on the situation is that academia skews Left because very few of them have ever held a real job in their lives. Living in the “ivory tower” enables you to be as idealistic and righteous as you like, becuase you never have to meet a payroll or deal with the thousands of petty annoyances that real people with real jobs have to deal with. Ooh, boy. What is the point of posting this sort of stereotype in GD? I have worked in restaurants, in bars, tutored, done house cleaning, translated and helped create content for web pages, etc. In addition to waitressing, I also teach, and have for the last five years. And all of these jobs occured in the _real world_. I have to deal with pay cuts, threats to health care, annoying coworkers, daft clients (students), being overworked, just like anyone else. So, seriously **silenus** , how exactly does a post like yours help to to fight ignorance? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higher-education-leans-left-why/340859.md?page=3)