Over two-thirds of conservative academics throughout higher education systems in the United States and Canada reported a “hostile” work environment stemming from opposing political beliefs among their colleagues.
Around 70% to 80% of those who have right-wing views said they face an orbit of people actively “discouraging them from pursuing academic careers,” predominantly in the humanities and social sciences, according to a study released Monday from the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology. The research added that approximately 62% of graduate students with a “very right” worldview said revealing their political views to their peers would “make [their] life difficult,” while those with 32% of those with “somewhat right” views said the same.
A total of 18% of centrists said they would be discriminated against, 6% of the “somewhat left” group indicated their views would complicate their experience, and 8% of the “very left” body said the same. The reported political divide also extends to hiring practices.
Roughly 4 in 10 academics would not hire a supporter of former President Donald Trump, and 65% of graduate students said they would hire an advocate of Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders over a Trump backer.
DEMOCRATIC PROFESSORS OUTNUMBER REPUBLICANS 9 TO 1 AT TOP COLLEGES
Approximately 57% of U.S. academics said they “would be uncomfortable or unsure about sitting next to a Trump-supporting academic at lunch,” and 82% of graduate students discriminated against a backer of the former president in at least one of six instances posed to them in a series of questions.
However, only 1 in 10 academics support the “firing” of “controversial professors.” In the U.S., 7% would support ousting an educator for saying “diversity is negative,” 8% would do the same if he or she favored traditional parenthood, and 8% would remove an academic for wanting to limit immigration in some capacity. A total of 18% would dismiss an educator for saying women and other minorities perform more poorly at their jobs, and 24% of those polled supported at least one campaign to remove an academic.
Twelve percent of academics “openly admitted” to discriminating against conservative “paper submissions” and “promotion applications.” Another 20% said they did the same to right-leaning grants.
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The CSPI, which was founded in 2020 to “help support underexplored ideas in political psychology and the social sciences,” said it has found evidence of rampant “political bias, which affects everything from how questions are framed to the scrutiny with which evidence is treated and even who gets hired in the field.”
For the study, the organization sent a survey in August 2020 to 40,000 academics across top collegiate institutions. Eight hundred and three people completed the survey in the U.S., while 290 completed it in Canada. For graduate students, 434 completed a questionnaire in the UK, 368 did the same in the U.S., and 41 completed it in Canada. A partial survey was also sent to members of the National Association of Scholars from May 6 to Jun. 12, 2020, roughly 10% of members responded. A margin of error was not indicated in the study.
