By: Dr. Jerry Bergman
Montpelier, Ohio
One examination by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture (CSPC) of over 150 college departments and upper-level administrations at 32 elite colleges and universities found that the ratio of registered Democrats (who tend to be liberal secularists) to registered Republicans (who are more likely to be conservatives and religious) was more than 10 to 1 (1,397 Democrats compared to a mere 134 Republicans). It surprised some that there were actually 134 Republicans!
In America as a whole, registered Democrats and Republicans are roughly equal in number.
Yet, the CSPC survey found no single department at any of the 32 schools that achieved numbers even remotely approaching parity between the two.
The closest any school came to parity was Northwestern University (in Evanston, IL), where 80 percent of the faculty members were registered Democrats and a mere 20 percent were registered Republicans.
At some of the other colleges researched, the ratio of Democrat to Republican faculty was as follows:
Brown University: 30 to 1
Bowdoin College: 23 to 1
Wellesley College: 23 to 1
Swarthmore College: 21 to 1
Amherst College: 18 to 1
Bates College: 18 to 1
Columbia University: 14 to 1
Yale University: 14 to 1
University of Pennsylvania: 12 to 1
Tufts University: 12 to 1
UCLA: 12 to 1
UC Berkeley: 12 to 1
At four colleges, the researchers could not identify a single Republican on the faculty:
Williams College: 51 Democrats, 0 Republicans
Oberlin College: 19 Democrats, 0 Republicans
MIT: 17 Democrats, 0 Republicans
Haverford College: 15 Democrats, 0 Republicans
Political bias in the faculties of these 32 elite colleges and universities is a major problem. Colleges strive for ethnic diversity, but not only do they not strive for intellectual diversity, they actively discriminate against it. Instead of teaching how to think, all too often colleges teach what to think.
This is called indoctrination, which the Trump administration has been taking action against by imposing fines and other penalties against colleges that practice discrimination.
Columbia University has agreed to pay a $200 million fine to restore federal funding that was withheld due to its failures to address antisemitism and discrimination against Jewish students.
They also agreed to pay an additional $21 million to settle related investigations by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Brown University agreed to a settlement that included a $50 million payout directed to the Rhode Island workforce development organizations and reforms regarding antisemitism and racial bias in admissions.
The administration has also frozen over $2.6 billion in research grants to Harvard University, accusing it of not doing enough to address antisemitism on campus. Harvard is reportedly close to a settlement that could require a $500 million payment.
Next, the Trump administration needs to address discrimination against Republicans, Christians, and those who believe in a creator God.
Political party discrimination is only a small part of the problem existing in academia. A major part of the problem is worldview discrimination.
A study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs found that “American academia is overwhelmingly dominated by liberal secularists, and this fact systematically proves bias [against conservatives and religious persons] in the hiring and promotion of faculty members.”
A survey by Professor Larson and journalist Larry Witham published in the world’s leading science magazine, Nature, found 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, America’s most elite body of academic scientists, are agnostics or atheists, and only 7% believe in a personal God.
Of leading academic biologists, only 5.5% believe in God and an afterlife. They also found that over 60% of all academic scientists did not believe in a personal God or an afterlife. Death is the absolute end of life. This is close to the exact reverse of the figures for the American public.
This difference in the American public and college professors is also reflected in party affiliation. A recent Gallup poll of Americans found 60% of Republicans, 40% of Independents, and only 38% of Democrats self-identify as creationists.
One prominent figure in U.S. politics known for his creationist views is Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. He is associated with the Ark Encounter, a young-Earth creationist (YEC) organization that asserts the Earth is only 6,000 years old.
While many other members of Congress identify as creationists, a wide range of views exists on the topic even within the religious community, including theistic evolution.
When the U.S. Congress convened for its 119th session, it had fewer Christians than it did in the previous session, continuing a gradual, ten-year decline (461 Christian members compared with 491 during the 2015-2017 session).
Nominal Christians make up 87% of voting members in the Senate and House of Representatives combined, down from 92% a decade ago.
Although the share of the U.S. public that is religiously unaffiliated –often called “nones” – has risen rapidly in recent decades (from 16% in 2007 to 28% in our recent polling), the corresponding share of the “nones” in Congress has remained minuscule.
Baptists are the largest category of Protestants in the new Congress, with 75 members (14.1% of Congress). This is eight more Baptists than in the prior session.
The next largest Protestant groups are Methodists (26 members), Presbyterians (26), Episcopalians (22), and Lutherans (19). These numbers are much smaller than the 112th Congress, when there were 51 Methodists, 45 Presbyterians, 41 Episcopalians, and 26 Lutherans.
Thus, the Pew study found that Congress is religiously a close cross-section of the American population. The largest contrast was a significantly greater percentage of Catholics in Congress compared to the U.S. population (31% versus 21%).
In short, college faculty are politically and religiously totally unlike either the American public or the U.S. Congress. Given this fact, one has to wonder why Congress is not much more aggressive in opposing the widespread religious and political discrimination in academia?
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Dr. Bergman is a multi-award-winning professor and author. Has 9 degrees and has taught at both the graduate and undergraduate level for over 40 years. His over 2,100 publications are in both scholarly and popular journals. Dr. Bergman’s work has been translated into 15 languages. He has spoken over 2,000 times to college, university and church groups in America, Canada, Europe, the South Sea Islands, and Africa. He lives in Montpelier and is available to present in churches and schools. Jerry can be reached at JerryBergman30@yahoo.com