University of Wisconsin faculty were found to be significantly more liberal than the general American public in a poll published March 8 by UW’s Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership.
Fewer than 10% of faculty at UW identify as conservative, while 70% identify as liberal, according to the study.
Nationally, 21% of Americans with doctoral degrees identify as conservative, compared to only 9% of UW faculty, according to the study. This difference is more significant at the conservative end of the spectrum — only 3% identify as “conservative” or “extremely conservative,” compared to 28% of the total U.S. population.
Conservative faculty also report feeling less comfortable expressing their views and less confident that their right to free speech is protected, according to the study.
UW faculty make up over 125 departments, with over 2,500 faculty members representing nearly all academic disciplines, according to UW. The poll surveyed 633 respondents out of 2,388 the survey was sent out to, with a consistent or even high response rate according to UW political methodology and American politics professor Alexander Tahk.
“I would just say that that’s normal, it is very hard to get people to respond to surveys,” Tahk said. “Obviously, I don’t know for sure, but I think the short of it is that everyone is busy, we get tons of emails and tons of other stuff.”
The study surveyed tenured and tenure-track faculty across all of UW’s schools and colleges on ideological composition, campus climate, academic freedom, free expression and hiring, according to the study.
Faculty participants were asked to place themselves on a seven-point scale from extremely liberal to extremely conservative, according to Tahk. The responses were then grouped together, based on responses of generally conservative or liberal.
“I think the ideological overall balance, that’s sort of 70% liberal [and] 9 or 10% conservative, is … not terribly surprising to most people, but also not really the most notable or important part here,” Tahk said.
Beyond overall percentages, the study gave important takeaways about faculty ideology related to race, area of study and hiring practices, according to Tahk.
When it comes to racial identity, faculty of color lean slightly more conservative than white faculty, according to the survey. Asian faculty are significantly more likely to identify as conservative, according to the study.
“I think a lot of people would have probably assumed the opposite, and that just doesn’t appear to be the case,” Tahk said. “Some people may assume that efforts at racial diversity are intentioned with efforts at viewpoint diversity for that reason, and so I think it potentially matters that that doesn’t seem to be true.”
A tilt to liberal ideology is present across all academic fields, though it varies in degree, according to the study. The humanities have the highest concentration of liberal faculty, with 74% reporting an identification of “liberal” or “extremely liberal” and only 6% identifying as conservative, according to the study.
Conservative faculty report feeling less accepted on the UW campus than their liberal colleagues. The study reports that a majority of conservative faculty believe someone with conservative views would feel “not at all” or only “slightly” welcome at UW, and none said conservatives would feel “very” or “extremely” welcome, according to the study.
Liberal faculty acknowledged these feelings of unwelcomeness, with far fewer saying conservatives would feel welcome compared to their liberal counterparts, according to the study.
“A lot of these issues or these issues related to this … are a big point of discussion, both on campus and at the other end of State Street,” Tahk said. “Bringing in some more rigorous, objective data, I think, helps the conversation by not necessarily getting everybody to share the same opinion, but giving everybody a common set of facts.”
