Right, left or middle: let your political views be heard
The Traveler Editorial Board
Issue date: 11/12/08 Section: Opinion
There's no argument that at colleges and universities around the country, left-leaning professors far outweigh more conservative instructors, and students appear to mimic that. But despite somewhat popular belief, a new study released by the UCLA Higher Research Institute shows professors don't significantly influence students' political views.
It's hard to imagine that most professors' left-leaning ideology has no impact whatsoever on students' political alignment, but the study's results make sense: more students are Democratic because of the powerful influence of their liberal peers.
Researchers told the Associated Press that because there are more politically left-leaning groups at colleges and universities, students tend to, on average, also lean that direction.
Most students aren't going to be easily swayed by their teachers' political views, anyway. But the narrowness of professors' beliefs is worth mentioning - 72 percent of those teaching in colleges and universities consider themselves liberal, while only 15 percent of educators call themselves conservative, according to a March 2005 study published in the Forum, an online political science journal.
In a Washington Post article regarding the 2005 study, Jonathan Knight, director of academic freedom and tenure for the American Association of University Professors, said that "it's hard to see that these liberal views cut very deeply into the education of students" and that studies have shown "the core values that students bring into the university are not very much altered by being in college."
But something most certainly is altering the views of students as they work their ways through college, according to the UCLA study. Researchers found that students became significantly more liberal after three years in college regarding issues like abortion and gay marriage, and they also reported that the percentage of students who never attended religious services nearly doubled during that time to 37.5 percent.
It's hard to imagine that most professors' left-leaning ideology has no impact whatsoever on students' political alignment, but the study's results make sense: more students are Democratic because of the powerful influence of their liberal peers.
Researchers told the Associated Press that because there are more politically left-leaning groups at colleges and universities, students tend to, on average, also lean that direction.
Most students aren't going to be easily swayed by their teachers' political views, anyway. But the narrowness of professors' beliefs is worth mentioning - 72 percent of those teaching in colleges and universities consider themselves liberal, while only 15 percent of educators call themselves conservative, according to a March 2005 study published in the Forum, an online political science journal.
In a Washington Post article regarding the 2005 study, Jonathan Knight, director of academic freedom and tenure for the American Association of University Professors, said that "it's hard to see that these liberal views cut very deeply into the education of students" and that studies have shown "the core values that students bring into the university are not very much altered by being in college."
But something most certainly is altering the views of students as they work their ways through college, according to the UCLA study. Researchers found that students became significantly more liberal after three years in college regarding issues like abortion and gay marriage, and they also reported that the percentage of students who never attended religious services nearly doubled during that time to 37.5 percent.
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