The College Fix

ANALYSIS: Even the STEM disciplines lean left

Democratic professors outnumber their Republican counterparts by a ratio of about 4 to 1 in math and engineering departments, according to a College Fix analysis.

The Fix reviewed the political affiliations of professors in these departments, specifically looking at the same 10 universities analyzed in the past year. The Fix previously looked up the affiliations of professors in humanities departments. A full list of universities can be found at the end of the article.

In total, The Fix identified 532 Democratic professors to 142 Republicans. The analysis used publicly available party registration and voting history.

There were also 43 professors affiliated with a third-party, 348 who were unaffiliated, and 857 that could not be identified.

The analysis considered only professors, excluding teaching assistants, lecturers, adjuncts, and staffers. The Fix cross-checked names against publicly available information such as middle names and approximate birth years to identify professors and their affiliations.

In some states, voters do not pick a party – in those cases, The Fix looked at primary voting history and determined if an academic generally favored either the Democrats or Republicans.

The findings are similar to what past research found, according to a chemistry professor affiliated with Heterodox Academy.

“Several studies have shown significant asymmetry among the professoriat. As I recall, the STEM fields are the least biased, with engineering having a 2:1 [D]emocrats to [R]epublicans ratio, and then it only increases,” University of Southern California Professor Anna Krylov told The Fix via email.

“This indicates that academe does not represent the American public, which might result in an echo chamber and skewed perspectives within universities,” Professor Krylov said. She is critical of the role DEI has played in STEM.

Disparities vary among universities – for example, the University of Central Florida has 28 identified Democratic professors but only five Republicans. Four of these Republicans and 21 of the Democrats come from the engineering department.

MORE: Democrat professors outnumber Republicans 7 to 1 at U. Florida

The Fix emailed and called the offices of the chairs of the math and engineering departments, but did not receive a response.

The largest gap is at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There, Democrats outnumber Republicans 64 to 8 in the math and engineering departments. The university shares an engineering program with North Carolina State University.

The Fix has contacted the chair of the math and engineering department at UNC Chapel Hill through phone and email. No one has yet to respond to the inquiries sent in the past several weeks.

At the University of Florida, in the math and engineering departments the ratio of Democrat to Republican professors is 4 to 1.

The Fix also reached out to the University of Florida’s chair of the math department and the dean of the engineering school several times by phone and email but did not receive a response.

According to a previous College Fix analysis of 11 departments at the University of Florida, the ratio is seven Democrat professors for every one conservative professor. Four of the universities’ departments did not appear to have any Republicans.

Of the 10 universities analyzed, the math and engineering departments at UNC Chapel Hill had the largest disparity with 64 identifiable Democrats and just eight Republicans. The specific ratio in the math department is 20 Democrats to two Republicans.

Similarly, the analysis found that at the University of Cincinnati there are seven Democrat professors for every one Republican.

“The anthropology, journalism, Judaic studies, philosophy, psychology, sociology, as well as the gender studies department do not appear to have any Republicans teaching their students, according to public data,” The Fix recently reported.

The University of Georgia’s math and engineering departments had the smallest partisan gap. In total, there were 20 Democrats and eight Republicans, a ratio of 2.5 to 1.

Krylov, the USC professor, said political affiliation should not be considered in hiring at universities.

“Although I believe that it would be much healthier to have more balanced representation, we should not consider political affiliation at hiring and strive to focus on merit alone,” she said.

“I suspect that the current asymmetry is a result of biases in hiring, DEI practices, and suppression of conservative voices in academia. It would be a mistake to fight progressive biases with conservative biases,” Krylov told The Fix.

“My advice to students and faculty who represent minority viewpoints is to organize — establish focus groups (like HxA chapters), run events, start a [S]ubstack and publish viewpoints, etc. You might discover that you are not a minority on campus!”

To protect the identity of professors, The Fix has chosen not to publish its spreadsheet of the affiliations of individual scholars.

A full sheet with universities and the political affiliations can be found here.

MORE: Zero Republican professors found in 6 departments at Florida State U.

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