Thursday, October 13, 2005
Study Finds Democrats Outnumber Republicans 8:1 in Elite Law School Faculties
Conservative gadfly David Horowitz has published a study (Representation of Political Perspectives in Law and Journalism Faculties) (with Joseph Light at the Center for the Student of Popular Culture) showing that Democrats outnumber Republicans 8:1 on the faculties of 10 elite law schools (and 9 journalism schools). The study examined the political party registrations of law faculty at these 10 law schools:
Political Party Registrations of Law School Faculty
School
Democrats
Republicans
D/R Ratio
Berkeley
55
6
9:1
Chicago
56
8
7:1
Columbia
46
2
23:1
Harvard
45
7
7:1
NYU
68
5
14:1
Northwestern
29
7
4:1
Penn
27
8
3:1
Stanford
28
1
28:1
USC
30
4
8:1
Yale
46
5
9:1
Total
430
53
8:1
John Tierney wrote about the study in Tuesday's New York Times, Where Cronies Dwell:
Journalists and legal scholars have been decrying "cronyism" and calling for "mainstream" values when picking a Supreme Court justice. But how do they go about picking the professors to train the next generation of journalists and lawyers?...
I'm not suggesting that journalism or law schools should be forced to have ideological balance on their faculties -- this is one of those many problems that doesn't require a solution by the government. But it's curious how little the institutions care about it. They keep meticulous tabs on the race and gender and ethnic background of their students and faculty. But the lack of political diversity is taken as a matter of course. As long as the professors look different, why worry if they all think the same?
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2005/10/study_finds_dem.html