BUZZ
Support for a viewpoint diversity initiative is not very high among Harvard University faculty, particularly liberal professors, according to a new survey by the student newspaper.
Published today, results from The Crimson’s annual faculty survey showed 54 percent oppose Harvard leaders’ efforts to raise money for new endowed professorships that will contribute to “viewpoint diversity.”
Opinions about the plan, which was revealed in the spring, largely broke down along political lines. According to The Crimson, 55 percent of conservative professors supported the effort, 49 percent of moderates, and 17 percent of liberals.
Support for the viewpoint diversity professorship “closely tracked whether respondents believed Harvard had an ideological diversity problem: 62 percent of faculty who agreed that Harvard’s faculty has a ‘troubling lack of ideological diversity’ supported the fundraising initiative, compared with just six percent of those who disagreed,” the report found.
Almost half (47 percent) of professors also said they do not believe ideological diversity is a problem at Harvard. Among conservatives, however, 64 percent said that it does.
Meanwhile, the survey also found huge differences between conservative and liberal faculty when it comes to sharing their political opinions openly, The Crimson reports:
This year, roughly 68 percent of respondents said they “always” or “often” refrain from expressing their stances on political issues in the classroom. That figure rose to 82 percent among conservative faculty, compared with 63 percent of liberal faculty.
The ideological gap was wider in conservations with colleagues. Forty-five percent of conservative faculty respondents said they “often” or “always” refrained from expressing their stances on political issues with colleagues, compared to 15 percent of liberal faculty.
Overall, seven in 10 Harvard professors who responded to the survey identified themselves as politically liberal, a 6-percent increase from last year.
The political conformity in higher education, particularly the Ivy League, has been an issue of contention for many years.
A report earlier this year by the Buckley Institute found about seven out of 10 Ivy League governing board trustees are Democratic, while only one in 10 are Republican, The College Fix reported.
However, amid pressure from the Trump administration and sinking levels of public trust, Harvard’s leaders have been speaking more about the value of diverse viewpoints in the classroom.
As The Fix reported in April:
Officials are reportedly asking top donors for $10 million gifts to endow professors who will contribute to “viewpoint diversity,” according to The Harvard Crimson. The university faculty is reportedly 82 percent liberal.
“If successful, the funding could bring dozens of faculty members to campus and drastically shift Harvard’s academic makeup,” the student newspaper reported.
Harvard Provost John Manning “hoped to recruit between 20 and 30 faculty connected to the initiative,” The Crimson reported, based on an unnamed source.
Late last year, Harvard President Alan Garber also admitted that political activism is a problem among faculty.
Garber said higher education “went wrong” when institutions began allowing faculty to engage in activism in the classroom and in their research, and he is working to steer Harvard back in the right direction, The Crimson reported at the time.
Another recent survey of faculty from various institutions found stronger support for viewpoint diversity. According to the Heterodox Academy survey, 53 percent of faculty believe “political and religious diversity improves research and teaching within their disciplines.”
However, that survey also found a sizable minority of college faculty are not regularly engaging with people who disagree with them.
MORE: Only 1 in 10 Ivy League trustees is Republican, Yale has none: report
