A bevy of professors at the top universities nationwide have made campaign donations to a liberal congressional candidate whose candidacy has become a flashpoint of resistance against President Donald Trump and his administration.
A review of donations listed at the Center for Responsive Politics shows that at least one professor at each of the top 15 universities, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report, has donated money to Jon Ossoff, the Democrat candidate in a special election in the Georgia’s 6th Congressional District. The analysis turned up no employees or professors at those same schools donating to Ossoff’s opponent, Republican Karen Handel.
“I was also influenced by a desire to resist Trump’s plan to defer to Russia and make America insecure,” Rega Wood, a Stanford philosophy professor and Ossoff donor, said in an email to The College Fix.
Hundreds of dollars from multiple professors and employees at all eight Ivy League institutions have been received by Ossoff through his campaign. All of the Ivy League schools, ranked amongst the top 15 universities, are located in the East Coast and are hundreds of miles away from Georgia’s 6th District.
A broader look at Ossoff donations show that at about 90 percent of the top 100 colleges there was an employee who donated to Ossoff.
The special election has garnered national attention, with outside groups and donors across the country pouring millions into a race that will end up being most expensive U.S. House election in history. Handel and Ossoff are battling to replace Republican Tom Price, who resigned his seat earlier this year to serve as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. The special election, to be held Tuesday, follows a crowded April 18 primary that saw no candidate collect the majority needed to avoid a runoff election.
Donations listed on the Center for Responsive Politics website were made prior to the April primary. Professors donating to a liberal, Democratic candidate is hardly a new phenomenon, with previous reports outlining the extent to which professors donate and support Democrat candidates at nearly all levels of government.
Though, the special election in Georgia shows a specific example to which professors nationwide are actively involved in Democrat politics, especially in well-publicized races. While the donations from professors hardly account for the bulk of Ossoff’s funding, the donations highlight the extent to which professors are involved in politics in the era of Trump.
In emails with The College Fix, multiple professors who donated to Ossoff’s campaign said they heard about his candidacy through liberal or national media outlets and provided money to his campaign in an effort to either resist Trump or help Democrats retake the U.S. House of Representatives.
Wood, the philosophy professor at Stanford, said she likely heard about Ossoff’s campaign on MSNBC and donated to him because she thinks he’d be a good lawmaker.
Douglas Bishop, a professor in the department of radiation and cellular oncology at the University of Chicago, said he learned about Ossoff’s campaign through a Democrat mailing list and sent money to the candidate because he wants to see a Democratic majority in the house.
The Center for Responsive Politics shows Bishop has donated $225 dollars to Ossoff’s campaign, as of March 27. This year alone, Bishop has donated to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as well as a handful of U.S. senators.
MORE: 84% of Harvard scholars’ political donations went to Democrats, report finds
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