If anyone ever doubted that academia is full of leftists or Democrats the latest report from the Center for Responsive Politics covering the 2005-2006 election cycle should put all arguments on the matter to rest.
In their just released study based on FEC data, the Center reports that the education industry gave over $12 million dollars to candidates with 69% of that amount going to Democrats and just 22% to Republicans. Yet that is only the average. At the University of California for instance employees gave $406,290 to rank number one on the list with 87% of the donations going to Democrats. They were followed by Harvard University where 90% of the $314,917 contributed when to Democrats.
Other schools in the top ten in terms of total donations were the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University with donations to Democrats at 94%, 88% and 88% respectively. Out of the top twenty schools in the report my own alma mater the University of Maryland finished seventeenth in dollar terms but placed first with the highest percentage of donations to Democrats at 97% which even beat out the University of Wisconsin which is known for its liberalism with a mere 95% support of Democratic candidates.
While this may look bad, at least there was some money going to Republicans, except at the venerable College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA, a red state where there were no donations to the GOP. Zip, nada, nothing.
Even though the report is largely focused on higher education it did list the New York City Board of Education at number thirteen with 91% of their donations going to the Democrats. Probably not a big surprise, but yet another example of the problems plaguing public education.
Overall while there were some schools giving the majority of their money to the GOP, like the University of Arizona and the State University of New York, by and large the report only confirms just how out of step academia is with the general population.
Future students, Beware!
Don Irvine is the chairman of Accuracy in Media.
