Is the collegiate “Intellectual Diversity” legislation going to show up again after this report?
(h/t Radioactive chief)
The Mitchell newspaper has come out with a story on a study performed by DWU Students which effectively sums up my and many others’ collegiate experiences – that most professors are a bunch of Democrats:
A new study by a pair of Dakota Wesleyan University students indicates that there are more Democratic college professors in South Dakota than the state’s residents suspect.
Kelsey Miller and Sarah M. Duff, students in professor Don Simmons’ Leadership and Public Service Seminar class, used voter-registration records to determine the political affiliation of 403 full-time college professors from the education, political science, business and history departments at 10 institutions in the state.
Eighty-seven of the professors were not registered to vote. Among the remaining 316 who were registered, 49 percent were Democrats, 37 percent were Republicans and 14 percent were independent.
The data contradicts perceptions held by South Dakota residents, according to an earlier telephone poll conducted by DWU students.
Read it here. More poly sci professors are Democratic that Republican? No kidding.
Back in 2006, I’d written that based on my experiences 20 years ago, it’s tough to argue with some people’s contention that an “intellectual diversity” law isn’t such a bad idea. Why? Because you get a few professors who – as opposed to fostering discussion and debate – vote with their classroom instruction. As I noted back then, I experienced a bit of it at SDSU. Not from everyone by any means. Just from my advisor.
So, is the collegiate “Intellectual Diversity” legislation going to show up again after this report? Probably not. But if it does come up again, at least South Dakotans now have a good benchmark as to “who is teaching their kids.”
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Comments
THC I think the reason there are more Dems as profs is they can’t amke it in the real world! Now before you go off, I had teachers that were worth their weight in gold. But I had two Econ teachers that were let go the year after I took their courses, if you answered anything but the gov created jobs you got it wrong. They were so Wrong, the Government does not create jobs!
Come now…Voter registration cards probably aren’t a true representation of how these people teach or how they vote for that matter. A majority of these Repubs probably voted for Daschle and Herseth and Johnson. While some of the D’s probably voted for Rounds & Thune. So it’s a wash in my mind. No real shocking data that makes me want to scream “foul” to the Board of Regents. Bottom line? These profs are good folks (most) that don’t teach ideology (usually).
A Republican supports legislating diversity on college campuses. Excuse me, are those pigs flying with the geese over Lake Herman?
As a college student and someone who is taking classes in order to achieve his teaching certificate. I commend these fellow students on their study but agree with some of the other commenter’s that some of these teachers really don’t teach their political ideology’s. In my experience on the campus of SDSU in the Political Science and the Education departments a lot of the professors are left of center. One professor I know is registered republican but teaches and uses books that are written or have images or forwarded by democrats also when he mentions politicians it is ten to one democrats. The professors that are registered as democrats wouldn’t mind if you called them Marxist or socialist, I know this because it has happened on more than one occasion. I think the best way to be a professor is to represent both sides equally which just doesn’t happen on college campuses.
Springer: Is that a bad thing?
I graduated form Sioux Falls College in 1994 (yes, before it was USF). In my history classes, I had one prof who was uber conservative (still teaching there and still involved in politics) and one who was a self-described flaming liberal. Mr. Conservative made no bones about what he was and it offered some great classroom discussion. I never knew him to dock a student for liberal interpretations of history. The “flaming liberal” was very fair to me as well. He knew where I was coming from and I still got A’s in his class.
One of my favorite education teachers (who last I heard was at SDSU) was so liberal, he would think President Obama is a dittohead. He knew where I was coming from and we had some great discussions in class. I would not cower towards him and vice-versa. I got A’s in his class as well.
In short whether we agreed or not, I did not find the political affiliation causing a problem in grades. That is of course a decade and a half ago and being here in South Dakota, I may be somewhat shielded from what I hear about on other campuses. Personally I think there is room
Of course there is more Dems as professors, they are smarter 
Dugger, I guess I wouldn’t consider Staggers as an Uber conservative, but you are right, he is very openminded.
Detroit:
When I was taking one of his classes, one of the things we discussed was the idea of not having public schools as that was not a function of government. There were some other things as well, but that was more than 15 years ago and hard to remember. I am not saying he was off-the-wall in that he did not have logic to support his positions. In the recent debate, he mentioned that homelessness is not a function of city government. I am not saying I disagree, but you would have to admit that is pretty far on the spectrum.
THC,
Your presumption is blatant bigotry. Democrats professors are Democrats because they are service oriented. Republican professors are Republicans because they are married to someone rich.
I have not problem with different opinions but bigotry is bigotry.
Maybe…just maybe…there are more registered Democrats in the teaching ranks because (and this will no doubt cause something of an explosion on here), there is more of a service-orientation aspect to teaching – the financial rewards are limited and so people of a certain mindset are more willing to enter the profession.
Simply saying you want different viewpoints won’t make it so. How many of you on here want to become teachers – at any level?
That said, I do know conservative teachers. they are usually the spouses (please notice I didn’t say “wives”) of someone in a higher income profession like law or medicine.
I’m just sayin’.
Maybe someone has to make a sacrifice to achieve PP’s dream of “balance”. Anyone? Anyone?
Bueller?
Writing a law – a little nanny state there PP. Doncha think?