Analysis: Dems dominate faculty in major UNL departments

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln insists it is not hostile to conservatives, but voter registration records reveal that professors in major academic departments are overwhelmingly Democratic.

An analysis shared on Facebook by Coby Mach, a local radio host in Lincoln for KLIN, checked the names of professors in seven university departments against voter registration records in Nebraska and determined that 106 of 180 professors are registered Democrats, whereas just 13 are registered Republicans.

The English Department, which has been at the forefront of several recent controversies, had the greatest discrepancy, with 33 registered Democrats but not a single Republican, though there is a solitary Libertarian. Another four English professors did not select a party identification, while 10 could not be conclusively matched to voter records.

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UNL came under widespread scrutiny in August, when several professors and at least one teaching assistant taunted and harassed the president of the school’s Turning Point USA chapter while she tried to recruit new members on campus, eventually driving her to tears.

More recently, anti-capitalist signs appeared in the windows of the English Department building, and an English professor published an anthology of “nasty women poets” dedicated to slamming Donald Trump.

The harassment of the TPUSA student remained the focal point of criticism, however, leading three state senators to publish an open letter demanding that the UNL administration explain its hostility toward conservatives.

Administrators responded indignantly in a radio interview, insisting that there is not an anti-conservative culture on campus and noting that they had already condemned the behavior by reassigning a graduate teaching assistant to “non-teaching duties” for her role in the affair.

A few weeks after that interview, UNL announced that the TA will be dismissed from her position entirely, and that it had hired Gallup to “conduct an assessment of the campus environment for students, faculty, and staff of diverse political backgrounds.”

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While the English Department’s political bias has been well-documented, however, several other departments also have concerning skews to the left, as corroborated by Campus Reform’s own examination of voter registration records.

The History Department faculty, for instance, includes 19 Democrats, but just five Republicans and four independents, while another seven have unknown affiliations. Similarly, the Sociology Department is bereft of Republicans, but boasts 13 Democrats on its 27-person roster.

The Philosophy Department also has just one Republican professor—though its eight Democrats account for half of the department’s 16 faculty members—and while the Psychology and Political Science Departments have five Republicans and four Republicans respectively, they also have about three times that number of Democrats.

Notably, though, there is considerably more balance in the Economics Department, which has seven Republicans and 11 Democrats, with four professors registered as independents and another three having unknown political affiliations.

Overall, Campus Reform’s analysis conforms closely to the one shared by Coby Mach, identifying 127 registered Democrats out of a total of 247 professors in the seven departments.

Conversely, the records reveal just 22 Republicans and one Libertarian, meaning that right-leaning professors are also outnumbered by independents and professors with unknown affiliations.

Campus Reform reached out to UNL for comment on both analyses, but has not received a response.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @asabes10