Published February 18, 2010

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education empirically noted a stereotype that commonly surrounds professors—they are overwhelmingly liberal. Professors at Fordham offered several theories for why this might be the case, as well as thoughts on how politics in general should be handled in the classroom.

Janis Barry-Figueroa, professor of economics, said that she thinks the reason for the liberal tilt in academia is two-fold. “People who are already flexible thinkers are drawn to this intellectual exercise. The nature of the occupation constantly causes you to reassess your views,” she said. “If you are constantly being incentivized to open your thinking, that kind of thinking is much more in conjunction with a liberal political leaning.” Barry said that conservative thought tends to be more “rigid and concerned with maintaining the status quo.”

Gwenyth Jackaway, associate professor of communication and media studies, said that the general politics of professors might vary with the specific discipline that they teach. “Being in a field like the social sciences or the humanities, a field that requires thinking about people, society and patterns of human behavior and coming to some conclusion about the way power works in society points to an analysis that seems more liberal,” she said.

“It’s a college of liberal arts, right?” said Chris Toulouse, assistant professor of political science. “So you’d expect a range of perspectives and a discussion of their merits. That’s why good college professors are liberals. If it were a college of conservative arts you’d expect one way to be taught as the true way and all other ways to be disparaged.”

Toulouse said that it is inevitable and necessary that professors at a liberal arts school bring politics into the classroom. He said that it is the job of the professor to teach students about all different perspectives on issues. “In the liberal arts we have a responsibility to lay out everything we think you can absorb about a subject,” Toulouse said.

Jackaway said that she makes a point to announce to her classes very early in the semester that she is a liberal and that at times she might offer information that is of a liberal perspective. She said that she didn’t always used to do this, but after many years of teaching, she came to feel that it was more responsible to tell the class where she was coming from. “You can try and mask your perspective, but it comes through in your assignments and teaching choices. It’s more honest to own, acknowledge and take responsibility for your views,” she said.

Barry-Figueroa said that although she does not make an announcement to the class about her political views, she never tries to “proselytize” in her class. “My political leanings should be of no interest to my students,” she said. She said the way in which her politics come out in her classes in her classes is through the research questions that she chooses to pursue. “Once I am done [researching a specific questions] I can support with evidence the policy implications of that question, which can be appropriately debated with alternative evidence in class.”

“When I am in my classes I try to be fair to all sides,” Toulouse said. “Somehow or other [the fact that I am liberal] leaks to my classes pretty quickly and students soon learn to discount my biases even when I am brazen about them…I often wind up arguing with entire classes for whole semesters about some particular point and they take no notice of me whatsoever.”

Jackaway and Barry-Figueroa both said that they invite and encourage students to challenge their opinions in class. “It is a preeminent concern of mine that my class is an open space for informed debate,” Barry-Figueroa said, adding that unsupported personal opinions do not fall into this category.

“I take on liberals and point out when they are inconsistent and hypocritical,” Jackaway said. She said that she doesn’t penalize any student for their politics, and that she has never had a problem with a student who was of a different political persuasion than her. “If I wake students up to the concept that most of what we take really seriously is made up, then I’ve made a difference,” she said, “If that’s radical, then I’m proud to call myself a radical.”