Higher Education

New Study Finds Average College Professor 'Only Slightly Less Left' Than Bernie Sanders

FIRE's data suggest that the range of opinions at American universities is far too narrow.

Ari Shtein | 6.3.2026 2:30 PM

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In the U.S., the average college professor who donates to political candidates is "only slightly less left on the political spectrum than Bernie Sanders."

That's the top-line finding from a new study of American academics' political donations, commissioned by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). The study scored academics' political ideologies based on the voting records of the candidates to which they donated. It found that academics are increasingly donating to far-left politicians like Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The study also found that the vast majority of politically active faculty cluster in that far-left neighborhood. "The figures suggest that ideological diversity is essentially absent from universities today," writes the study's author, University of Rochester professor David Primo.

That most university professors prefer left-wing politicians is no new insight—but the near-disappearance of any right-wing counterweight is. The study found that........

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