Posted on 02/03/2008 2:07:40 PM PST by SeekAndFind
All Princeton faculty members who have given to 2008 presidential candidates so far have donated to Democrats, according to federal records of donations to presidential campaigns from Princeton University employees.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is the runaway favorite candidate among those donors, having received $12,050 from Princeton employees. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) drew the second-highest total contributions from Princeton faculty and staff with $5,600. Other donations have gone to candidates including former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.).
In total, donors who listed the University as their employer have given $23,700 to presidential campaigns in the current election cycle. Of that, $21,900 — 92.4 percent — has gone toward Democratic candidates.
Federal Election Commission records list any donation over $200 to a political organization or candidate and are public by law.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) is the only Republican candidate to receive donations from Princeton employees so far, receiving a total of $1,800 from a graduate student and a Public Safety officer.
Princeton employees’ overwhelmingly high support for Democratic candidates — 90 percent of donors who listed the University as their employer gave to a Democrat, and no professors donated to the GOP — outpaces its peers. The Harvard Crimson reported that 86 percent of Harvard professors’ contributions went to Democrats, while according to Georgetown’s student newspaper, The Hoya, 75 percent of the donations made by the school’s employees went to Democratic candidates.
The statistics of political giving at Princeton mirror larger trends at campuses across the country. Inside Higher Education reported that Obama is the “clear favorite of academics,” having received over $2.1 million from them.
Electrical engineering professor Stuart Schwartz, who has been on the faculty for 42 years and donated $400 to Richardson, said he doesn’t think Princeton’s numbers are representative of the faculty’s usual political composition.
“I just think this is an unusual year,” he said. “And maybe the Republican faculty are holding back and the Democrats are just so anxious to get their candidates in a good position. I don’t think [the lack of support for Republican candidates] will hold up. That’s not this faculty; there’s a mix. I think the majority are Democrats, but I think there’s a mix.”
Other professors said that donations don’t often come up in faculty conversations and aren’t a source of tension among faculty members. “To be honest, I don’t talk politics on campus,” said physics professor Chiara Nappi, who gave $1,000 to Edwards last September. “I’m too busy doing my work.”
College Republicans president Andrew Malcolm ’09 said that the overwhelming support for Democratic candidates came as no surprise. He said there is no reason to believe that political donations will affect professors’ teaching, but the leftward trend “does raise some concerns about ideological diversity among the faculty,” he said. “I hope that all students, regardless of their political beliefs, feel comfortable expressing their views in the classroom.”
‘Putting my money where my hopes are’
Professors gave a range of reasons for their choices.
For Wilson School professor Stanley Katz, donating $250 to Obama’s presidential primary campaign was a matter of “putting my money where my hopes are.”
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Michael Juel-Larsen and Josh Oppenheimer are Princetonian staff writers.
Name me one college or university where there is at least a balance between Democrat and Republican or even a balance in favor of Republicans...
This should be in breaking news, with sirens! I’m shocked! Kudos to the Daily Princtonian for uncovering this! They deserve a Pulitzer.
If this were an evil corporation hiring this percentage of conservatives, this would be prima facie proof of illegal biased hiring and they would have been in court ages ago.
Since it’s good for liberals, it’s no harm, no foul.
I actually don’t see anything wrong with this at all IF, and this is a big ‘IF’ - IF the university is honest about it. If Princeton says, “Well, most (err, ALL) of the donations given by our faculty have in fact gone to democratic candidates and causes because it seems the majority of our faculty supports liberal causes.” IF that were to happen, it would be correct. It would be accurate. But to have such a slant in what the faculty cares about and then try to hide it and say there is no bias...no preference. THAT is wrong.
I think ASU might be more balanced, perhaps even equal, or better (for Republicans).
But they vote for McCain during primaries.
Yeah, but they’re all free and independent thinkers. That’s why they’re teaching at a prestigious university.
Surprise! Surprise! Not! This is commonplace among academics. And very typical of those preaching “diversity” ad nauseam. Academics in the Humanities are the most predictable people on earth. They certainly don’t believe in diversity of opinion. Orthodoxy, not heterodoxy is their most salient characteristic. Nothing but chronic malcontents. Joseph Schumpeter had them nailed a long time ago. To his way of thinking they thought they were insuffiently appreciated. Not only that, they all suffer from a severe inferiority complex and simply can’t abide being payed less than a hot dog vendor. In Mencken’s phrase, they attribute most social wrongs to the “villainy of their betters.”
Personally, I hate the word ‘diversity.’ It’s such a sleazy, ambiguous, PC term. The concept may be nice, but, practically speaking, I’m not convinced the end result is positive.
Why, a weak-minded person who takes his orders from Rush Limbaugh, of course. Don't you understand logic?
Liberty University
Princeton: we have a faculty of DIVERSE ideas..... we have Obama supporters, and Clintonistas, and Kookcinich lovers, and Naderites...... we have loony socialists like Cornel West and nutty animal rights fanatics like Peter Singer..... we welcome a diverse range of ideas (so long as none of them can be considered conservative)
I know there is the distinguished exception of Robert George, but otherwise I cannot think of any conservative oriented faculty member at Princeton. Harvard has Harvey Mansfield (and the emeritus Richard Pipes). One or two conservative thinkers may be OK, so long as 80-90% of the faculty is liberal cum socialist.
“Name me one college or university where there is at least a balance between Democrat and Republican or even a balance in favor of Republicans.”
Ouachita Baptist College, Arkadelphia, Arkansas
How does Princeton treat its non-conforming students?
Oh, I don’t know, I’m not there..... I used the “we” just in the mocking sense of imitating the way that pompous self-important academics like to talk about how tolerant and open-minded they are, when in reality they are not.
mcchange
bwhahaaha
ka change....
Thank you. I would really like to get some inside info. for some high school students I know-so they don’t waste their time.
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