Faculty heavily back Harris—but they won’t tell students to

Of the more than 1,100 faculty members across the U.S. who responded to a new Inside Higher Ed/Hanover Research survey, almost none said they’re sitting this presidential election out. Ninety-six percent said they plan to vote. And they overwhelmingly intend to vote for Democrats.

Seventy-eight percent support Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz, while only 8 percent of the respondents back Donald Trump and JD Vance, according to the survey, which has a 2.9 percent margin of error. But while their personal support for Democrats was overwhelming, almost no respondents said they plan to tell students which party or candidate to vote for.

Most faculty respondents said they don’t intend to discuss the election in class or one-on-one with students. Almost half of respondents said they feel less free to discuss federal politics than a year ago. And, beyond just this election, most said their personal politics don’t affect their research or teaching very much. These results all cut against conservative criticisms that left-leaning professors are indoctrinating students.

Nicholas Havey, an independent researcher of political polarization, academic freedom and free speech in higher education, told Inside Higher Ed that his own research suggests faculty are generally more liberal than students.

Professors may just feel it’s improper to tell or even suggest to students whom they should vote for. But there could be other factors. Havey said faculty “fear retaliation and reprisal for discussing their politics, particularly in instances where they might feel to the left or to the right of the students that they are interacting with.”

Partisan Enthusiasm Gap

The survey, conducted from Sept. 16 to Oct. 4, also suggested there’s a partisan enthusiasm gap in the professoriate.

The Trump-Vance ticket only received the backing of two-thirds of Republican respondents, whereas 98 percent of Democratic faculty members support Harris-Walz. Two-thirds of the Democrats said they planned to donate to a candidate, party or group, compared to just 16 percent of the Republicans. And, while 29 percent of the Democrats planned to campaign or organize for a party or candidate, only 8 percent of the Republicans did.

The new findings broadly echo past research showing that faculty lean left. Nearly 60 percent of respondents said they were Democrats, and the next biggest category wasn’t Republicans but rather Independents, at 22 percent. Republicans clocked in at 7 percent, not far ahead of the “other” and “prefer not to respond” categories, each at 5 percent.

In 2020, the conservative National Association of Scholars published a study of tenured and tenure-track professors at top-ranked institutions in their states, finding that about 48 percent were registered Democrats and 6 percent were Republicans. The new Inside Higher Ed/Hanover Research poll was sent to a broader range of faculty members—including non-tenure-track professors—at a wider variety of institutions.

While nearly eight in 10 who responded to the new survey plan to support Harris, only 57 percent of college students expressed support for the Democratic ticket in an Inside Higher Ed/Generation Lab survey from the last week of September. And while fewer than one in 10 faculty respondents said they plan to vote for Trump, two in 10 students said they would.

The faculty members said they are aware their politics fall to the left of students’. While a third of respondents said their politics are about the same as the dominant politics among students on their own campus, more—37 percent—said they’re somewhat further left. Another 14 percent said they’re much further left of students. Only 15 percent said they’re somewhat further right than students, and only 2 percent said they’re much further right.

Whichever way the election goes, the result could disrupt campus climates where varied ideologies must coexist. And disruption could also come from off campus, from politicians and others. Over a third of all respondents said they were very or extremely concerned the election will affect how welcome, valued, supported and safe students, employees and visitors feel on their campuses. Another 29 percent said they’re moderately concerned.

Not a Discussion Topic

The survey suggests faculty members’ left-leaning tilt doesn’t necessarily mean they’re proselytizing to students, as conservatives often claim.

While it may seem this important election is something faculty would want to speak to students about, fewer than a third of respondents said they plan to discuss it in class. And only a fifth said they plan to talk about it with students one-on-one.

Respondents from the social sciences disciplines, including education and fields connected to politics, were somewhat of an outlier. Of the 351 respondents from this area, 43 percent said they plan to discuss the election in class, and 29 percent said they plan to discuss it with their students one-on-one. Those are still minorities, but are much higher than the rates in other disciplinary categories—especially business/law and physical and natural sciences/science, technology, engineering and math.

Matthew Mayhew, the William Ray and Marie Adamson Flesher Professor of Educational Administration at Ohio State University, said disciplinary context is very important in interpreting such results. He said a large majority of Republican faculty trend toward business or medical schools, where classes don’t center on discussing current political events. Only 63 percent of the survey respondents from business/law supported Harris/Walz.

The survey showed more reluctance among respondents from public institutions than from private, nonprofit colleges or universities to discuss the election with students either in class or one-on-one.

Qualms about discussing the election aside, nearly 80 percent of respondents did say they plan to encourage students to vote. There’s another partisan enthusiasm gap here: The rate was 85 percent among Democratic faculty, yet only about half of Republican respondents said they will do the same.

And while an overwhelming proportion of respondents said they’ll encourage students to cast ballots, that doesn’t mean they’ll tell those students whom to cast them for. In fact, only 2 percent of respondents said they intend to encourage students to vote for anyone—or any party—in particular.

Fewer than one in 10 said their personal politics are very or extremely influential on their teaching, and only 14 percent said they were moderately influential. When it came to research, 18 percent said their politics were very or extremely influential on what they study and publish, and 15 percent said they were moderately influential.

Of all age groups, younger professors—those in their thirties—said their personal politics influence their research the most. Of the 61 respondents in that age group, 38 percent said their politics are very or extremely influential on their research. That age group also had the highest rate saying the same for teaching: 27 percent.

Democratic Faculty, Republican States

Faculty political leanings may diverge more from their state’s politics than their students’ politics do. Only a quarter of respondents said their politics were aligned with the dominant politics in their state. A third said they were somewhat further to the left and another third said they were much further to the left. Only about a tenth said they were somewhat or further right.

Not surprisingly, this divergence is most stark among the 330 respondents from the South: Nearly half of them said they’re much further to the left of their state, while another third said they’re somewhat further to the left. And 71 percent of the 249 respondents from the Midwest said they’re to the left of their state.

Even before the election, some campuses have faced turmoil this semester amid continuing pro-Palestinian protests and conservative campus speaker visits. Two-thirds of faculty respondents over all blamed politicians for escalating tensions over campus speech, and three-quarters of Southern respondents placed the blame on them.

Out of all respondents, 37 percent blamed administrators and governing boards. About a quarter blamed donors for increasing discord over speech. While Republican politicians have pointed the finger at liberal students and faculty for escalating these tensions, only about 15 percent of faculty respondents blamed students or faculty themselves.

Faculty members don’t just have to worry about politicians’ or administrators’ ire, of course. Two-thirds of respondents said they’re very or extremely concerned about the declining public confidence in higher education. And it’s that public, of course, that picks the president.