CAMPUS

Shocker: J-Schools Not Ideologically Diverse

University of Oregon grad student Dan Lawton has a good article on his personal blog about the lack of ideological diversity in journalism schools and the potential problems that causes. The article is part of an ongoing project by Lawton on diversity in higher education. I’ve been interviewed for it a couple of times, and there will be a short documentary forthcoming. All in all, it promises to be very interesting.

Using his public records kung fu, Lawton discovers that, of the thirty two full-time faculty in the UO journalism school, none are registered Republicans. Even adding in adjunct faculty, there are only two Republicans.

But this lopsided demographic is not confined to the UO. Lawton further notes that:

The disparity, as dramatic as it is, mirrors the the political composition of many other journalism schools across the country.  A 2005 study of nine top journalism schools by David Horowitz and Joseph Light revealed similar ratios of political affiliation.  Columbia University had 15 Democrats and one Republican, while Berkeley had ten Democrats and zero Republicans.

The leftist leanings of academia is nothing new, but in an industry that prides itself on its objective, fair coverage of events, you have to wonder (as Lawton does) how well journalism students are served by an almost completely Democrat faculty.

Of course, given the press’ fawning over Obama, maybe they’ve just given up on that whole “objectivity” thing anyways.