U.S. college faculty skewing to the left

FAIRFAX, Va., March 30 (UPI) -- Some 72 percent of teachers at U.S. colleges and universities describe themselves as liberal and 15 percent say they are conservative, a survey shows.

The report used data collected for the 1999 North American Academic Study Survey by S. Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman and Neil Nevitte -- either current retired university professors -- and compiled for the online political journal Forum. It was funded by the Randolph Foundation, a right-leaning group, the Washington Post reported.

The study said 50 percent of respondents said they were Democrats and 11 percent were Republican. Among professors of English literature, 88 percent said they were liberal and 3 percent conservative.

Lichter told the Post that there was no academic field in which researchers found more conservatives than liberals.

The 1999 study used data from 1,643 faculty members at 183 four-year colleges and universities across the United States.

The newspaper said the data show an ideological shift to the left on campus when compared to a 1984 survey by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In that study 39 percent of faculty members described themselves as liberals.