The Push for Viewpoint Diversity Misses the Point (opinion)

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Much of the controversy around the Trump administration’s “ Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education ” has focused on its push for viewpoint diversity and the claim that open inquiry does not exist in our classrooms. That push builds on a long-standing conservative critique that today makes hay out of the fact that the vast majority of faculty in U.S. colleges and universities lean left.

Recent data supports that claim. In elite institutions, like Duke and Harvard Universities, surveys suggest the number of faculty identifying as liberal exceeds 60 percent. The percentages differ not only by type of institution but by discipline , with the humanities and social sciences leaning more liberal than STEM. Some even claim that poli