The analysis was conducted by the student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, which examined filings made to the Federal Election Commission for donations made between 2011 and the third quarter of 2014. This story by the Crimson says that teaching/research employees (administrators were not included) at every one of Harvard’s individual schools made contributions overwhelming in favor of Democrats. That was true even at the school that is traditionally considered the most conservative, the business school, where 37 percent of the donations went to Republicans (the largest showing for Republicans among the Harvard schools over the three years of filings that were analyzed).
The student newspaper identified the inevitable question that the information raises:
The data supports the commonly held belief that Harvard’s professoriate is largely liberal, raising questions about the ideological diversity of the faculty and what impact that may have on teaching and research.
Eighty-six percent of donations made by those at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government went to Democrats, with about 10 percent going to Republicans (the second largest amount going to GOP candidates and campaigns from the various Harvard schools and colleges), the article said. At Harvard Law School, nearly 98 percent of donations went to Democrats. The largest group of donors, at the College of Arts and Sciences, supported Democrats with 96 percent of donations (which totaled $465,652), a result that apparently surprised Dean Michael D. Smith, who was quoted as saying, “I am amazed at how high that number is. “The donors at the business school were individually the most generous — giving 31 percent of all the contributions given by researchers, faculty and instructors across the university.
You can read more about the results as well as about how the Crimson went about doing its analysis (which included contributions made to candidate-linked PACS though not donations “made to independent expenditure, or super PACs, and nonprofits groups organized under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code that engage in electioneering communications.)
The largest donors, according to the analysis, including Lawrence Summers, a professor who is a former Harvard president; Steven Pinker, a psychology professor and best-selling author; and Martin Karplus, a Nobel laureate and chemistry professor emeritus. The largest donor overall, the story said, was a business professor:
The University’s top donor in the data set was Business School professor Arthur I. Segel, whose $165,175 in donations went overwhelmingly to Democratic campaigns and organizations. As for non-Democratic campaigns, Segel donated $1,000 each to U.S. Senator Orrin G. Hatch, a Republican from Utah, and former Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle, a Republican who unsuccessfully ran for the state’s Senate seat in 2012. He also gave $500 to former Maine Governor Angus King, who bid for the Senate successfully in 2012. King ran as an independent but caucuses with the Democrats.
Eighteen percent of all donations analyzed by the Crimson went to the Obama Victory Fund, “a joint fundraising committee that supported both Obama’s reelection and the Democratic National Committee,” which was “the single largest recipient of contributions in the data set in this time frame, at $541,001, or 18 percent of all donations.” The second largest recipient: Obama’s re-election campaign; the third: former Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren’s campaign for the U.S. Senate; the fourth: former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.
As for whether teaching is affected by a faculty member’s political preferences, the story quotes some as saying no, and notes that some donors gave money not for ideological reasons but because they were supporting people they know and respect. Business School professor Jay W. Lorsch, who donated $64,350 to Democratic causes during the three years analyzed by the Crimson, was quoted as saying:
“I think most faculty here are pretty careful about not imposing their political views on the students, and there may be some who do. For me it’s not a good idea. Students should be encouraged to think for themselves.”
But government Professor Harvey C. Mansfield, a Republican, was quoted as saying:
“The only debate we get here is between the far-left…and the liberals. It gives students a view that a very narrow spectrum of opinion is the only way to think.”