Elephant and Man at Harvard

Tuesday, November 15th, 2016

The Harvard Crimson acknowledges a lack of diversity on campus — ideological diversity, not the kind that matters:

The most glaring ideological diversity deficit among undergraduates is the relatively small number of students who identify as conservative. In the election survey, fewer than 13 percent of respondents described themselves as “somewhat” or “very” conservative, compared to over 70 percent describing themselves as “somewhat” or “very” liberal.

In contrast, when a Gallup poll early this year asked Americans to describe themselves as “very liberal,” “liberal,” “conservative,” “very conservative,” or “moderate,” a plurality — 37 percent — picked one of the two conservative options, while 35 percent chose “moderate.” In The Crimson’s survey, only 16 percent of respondents picked “moderate.” Most striking, in the Gallup survey, only 24 percent picked one of the liberal choices.

Similarly, while nearly 48 percent of Americans voted for Donald J. Trump in his victory on Tuesday, just 6 percent of undergraduate respondents to The Crimson’s survey preferred him. This number stands in stark contrast to the 35 percent of millennials nationwide who cast their ballots for the President-elect — a testament to his divisiveness, but also a reflection of the insularity of the Harvard bubble.

Comments

  1. Bomag says:

    I’m wondering how such a survey has tracked over the years.

    From my experience, though the undergrads profess political liberalism, they are personally conservative: scrupulous with personal hygiene; careful with their money; largely from intact, traditional families and form such; modest in consumption.

    Hardworking, thrifty people. Heh!

    Reminds me of well organized Mexican drug gangs: happy to sell the stuff, but the hard rule is that no one in the gang is a user.

  2. Myron says:

    Such left-wing sentiments are a hold-over from the 1960s, or do all those Ivy League schools have similar political attitudes?

Leave a Reply