IS THERE BIAS IN THE CLASSROOM?

SPP Professors A. Lee Fritschler, Catherine Rudder and Jeremey Mayer, along with Frischler’s former colleague from the Brookings Institute, Bruce L. R. Smith, a retired Columbia University professor, have been given a $100,000 grant to examine the role that political and religious ideology plays on campus. They were presented with the funding by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation. "Three or four studies released in the past few years have indicated that university faculties have not been living up to standards of openness and academic freedom," Fritschler says, describing how the idea for his research came up. "We are trying to understand better what is going on at educational institutions, and will likely propose a major survey of our own that will be different from the others that have already been conducted."

And Mayer points out that studies like those done by political scientists Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman have once again raised the issue of faculty bias. "Lichter and Rothman’s report claimed that faculty are more liberal today than twenty five years ago, when they were already much more liberal than the general population. Moreover, they claim that conservative and Christian faculty are discriminated against in hiring and tenure. We want to examine three broad areas of potential bias: first, bias in the classroom setting, involving professors who are politically biased in grading, in lecturing and curriculum, or in class discussions. Second, bias in the campus climate, involving student-to-student pressure outside the classroom, student groups, and guest lecturers. Third, bias in hiring and promotion."

To that end, the team of professors will be conducting site visits, a meta-analysis of existing studies and hosting focus groups, in addition to the potential survey. They hope to hold a conference on the topic at George Mason in 2006.