70% of UW-Madison Faculty Are Liberal, Survey Finds

Bascom Hall on the UW-Madison campus in Madison, Wis. Richard Hurd (CC BY)

Fewer than 10 percent of faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison identify as conservative, while 70 percent identify as liberal, according to a new poll from the school’s Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership.

The study surveyed 2,388 tenured and tenure-track faculty across all of UW–Madison’s schools and colleges on ideological composition, campus climate, academic freedom, free expression and hiring.

About 27 percent responded.

Alexander Tahk, a political science professor who led the survey, said he wasn’t surprised by the ideological composition of professors on campus.

But other findings complicate the usual narrative, including that faculty of color are not more liberal than white faculty.

When Asian faculty were examined separately, they were significantly more likely to identify as conservative compared to non-Asian faculty, the survey found.

“These findings suggest that efforts to advance viewpoint diversity and efforts to advance racial diversity need not be in tension,” Tahk said. “Faculty of color may themselves contribute to greater ideological diversity.”

Another surprise for Tahk was the number of faculty members who admitted they would penalize a job candidate for expressing a political view.

Tahk said the faculty who responded to the survey were randomly assigned a question about a job candidate who made a statement on a political issue. Half were given a statement reflecting a conservative view, half a liberal statement. The respondents were then asked if a job candidate making that statement would have an impact on a hiring decision.

Majorities of faculty indicated that expressing views on issues like abortion, affirmative action, transgender athletes and immigration would not affect their hiring decision.

But the immigration issue showed the strongest response from people saying it would affect decisions on hiring.

Among faculty shown a candidate expressing the view that “the U.S. should strictly limit immigration and deport those who are here illegally,” 45 percent of those who responded said that statement would make them less likely to support hiring that candidate.

Among those shown a statement from a candidate expressing the view that “the U.S. should allow immigrants without legal status to remain in the U.S. and offer a path to citizenship,” only 7 percent said that statement would make them less likely to hire the candidate.

This is the first time faculty have been surveyed.

In 2023, a survey of more than 10,000 University of Wisconsin System undergraduate students showed stark differences in opinion on free speech when broken down by political affiliation, gender and race.

In a statement to WPR, the College Republicans of UW-Madison said hopefully the faculty survey will help progressives  recognize the “depth of the ideological imbalance on campus.”

“We’re especially concerned with how this affects the student experience. Many students at UW-Madison can graduate without seriously encountering ideas that challenge the campus’s progressive orthodoxy,” the statement said.

Ryan Owens taught political science at UW-Madison from 2011 to 2024 before taking a job as a professor at Florida State University and the director of the school’s Institute on Governance and Civics.

During his time at UW-Madison, Owens created the Thompson Center and was a well-known conservative on campus. He says he had a great experience as an undergraduate student, law student and professor on campus.

But always felt like there could be negative repercussions for his viewpoints.

“I basically always said what I thought, whatever the consequences may be,” Owens said. “So perhaps I’m an outlier in that regard, but I was fully aware of the atmosphere on campus, which is tilted extremely to the left. And if you’re not part of that environment, if you yourself are not progressive, you are definitely an outcast.”

UW-Madison spokesperson John Lucas, said the university has taken numerous steps to promote pluralism and ideological diversity in recent years, including the Wisconsin Exchange.

The Wisconsin Exchange offers programs for students and faculty that promote civil debate and dialogue with a variety of viewpoints.

“UW–Madison does not maintain data about the political affiliation of its employees and it is illegal to ask about political affiliation during the hiring process,” Lucas said. “That said, university leadership has made a concerted effort to amplify the institution’s support for viewpoint diversity to encourage a more diverse applicant pool.”

Lucas said the Thompson Center survey will inform the university’s efforts toward greater viewpoint diversity and constructive dialogue on campus.

Tahk said a lot of discussions are built on assumptions. He hopes the survey better informs peoples’ opinions.

“I hope it can get people on a common page, maybe not on their opinions, but on the facts as we move conversations forward,” Tahk said. “I don’t have a particular policy goal in mind, but I think an informed discussion is always better than an uninformed one, and almost always more productive.”

Survey: Fewer than 10 percent of UW-Madison faculty are conservative was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.