Are Colleges Dominated by the Left Wing?

Unsurprisingly John K. Wilson, who wrote "The Myth of Political Correctness," argues that the so called liberal dominance has been over stated.

"Although the radicalism of professors is often painted in alarming terms, a 1984 survey found that only 5.8 percent of faculty were self-described leftists, and only 33.8 percent called themselves liberals. Compared with 1969 numbers, the proportion of self-described liberals had dropped 6.8 percentage points. The greatest increases from 1969 to 1984 were among self-described moderate conservatives (29.6 percent) and strong conservatives (4.2 percent). Even those who called themselves leftist or liberal showed a considerable moderation of attitudes from 1969 to 1984; among leftists, the proportion who opposed relaxing standards in appointing minorities jumped from 39.4 percent in 1969 to 71.7 percent in 1984.

The attacks on PC obscure these facts by focusing on elite universities and colleges (where the proportion of liberals is somewhat higher) and by examining selected departments (such as sociology, political science, English, and history) where liberals and leftists tend to be in the majority. Critics ignore the "political bias" of business professors, even though business schools have more majors than all the humanities combined. Fewer than 1 percent of business school faculty are self-described leftists, and fewer than 16 percent call themselves liberal."

This isn't as much of a home run as it sounds like initially. The kicker is the phrase "self-described." Conservatives would just argue that of course they don't think they are all that liberal; which just proves how out of touch they are with the "real" America.

Still his comments on the selective nature of most conservatives "hunt" for political correctness are well taken.