Liberal faculty are surprisingly bullish on political diversity

Erin B. Shaw July 30, 2026 1 min read

Liberal faculty are surprisingly bullish on political diversity

Erin B. Shaw
Free the Inquiry, Heterodox Academy

Some heartening higher ed news, hot off the press: faculty value viewpoint diversity! In our latest report published yesterday, Faculty Attitudes Toward Diversity in Their Disciplines: A National Survey, we asked over 3,500 faculty from 80 different institutions about the extent to which they think teaching and research are improved by exposure to a wide range of viewpoints along eight specific dimensions of diversity.

The bottom line: Overall, every one of the aforementioned dimensions of diversity was viewed by a majority of faculty in our survey as improving teaching and research.

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