University of Iowa professor, citing Democratic bias on campus, advocates new ‘School of Intellectual Freedom’

In voicing support for a legislative proposal to establish a new School of Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa — with a bill that started in the House now bolstered by a companion bill in the Senate — a tenured UI professor cited research revealing extreme political bias across top-ranked American colleges and universities, including in Iowa.

“This is a fact you cannot dispute,” UI economics professor Luciano I. de Castro told lawmakers last week. “Most, but not all, professors are left-leaning. And this has implications.”

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For starters, de Castro said, faculty hire “like-minded” colleagues who engage in teaching and research likely to “convert believers” — or students — who graduate, enter the workforce and vote.

“Education level has become the best predictor of how someone will vote,” de Castro said, reporting college graduates are “much more likely to vote Democrat.”

“The most educated states are all blue, and the least educated states are all red,” he said.

Suggesting political bias among the professors, de Castro pointed to a 2020 peer-reviewed study from Boston College associate professor Mitchell Langbert and Sean Stevens, chief research adviser for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

That study — published in academic journals by the Institute of Education Sciences — evaluated registration and donor behavior of 12,372 professors in 116 colleges nationally, pulling data from the top two private campuses and top two public universities from each of the 30 states that collect political registration data.

“Research since World War II has consistently found overwhelmingly left-oriented political attitudes and ideological self-identification among college and university faculty,” Langbert and Stevens wrote in a 2020 article about their research for the National Association of Scholars — a conservative education advocacy organization that this legislative session has sent two representatives to Iowa for presentations: one promoting greater legislative oversight across its higher education system and another backing a proposal to improve civic literacy at Iowa’s public universities.

“These findings are important for several reasons,” Langbert and Stevens wrote. “Researchers have raised concerns that ideological homogeneity may lead to questionable research practices. This concern is grounded in research on confirmation bias, group polarization, motivated reasoning, and the tendency for these phenomena to be even more pronounced among the highly educated. As well, partisan polarization has been leading to Republicans’ increasing skepticism about higher education.”

Political bias ‘very, very strong’

The study found 48 percent of the 12,372 professors sampled were registered Democrats and 6 percent were registered Republicans — amounting to a ratio of nearly 9 to 1 — compared with the 2024 population, with 28 percent identifying as a Democrat and 28 identifying as a Republican, according to a Gallup poll.

Looking across disciplines, the Democrat-to-Republican registration dominance was strongest in anthropology at 42:1 and weakest in economics at 3:1, the report said. It was most pronounced on campuses in the Northeast at 15:1 and least pronounced in the Midwest at 5:1.

Because so many professors in the sample weren’t registered for either party, Langbert and Stevens triangulated their research using political contribution data, roughly verifying “professors’ partisan affiliations and the political cultures in academic institutions and fields.”

Donor data found 10,260 non-donors, 2,081 Democratic donors, 22 Republican donors and nine donors to both parties — with a ratio of $21 to $1 in favor of Democrats.

“The overall ratio of Democratic to Republican donors is more extreme than the registration ratio,” the study said.

Looking specifically at 141 UI faculty, 91 were Democrat and eight were Republican, for an 11:1 ratio. Donor-wise, 31 made at least one Democratic donation and one made a Republican contribution, for a donation ratio of $42 to $1 in favor of Democrats, according to the study.

Of 142 Iowa State University faculty, 66 were Democrat and six were Republican, for an 11:1 registration ratio. Donor data showed 23 gave to Democratic causes and two to Republican, for a dollar ratio of $7 to $1.

The UI finding of 91 registered Democrats was among the highest across all campuses polled — topped only by eight institutions, including Columbia University, Penn State University, the University of Colorado in Boulder and Yale.

UI and Board of Regents officials declined to respond to de Castro’s assertions or the political-bias study.

Regarding Iowa’s private campuses included in the study, of 101 faculty at Grinnell College, 64 were Democrat and six were Republican, with 25 giving to Democratic causes and none giving to Republicans.

Of 54 faculty at Luther College, 28 were Democrat and eight were Republican, with nine giving to Democratic causes and none giving to Republicans.

“The imbalance is very, very strong,” de Castro said, later sharing a personal experience about why “it is very hard to change this from the inside.”

Democratic lawmakers push back

In response to a request at the UI for suggestions of potential courses, de Castro told lawmakers, he proposed one titled, “Political Economy and Capitalism.” The class, he said, would have adopted a “market-friendly perspective on current political issues” and informed students about how to have an “informed and well-reasoned response to criticisms of capitalism.”

“The university staff prevented this course proposal from being included in a survey that was solely intended to gauge student interest,” de Castro said, voicing support for independence of a new UI School of Intellectual Freedom.

“The only thing that’s important is contained already in the proposal — it’s the fact that you need to have some protection from the university administration,” he said. “Otherwise they will meddle with the organization of the school and impede the school efforts.”

Following de Castro’s presentation, lawmakers peppered him with questions — including from Rep. Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, who requested evidence of his assertion that like-minded colleagues hire like-minded colleagues and asked, "Are you saying that there is not a single course at the University of Iowa that teaches about capitalism?“

Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville, questioned the study and the way it was presented — noting ways in which donations might not indicate political affiliation, like when faculty of one party give to their friends and neighbors of another.

“You're pigeonholing people by party,” he said. “That doesn't mean that Republicans don't cross over and donate to Democrats or Democrats don't cross over and donate to Republicans.”

Rep. Ross Wilburn, D-Iowa City, said de Castro himself is proof that a conservative can rise to the ranks of a tenured professor in Iowa.

“The fact that the University of Iowa produced myself and Rep. (Jeff) Shipley, (R-Birmingham), shows that a lot of different thinking and thoughts can respectfully occur,” Wilburn said.

But Rep. Steve Holt, R-Denison, stressed the need for the proposed new UI School of Intellectual Freedom in House Study Bill 52 by referring back to the discussion on capitalism.

“You don't have to be a rocket scientist,” he said. “Clearly today the vast majority of young people coming out of our institutions of higher learning view capitalism in a more negative light than they ever have before, and they view socialism in a more positive light. So to suggest that this isn't happening, in my opinion, is absurd.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com