A study co-authored by Gordon Hewitt, assistant dean of faculty for institutional research, was cited in a New York Times op-ed, “The Indoctrination Myth,” on Sunday, March 4. The op-ed was in response to Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s comment that “There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them.”
Hewitt, with former Hamilton government professor Mack Mariani, analyzed changes in student political attitudes between their freshman and senior years at 38 colleges and universities from 1999 to 2003.
The Times op-ed noted, “But contrary to conservative rhetoric, studies show that going to college does not make students substantially more liberal. (Mariani and Hewitt) found that on average, students shifted somewhat to the left — but that these changes were in line with shifts experienced by most Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 during the same period of time. In addition, they found that students were no more likely to move left at schools with more liberal faculties.”
