More Than 60 Percent of Harvard FAS Faculty Identify as Liberal on Survey

Roughly 63 percent of Harvard faculty who responded to The Crimson’s annual survey of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences identify as liberal — continuing a steady decline in the percentage of survey respondents who say their political beliefs lean to the left.

Approximately 29 percent of faculty respondents said they were “very liberal” and 34 percent said they were “somewhat liberal.” Just 9 percent of respondents identified as conservative, with 8 percent saying they were “somewhat conservative” and 1 percent saying they were “very conservative.”

The responses mark a slight drop in the proportion of liberal respondents compared to the results of the previous year’s FAS survey. Last year, The Crimson reported that 22 percent of faculty identified as “very liberal” and 48 percent as “liberal.” This year’s data showed a slight increase in the percentage of respondents who identify as conservative — up from less than 6 percent last year.

The Crimson’s FAS survey was distributed to more than 1,400 faculty members, including both tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty, with names collected from the FAS’ public masthead. Faculty were asked about demographic information, politics, and campus issues.

The email survey had 406 responses, with 260 fully completed and 146 partially completed. The survey was open for three weeks, from April 23 to May 12.

This is the sixth installment in a series on the survey results. The preceding pieces focused on faculty views about Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, University governance, academic freedom, antisemitism and Islamophobia, and classroom issues. This piece covers faculty’s political opinions.

Conservatives on Campus

For years, critics both within and outside Harvard have raised concerns that the University’s faculty leans too liberal and lacks representation of conservative, libertarian, or right-wing views.

“Harvard needs conservative faculty to improve the quality of what is commonly heard and thought, to expand the range of its moral and political opinion, and to help restore demanding academic standards of grading,” Government professor Harvey C. Mansfield, one of Harvard’s most prominent conservative thinkers, wrote in an op-ed calling for Harvard to hire more right-leaning faculty earlier this year.

The Crimson’s FAS survey has repeatedly found that significant majorities of the faculty lean progressive. But over at least the last four years, a lower proportion of survey respondents have identified themselves as liberal. In 2024, 70 percent of Harvard faculty characterized their political leanings as liberal, and in 2023, more than 75 percent said their politics lean left. The previous year, that share of respondents who said they were liberal was above 80.

Still, faculty were overwhelmingly negative about Donald Trump’s presidency on the 2025 survey. A 93 percent majority said they were “very dissatisfied” with his second term as president. Only three individual professors reported being “somewhat” or “very satisfied” with the president.

The political leanings of Harvard’s faculty have become a target for the Trump administration, which demanded in April that Harvard broaden the “viewpoint diversity” represented within its academic programs, student body, and faculty — or go without federal funding.

At Harvard, University officials have also begun pushing for broader viewpoint representation, though potentially with a less explicitly conservative bent. The University’s twin task forces on battling antisemitism and Islamophobia recommended that Harvard establish a new center for pluralism that would host programming on “recognizing the diversity of identities and ideologies on campus” and advancing respect and cooperation among affiliates.

The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Harvard was considering establishing a center for conservative scholarship modeled after Stanford’s Hoover Institution. A University spokesperson told the Journal that Harvard was instead accelerating work on an initiative that “will not be partisan” but “will ensure exposure to the broadest ranges of perspectives on issues.”

It was not clear whether the center referenced in the Journal article was the pluralism center recommended by the task forces. But the spokesperson told the Journal that the initiative would support “viewpoint diversity.”

Harvard and FAS spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

In The Crimson’s survey, faculty were asked whether they believe Harvard should make a “concerted effort” to hire more conservative faculty. Most respondents opposed the proposal, with 34 percent “strongly” disagreeing and 23 percent “somewhat” disagreeing. Just 23 percent of respondents said that Harvard should focus on making more conservative hires.

Faculty respondents also reported their party-based voter registration. A 53 percent majority were registered as Democrats, and 28 percent were registered as independents. Just 5 individual professors said they were registered Republicans.

Political donations from professors have overwhelmingly skewed to Democrats. Ahead of the 2024 election, FAS faculty members contributed almost $430,000 to Democratic candidates and PACs between January 2023 and October 2024 — a trend mirrored at the Harvard Kennedy School and Law School.

Divestment From Israel

The Crimson’s survey asked faculty whether they supported calls for Harvard to divest from Israeli companies that operate in the West Bank. Divestment is a central demand for many pro-Palestine activists — including the protesters who established an encampment in Harvard Yard last spring.

But a 41 percent plurality of faculty respondents said they believe Harvard should not pull its investments from Israeli companies, while 36 percent said the University should. The results mark a notable change from last year, when a nearly 41 percent plurality of respondents said they believe that Harvard should divest. At the time, 31.3 percent of respondents indicated the University should not pull its investments.

The shift occurred as the Trump administration attempts to punish Harvard for the actions of pro-Palestine protesters — and as University administrators work to deepen institutional ties with Israel. But American public opinion has swung against Israel over its actions in Gaza, which have led to a mounting death toll and pushed most of Gaza’s population into famine or severe hunger.

Earlier this year, the Harvard Management Company reinvested $150 million in Booking Holdings Inc. The company — one of just 14 firms and funds that HMC holds direct public investments in — has faced fierce criticism for its operation in Israeli settlements in Palestine. And pro-Palestine activism on campus has become quieter since its height during the spring 2024 semester, which culminated in the Harvard Yard encampment.

Harvard has shown no willingness to divest, despite a string of student government resolutions calling on the University to cut ties with Israel and weapons manufacturers.

Last October, Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 rejected a proposal from campus activists to review the University’s investments for links to human rights violations — writing in an email that he would not direct HMC to “use its endowment funds to endorse a contested view on a complex issue that deeply divides our community.”

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.

—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.