HKS Authors

See citation below for complete author information.

Abstract

We compare the ideological balance of the legal academy to the ideological balance of the legal profession. To do so, we match professors listed in the Association of American Law Schools Directory of Law Teachers and lawyers listed in the Martindale-Hubbell directory to a measure of political ideology based on political donations. We fi nd that 15% of law professors, compared to 35% of lawyers, are conservative. After controlling for individual characteristics, however, this 20 percentage point ideological gap narrows to around 13 percentage points. We argue that this ideological uniformity marginalizes law professors, but that it may not be possible to improve the ideological balance of the legal academy without sacrifi cing other values.

Citation

Bonica, Adam, Adam Chilton, Kyle Rozema, and Maya Sen. "The Legal Academy's Ideological Uniformity." HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP17-023, April 2017.