Reporting from the bubble

How much intellectual, political, or ideological diversity is there on college campuses? My colleague Alvin Rabushka likes to look up available numbers. Here are results from Tuesday’s primary.

Stanford zip code 94305 is divided into 11 precincts for voting. The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters aggregates them into two precincts, 2542 and 2545, for the purpose of reporting results for all the faculty, staff, and the few students who are registered to vote in zip code 94305. Most students are registered to vote in their home state precincts.

The preliminary results for Stanford are available, but could change slightly when final results are reported next week.

The results that follow report the number of votes each candidate received. I combined the two precincts to get the total.

Trump. 14

Haley. 25

Biden. 520

Republicans received 7% of the total.

Trump. 2.5%

Haley. 4.5%

Biden received 93% of the total. This is the highest percentage for a Democrat presidential candidate since I began tracking results in 1976. It could increase if some Haley voters switch to Biden.

…

The Bond Issue, which will raise the top state marginal rate of tax to 14.4% for ultra-higher earners was approved by 74% to 26%. …

I’m actually surprised there are as many as 14 Trump voters. They keep quiet, I guess, even around Hoover. Since it’s easy to vote across parties in California, I’m surprised more Democrats did not cross over to vote for Haley. Maybe they did!

*****

Stanford, of course, has a big “diversity” bureaucracy called IDEAL. In setting up this effort, our previous provost Persis Drell wrote in the founding memo:

To solve complex social problems, to discover the next breakthrough in science, or to reach new heights of artistic expression, we must bring a broad range of ideas and approaches. 

At Stanford, we strive to ensure that a diversity of cultures, races and ethnicities, genders, political and religious beliefs, physical and learning differences, sexual orientations and identities is thriving on our campus.

My emphasis. And she is right. A university cannot understand, say, current American political trends, when there is almost literally nobody on campus familiar with the attitudes of, according to current polls, a majority of our fellow citizens.

However, that is the last and only mention of political diversity or diversity of ideas rather than of demographic characteristics, focusing on race, gender and sexuality, that I have found in this sprawling initiative. Drell seems to have a quite different definition of the word “diversity” in mind. Orwellian language abounds.

In a faculty presentation long ago, Drell promised that IDEAL would at least measure political and ideological diversity, but despite a large staff, that hasn’t happened. Matching voter registration and donation data to the faculty directory is not hard. Surveying for ideological and political identity along with all the other identities we track is not hard either.

(I also object to “At Stanford, we strive,” “we believe” etc. Isn’t the point of diversity that we don’t all believe the same thing? That seems to violate institutional neutrality right off the bat. But I digress.)

Alvin’s numbers are pretty clear on the answer. Now, does anyone care about the question?