Thoughtful Ideas: Political Diversity Of Stanford Students: 94% Voted Democrat For Governor and U.S. Senator, only 4% voted Republican

JACKSONVILLE - I love the methodology and the use of data, but the money shot is the conclusion.

Universities talk a lot about the importance of diversity of ideas but have done little to achieve it.

 Diversity is said to help students learn from each other—so long as the dominant political views are not challenged!

from thoughtfulideas blog:
http://thoughtfulideas.blogspot.com/2018/06/political-diversity-of-stanford.html

Political Diversity Of Stanford Students: 94% Voted Democrat For Governor and U.S. Senator, only 4% voted Republican

California is a Blue State.  The San Francisco Bay Area is Dark Blue.  Stanford University, where your friendly proprietor has worked and lived for more than 40 years, is Deep Dark Blue.

By acreage, Stanford is the second largest university in the world.  From its founding in 1891, portions of its land have been used to construct housing for faculty and staff.  Over 125 years, Stanford faculty and the University have built about 650 single-family homes, 250 condominiums, and 40 duplexes.  (Several hundred more housing units are nearing completion and several hundred more are in the planning or early stage of construction.)
Stanford has 2,219 members of the professoriate faculty and several top administrators who are eligible to purchase a campus residence.  About 40% live in the "faculty ghetto."  The other 60% are scattered about neighboring towns and suburbs (Palo Alto, Menlo Park, San Jose, San Francisco, and others).  It seems reasonable to assume that the political predilections of on- and off-campus faculty and are similar.

California's 2018 primaries were held on June 5. 

Four precincts (Santa Clara County Precincts 2542, 2544, 2545, and 2546) circumscribe Stanford University.

Precincts 2542 and 2544 consist of graduate and undergraduate student housing.  Some students are registered to vote using their campus address.  Most are registered at their home address.

Precinct 2545 consists solely of faculty/staff (F/S) housing.  Precinct 2546 is a mix of student and F/S housing

Here are the results for Governor and U.S. Senator, the two most important races in California.

Governor:

Precinct 2545 (all F/S):  Democrats 234 (88.0%), Republicans 31 (11.7%), Other 1 (0.3%).

Precinct 2546 (F/S and students):  Democrats 356 (94.9%), Republicans 12 (3.2%), Other 7 (1.9%).

Precinct 2544 (all students):  Democrats 155 (93.4%), Republicans 8 (4.7%), Other 3 (1.8%).

Precinct 2542 (all students):  Democrats 129 (94.2%), Republicans 6 (4.4%), Other 2 (1.4%).

U.S. Senator:

Precinct 2545:  Democrats 232 (87.9%), Republicans 27 (11.5%), Other 5 (1.9%).
Precinct 2546:  Democrats 354 (96.2%), Republicans 11 (3.0%), Other 3 (0.8%)
Precinct 2542:  Democrats 127 (96.2%), Republicans 3 (2.3%), Other 2 (1.5%)
Precinct 2544:  Democrats 154 (93.9%), Republicans 5 (3.0%), Other 5 (3.0).

F/S voters are 7-8 percentage points more Republican than students.  One reason is that F/S voters are older and more conservative.  Some of these Republican voters are in their 70s and 80s.

Stanford has achieved undergraduate student diversity in terms of race (only about a third is non-Hispanic White), ethnicity, gender and gender preference, nationality, religion, disability, and socioeconomic status.  Political and ideological diversity is nowhere to be found. 

Universities talk a lot about the importance of diversity of ideas but have done little to achieve it.

Diversity is said to help students learn from each other—so long as the dominant political views are not challenged!

Sent from my iPhone