Abstract:
This study examines whether academic departments exhibit ideological orientations that may influence their openness to students with differing political views. Using AI, the scholarly output of 823 tenure-track faculty across 50 departments at Florida’s largest public universities was analyzed to generate departmental profiles and assess ideological tendencies. Results were compared with profiles from civic centers. AI-generated advice to hypothetical applicants was coded by human raters to evaluate departmental hospitability to liberal and conservative students. Findings suggest departments lean left and may be less welcoming to conservative students, whereas civic centers lean right but are no less welcoming to liberal students than traditional departments are to conservative students.