Wednesday, April 17, 2024

Law faculty contributions to political candidates

Notre Dame lawprof Derek Muller compiled data for the period 2017 to early 2023 (so during the Trump era), and I was surprised by how many contributed to Republicans, given the condition of that party, although this fits with the general perception of the American legal academy as conservative by global standards.  Most Republican supporters in the academy I know are motivated by the hope that something of the libertarian policy agenda still survives, but perhaps that's only true of faculty at the law schools I know best.  I note that according to additional data from Professor Muller, the highest percentage of Republican donors are at religious law schools--and even there, there are relatively few donors overall.   Of course, it bears remembering that donating to Mitch Romney is not like donating to Ted Cruz, and donating to Sherrod Brown is not like donating to Joe Manchin, so just looking at "Democratic" and "Republican" donations is not really that informative.

 

 

https://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2024/04/law-faculty-contributions-to-political-candidates.html

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