Where Are All The Pro-Israel Professors?

90.99% of Barnard College students voted against Israel last year. We saw the chaos and upheaval & NYPD raids the groupthink resulted in.

The author, Toni Airaksinen (left) attending a launch party for American branch of The Spectator, a politically unorthodox magazine, in Manhattan (undated).

In this environment, it’s almost impossible to find anyone — students or professors — who admit they hold conservative or unorthodox views on any topic.

To be public about those views could be equivalent to committing social or career suicide, especially when the overwhelming majority of students lean liberal and support the pro-Hamas protests against Israel.

Nearly every college boasts about diversity. Yet, diversity statistics deftly conceal that there is one type of diversity they not only lack, but shirk from: political diversity.

At colleges like my alma mater, Barnard College, the far-left progressive ideology reigns supreme. If progressivism is queen, then colleges around the nation are its throne. And in this regime where progressive ideologies are celebrated— particularly fringe liberal ideas — the monarchy cannot tolerate dissenters. Heretic! Apartheid Supporter! Zionist! Cis-heterosexist, racist homophobe! The students snarl.

While statistics on the political leaning of Barnard professors has not yet been studied, we can use statistics from similar elite schools to get an idea.

In a 2025 study at Duke University, 62% of professors said they were “very liberal” or “somewhat liberal.” Meanwhile, only 13% identified as conservative. The rest claimed to be moderate, and it’s likely many liberals concealed their true alignment.

Over at Yale University, the Buckley Institute discovered that 77% of professors were registered Democrats, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans by a ratio of 28:1. The fascinating study only found four (yes, fewer than a handful) of Republicans.

Even in math departments, Democrats outnumber Republicans by a ratio of 4:1, according to a 2025 study published by The College Fix.

While not an exact metric, it’s no stretch to say that most of these professors’ sympathies lie with Palestine and not Israel.

Which I find strange. Isn’t one of the hallmarks of the college experience learning and debating with people whom you don’t agree with? The debate of ideas? Learning to agree to disagree? We know teachers often bring their politics into the classroom: whether it’s through their lectures or assigned readings.

Academia struggles to tolerate Republicans and conservatives, which are the most likely to support Israel right now.

With professor job apps often having a section for applicants to “show commitment to diversity” — as well as plenty of rumors of HR offices checking voter registration before hiring applicants — this is a recipe for disaster.

This causes ideological homogenization of the professsoriate, which is detrimental to a comprehensive education. And giving students a well-rounded understanding of worldwide politics, such as the war on Israel? Forget about it.

According to Nicholas Kristof, writing in the New York Times a few years ago, studies have pegged the proportion of Republican professors in the humanities from roughly 6% to 11%. In some cases, he says, it’s even easier to find a Marxist than a Republican in academia. In my experience, that’s true.

And I find this tragic. But why? I was raised with socially and economically leftist views; I’ve worked with nonprofits for causes including welfare, food stamps, gays, trans people, racial minorities and the environment. I should have been glad to be taught by professors who support the same causes, right? Wrong.

I graduated from Barnard College. I also took classes at Columbia University and one of their graduate schools. I’ve also been reporting on politics in academia for years, and I’ve interviewed Republican and Libertarian professors that have been attacked and ousted.

I saw this ideological orthodoxy in play firsthand at Barnard and Columbia: where I was attacked and harassed for my perceived right-wing political views because I supported Israel. Getting stalked, receiving thinly veiled death threats, and being forced to switch dorms mid-semester for supporting Israel were the consequences of disagreeing with the far-left progressive orthodoxy on campus.

Meanwhile, the fact that most students have never been taught by an openly right-wing professor means they have never had a professor they don’t agree with.

Thus, students are in a state of intellectual poverty — in such a dystopian college enclave that they’ve never been exposed to alternative ways of thinking. Last year, at my alma mater, 90.99 percent of students voted against Israel. Intellectual diversity much?

The first problem with this is that it subordinates the individual student’s understanding of political issues to homogenized groupthink. Professors are powerful; students look up to them. The opinions that a professor holds will inevitably be inculcated into his or her students.

Although you might hope professors are politically neutral in the classroom, in reality, few are. I’m not advocating for ideology-free curriculum, but simply a professoriate with a multiplicity of views, so that students aren’t pushed too far into the maw of one ideology.

As The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has found, only 1 in 10 students surveyed opposed the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protests and encampments we saw last year. Those encampments caused chaos on various campuses.

The failure of universities to employ openly conservative professors means that many students will rarely have a chance to face and debate opposing views. How does one skillfully defend their own views if they don’t know what the competition believes?

Another issue is that many people homogenize the political-right because they’ve had such limited exposure to it. If you’ve never met a conservative person, it’s easy to reduce them into a series of caricatures: “Trumpers”, “MAGA”, “Zionists”, you’ve heard.

I should know; it wasn’t until after college that I realized that, despite what I was taught growing up, all conservatives do not hate all women, gays, racial minorities, or poor people. They simply use a different logic and draw on a different value system.

For most college students, this also renders them deprived of learning about the principles and foundations of conservative and libertarian thought, making them unable to break bread with people they perceive as ideological enemies based off their Facebook or social media posts.

Recently, it’s commonplace for students to demonize and attack Jews. Since the majority of Jews support the existence of Israel —which is different from supporting their government or the IDF’s actions — the idea is that all Jews are, as often taught in sociology classes, “neo-colonialists” or “Zionists.”

Can you really fight an ideology whose internal logic you don’t understand? If colleges are training grounds for democratic citizenship, how can they justify pumping out students fluent in only one anti-Israel, anti-male, anti-free speech ideology?

When students are inculcated into the leftist orthodoxy that neglects to teach the beliefs of the opposition, not only are students unable to fight it properly, but they’re also unable to realize that in some cases, the opposition might actually be worth listening to.

Enjoyed this? Read: “How Columbia Hamas Activists Led Me To Convert to Judaism”

This piece was brought to you by Toni Airaksinen, Senior Editor of Liberty Affair and an independent journalist. Her work has appeared in the Times of Israel, USA TODAY, Quillette, and more. Follow her on X @Toni_Airaksinen and on Instagram.