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Brown University

Brown University's course descriptions average 67.8 on the 100-to-0 ruler: clearly left of center. Across all 100 schools, the average is 67.5, so Brown University reads 0.2 points further left.

ShowCompared withDepartments

Liberal (100)center (50)Conservative (0)

Brown University: 67.8 (likely range 67.0 to 68.5) All 100 schools: 67.5 each other school in the comparison

Where its courses fall

3%Far left92–100

21%Left75–91

70%Center-left59–74

6%Center42–58

0%Center-right26–41

0%Right9–25

0%Far right0–8

475 plotted courses (the ones with a political framing). 100 = far left, 50 = the average American, 0 = far right.

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Framing Subject

Underlined: words the model quoted from the description when we asked it, after scoring, to explain its score.

Furthest left

GNSS 1961X · Black Women Ruin Everything: Utopia, Dystopia, and100

Women's & Gender Studies

the Future (Ends) of the World. This seminar is grounded in three premises. The first is that “the world” is founded on anti-blackness (though not anti-blackness alone). The second is that Black feminists write with an awareness of this…

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GNSS 1961M · Humanity or Nah? Blackness, Gender, Resistance, and94

Women's & Gender Studies

Memory in Monuments, Maps, and Archives. This course explores the liberatory archaeologies of racialized, gendered, and sexual memory(-ies) articulated by Xicanx, Latinx, Native American, and Africana scholars, artists, activists, and…

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AFRI 1030 · Contesting the Carceral State92

Ethnic & African American Studies

This course introduces students to the study of crime and justice through Black, feminist, queer and prison abolitionist frameworks, with a particular focus on narratives by people of African descent in the U.S. since 1965.

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Furthest right

None. Brown University has 473 left-framed courses and not one right-framed course.

Why this number, in plain words

Political lean of course descriptions. Average Framing score (0 = far right, 50 = center, 100 = far left) of the scored courses in the group.

50 is the survey-anchored center of US adults on each issue (the "moderate" place of the ANES/GSS/PRRI seven-label ruler), not the cohort midpoint; scores above 50 read leftward, below 50 rightward.

Counted: courses with a Framing score (categories L/R/B/C). The likely range (95% interval) is 67.0 to 68.5; a comparison whose range overlaps this one is not a reliable difference.

Most course descriptions carry no political lean at all and are not in this average; the "share described from the left" view counts them.
Readings are of catalog description text, not of teaching, syllabi or individual professors.

Brown University by department (share of courses described from the left)

Department	Left-framed share	Courses
Women's & Gender Studies	48.9%	92	view
Ethnic & African American Studies	34.8%	282	view
Sociology	21.2%	226	view
History	21.2%	471	view
Anthropology	14.1%	249	view
Political Science	9.7%	340	view
Religious Studies	8.4%	179	view
English & Comparative Literature	7.1%	967	view
Art & Art History	6.5%	261	view
Economics	3.4%	148	view
Philosophy	2.8%	143	view
Psychology	2.1%	187	view

Lean (mean Framing score) is not published per department within a school; only the left-framed share is. Department rows carry no interval.

Details: exact rows, definitions and method

Name	Metric	Value	95% interval	n	scored
Brown University	mean_bias_score	67.8	67.0 – 68.5	3,545	475
All 100 schools	mean_bias_score	67.5	67.4 – 67.7	124,290	10,124

Formula: SUM(bias_score) / COUNT(bias_score)
Interval: normal approximation: mean +/- 1.96 * sd / sqrt(n), sample sd (n-1); undefined when n < 2
Model / prompt / snapshot: gpt-5.6-sol · r12 (2026-10-16-le49-r12) · 6df50b10
Metric caveats: Scored courses only (L/R/B/C); N and I carry no score and are excluded, so n here is smaller than the group's course count. Scores are model readings of catalog description text against a fixed anchored definition, not teaching or syllabi. The interval covers sampling noise in the mean only; it does not represent model reading error. Every value carries a `method` label: exact_rows or histogram_midpoint.

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