All schools · Ivy League

Columbia University

Columbia University's course descriptions average 67.2 on the 100-to-0 ruler: clearly left of center. Across all 100 schools, the average is 67.5, so Columbia University reads 0.4 points further right.

ShowCompared withDepartments

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

Columbia University: 67.2 (likely range 66.2 to 68.1) All 100 schools: 67.5 each other school in the comparison

Where its courses fall

5%Far left92–100

37%Left75–91

42%Center-left59–74

10%Center42–58

<1%Center-right26–41

3%Right9–25

2%Far right0–8

404 plotted courses (the ones with a political subject). 100 = far left, 50 = the average American, 0 = far right. Subject places what a course studies, not the side it takes.

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Framing Subject

Subject places what a course studies, not the side it takes. A course on slavery or the Holocaust lands far right and a course on Marx or the Soviet Union lands far left, whether the course praises, criticizes or simply describes it.

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

Furthest-left subjects

AFAS GU4001 · Revolution and Decolonization in the Afr100

Ethnic & African American Studies

This undergraduate/graduate seminar examines the history of Black revolutionary movements for decolonization from the era of slavery to the late twentieth century. While studies of what historians have called “Black Internationalism” have…

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CLEN GU4578 · Reading the Haitian Revolution100

English & Comparative Literature

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1803), in which the enslaved in France’s richest Caribbean colony threw off their chains and defeated the European colonial powers, was a seismic event in modernity. As an “unthinkable” revolution that was…

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CPLS GU4325 · Abolition Medicine: Medical Racisms and Anti-Racisms100

English & Comparative Literature

In 1935, WEB Dubois wrote about abolition democracy: an idea based not only on breaking down unjust systems, but on building up new, antiracist social structures. Scholar activists like Angela Davis, Ruth Gilmore and Mariame Kaba have long…

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Furthest-right subjects

CPLT BC3108 · Nazism in Performance0

English & Comparative Literature

Explores the cultivation of national and transnational performances as a significant force of National Socialism, at the same time as challenging the notion of "Nazi Theatre" as monolithic formation. The core of the course inquires into the…

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HIST GU4518 · COLUMBIA UNI & SLAVERY0

History

In this course, students will write original, independent papers of around 25 pages, based on research in both primary and secondary sources, on an aspect of the relationship between Columbia College and its colonial predecessor King's College, with the institution of slavery.

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HIST GU4641 · HOLOCAUST GENOCIDE-AMER CULTRE0

History

When the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. opened in 1993, some people asked why a "European" catastrophe was being memorialized alongside shrines to Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln while there was still no museum documenting the…

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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 66.2 to 68.1; 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.

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

Department	Left-framed share	Courses
Women's & Gender Studies	46.2%	39	view
Ethnic & African American Studies	45.8%	59	view
Sociology	30.3%	76	view
Anthropology	22.0%	82	view
Religious Studies	20.4%	113	view
History	19.6%	219	view
English & Comparative Literature	17%	300	view
Art & Art History	8.2%	170	view
Political Science	6.7%	135	view
Philosophy	3.7%	54	view
Economics	1.7%	115	view
Psychology	1.3%	158	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
Columbia University	mean_bias_score	67.2	66.2 – 68.1	1,520	232
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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