History
An examination of the different tools and tactics, means and methods that Americans have used to escape slavery or try to eliminate it.
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University of Maryland-College Park
University of Maryland-College Park's course descriptions average 66.3 on the 100-to-0 ruler: clearly left of center. Across all 100 schools, the average is 67.5, so University of Maryland-College Park reads 1.2 points further right.
Liberal (100)center (50)Conservative (0)
Where its courses fall
3%Far left92–100
34%Left75–91
46%Center-left59–74
7%Center42–58
0%Center-right26–41
7%Right9–25
3%Far right0–8
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
Political Science
The study of Marxist thought and an assessment of the critical transformations and reassessments of the theory and practice of Marxism.
Ethnic & African American Studies
Recommended: AASP100. Students will examine the birth of the racial caste system following the abolition of slavery, the parallels between the racial hierarchy of the Jim Crow system and contemporary mass incarceration, and the rise of the…
Furthest-right subjects
Ethnic & African American Studies
Survey of the principal developments in the history and culture of the peoples of African descent in colonial North America and the United States to 1865. Examines the African past, the Atlantic slave trade, variation in slavery, the growth…
Sociology
Rooted in the tragic murder of Lt. Richard W. Collins III, a Bowie State student, on the campus of the University of Maryland by a white supremacist student, this course will provide an overview and discussion of the history of…
Ethnic & African American Studies
An exploration of the stories black authors tell about themselves, their communities, and the nation as informed by time and place, gender, sexuality, and class. African American perspective themes such as art, childhood, sexuality,…
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 64.4 to 68.3; 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.
University of Maryland-College Park by department (share of courses described from the left)
| Department | Left-framed share | Courses | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Women's & Gender Studies | 50% | 12 | view |
| Ethnic & African American Studies | 33.3% | 24 | view |
| Anthropology | 17.2% | 29 | view |
| Sociology | 17.1% | 35 | view |
| English & Comparative Literature | 7.5% | 67 | view |
| Psychology | 4.3% | 46 | view |
| Art & Art History | 3.1% | 32 | view |
| History | 2.8% | 36 | view |
| Economics | 0% | 57 | view |
| Philosophy | 0% | 13 | view |
| Political Science | 0% | 30 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Maryland-College Park | mean_bias_score | 66.3 | 64.4 – 68.3 | 381 | 34 |
| 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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