Ethnic & African American Studies
How did Marx conceptualize modernity? What is capital? Historical materialism? Dialectical materialism? What roles do race, class, gender, sexuality, territory and the state perform?
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University of Southern California
University of Southern California's course descriptions average 64.4 on the 100-to-0 ruler: clearly left of center. Across all 100 schools, the average is 67.5, so University of Southern California reads 3.2 points further right.
Liberal (100)center (50)Conservative (0)
Where its courses fall
<1%Far left92–100
38%Left75–91
34%Center-left59–74
19%Center42–58
3%Center-right26–41
<1%Right9–25
5%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 Chinese revolution; social, political, and economic developments in post-1949 China; China after Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung).
Ethnic & African American Studies
This course examines black social movements for freedom, justice, equality, and self-determination. Beginning with Reconstruction, movements include labor, civil rights, radical feminism, socialism, reparations, Black Nationalism,…
Furthest-right subjects
History
The origins and development of anti-Jewish persecution in Germany, resulting in the systematic mass murder of Europe’s Jews during World War II.
History
Examines the evolution of racial status law in the long 19th century, with special emphasis on the relationship between slavery, segregation, and citizenship.
History
Introduction to the literature of the Atlantic World with a focus on slavery and its role in the emergence of the modern era. Seminar enrollment limited to 15 students.
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 61.5 to 67.2; a comparison whose range overlaps this one is not a reliable difference.
- Only 16 of University of Southern California's descriptions carried a scorable lean, so this average and its rank are rough; the interval is the honest range.
- 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 Southern California by department (share of courses described from the left)
| Department | Left-framed share | Courses | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Women's & Gender Studies | 10.7% | 28 | view |
| Sociology | 3.5% | 86 | view |
| History | 1.9% | 207 | view |
| Ethnic & African American Studies | 1.2% | 86 | view |
| Art & Art History | 0.9% | 225 | view |
| Economics | 0.8% | 129 | view |
| Political Science | 0.6% | 156 | view |
| English & Comparative Literature | 0.6% | 175 | view |
| Anthropology | 0% | 104 | view |
| Philosophy | 0% | 95 | view |
| Psychology | 0% | 119 | view |
| Religious Studies | 0% | 89 | 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 Southern California | mean_bias_score | 64.4 | 61.5 – 67.2 | 1,499 | 16 |
| 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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