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Vassar College

Vassar College's course descriptions average 69.5 on the 100-to-0 ruler: clearly left of center. Across all 100 schools, the average is 67.5, so Vassar College reads 1.9 points further left.

ShowCompared withDepartments

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

Vassar College: 69.5 (likely range 68.3 to 70.6) All 100 schools: 67.5 each other school in the comparison

Where its courses fall

10%Far left92–100

48%Left75–91

35%Center-left59–74

4%Center42–58

<1%Center-right26–41

1%Right9–25

1%Far right0–8

375 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

AFRS 110 · Prison Abolition and Black Liberation100

Ethnic & African American Studies

Semester Offered: Fall 1 unit(s) This course examines regimes of imprisonment and state violence that spawn carceral structures and the strategies of resistance racialized captives have used to disrupt and dismantle them. By calling into…

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AFRS 175 · Mandela: Race, Resistance and Renaissance in South Africa100

Ethnic & African American Studies

Semester Offered: Spring 1 unit(s) (Same as HIST 175 ) This course critically explores the history and politics of South Africa in the twentieth century through the prism of the life, politics, and experiences of one of its most iconic…

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AFRS 361 · The Global Haitian Revolution100

Ethnic & African American Studies

1 unit(s) (Same as INTL 361 and POLI 361 ) This seminar works through the essential contours of CLR James' The Black Jacobins, which offers a powerful transnational vision of revolutionary change by reconsidering the global "Age of…

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Furthest-right subjects

HIST 247 · Albert Einstein0

History

1 unit(s) (Same as STS 247 ) This course explores the complex life and work of the iconic scientist of the 20th century. Using recent biographical studies and a wide range of original sources (in translation), Einstein's revolutionary…

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HIST 337 · The Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany0

History

1 unit(s) This course explores the Third Reich by locating it within the peculiar nature of German political culture resulting from late unification and rapid industrialization. Readings explore how and why the Nazis emerged as a mass party…

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HIST 375 · Nineteenth-Century America at War8

History

1 unit(s) This course explores three military initiatives in the nineteenth-century United States and interconnections among them: violent dispossession of Native peoples between the 1830s and the 1890s; the U.S.-Mexico War; and Confederate…

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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 68.3 to 70.6; 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.

Vassar College by department (share of courses described from the left)

Department	Left-framed share	Courses
Women's & Gender Studies	51.2%	43	view
Sociology	46.7%	45	view
Ethnic & African American Studies	42.9%	252	view
Political Science	32.4%	74	view
History	32.2%	87	view
Anthropology	18.9%	53	view
English & Comparative Literature	18.1%	83	view
Religious Studies	12.2%	41	view
Philosophy	7.3%	41	view
Art & Art History	7.2%	83	view
Psychology	2.6%	39	view
Economics	0%	34	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
Vassar College	mean_bias_score	69.5	68.3 – 70.6	875	243
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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