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Stanford University

Stanford University's course descriptions average 68.4 on the 100-to-0 ruler: clearly left of center. Across all 100 schools, the average is 67.5, so Stanford University reads 0.9 points further left.

ShowCompared withDepartments

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

Stanford University: 68.4 (likely range 67.5 to 69.4) All 100 schools: 67.5 each other school in the comparison

Where its courses fall

8%Far left92–100

35%Left75–91

43%Center-left59–74

7%Center42–58

1%Center-right26–41

3%Right9–25

3%Far right0–8

594 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

AFRICAAM 140 · Black Ecologies (EARTHSYS 146J, ENGLISH 146)100

Ethnic & African American Studies

Black literature and media have long served as important sites of ecological thought and as blueprints for resistance to the combined matrices of imperialism, racialized dispossession, and extractivism. In exploring key works by Jamaica…

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AFRICAAM 154 · Fanon (COMPLIT 154F, CSRE 154F, FEMGEN 154F, FRENCH 154F)100

Ethnic & African American Studies

Frantz Fanon was extraordinarily prolific during his short life. He was the twentieth century's foremost theorist of blackness and anti-colonial liberation, but also a practicing research psychiatrist and a revolutionary. Today, Fanon is an…

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AFRICAAM 164A · Race and Performance (CSRE 164A, CSRE 364A, TAPS 164)100

Ethnic & African American Studies

How does race function in performance and dare we say live and in living color? How does one deconstruct discrimination at its roots? From a perspective of global solidarity and recognition of shared plight among BIPOC communities, we will…

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Furthest-right subjects

AFRICAAM 252C · The Old South: Culture, Society, and Slavery (CSRE 252C, HISTORY 252C)0

Ethnic & African American Studies

This course explores the political, social, and cultural history of the antebellum American South, with an emphasis on the history of African-American slavery. Topics include race and race making, slave community and resistance, gender and…

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COMPLIT 104N · Film and Fascism in Europe (FILMEDIA 105N, FRENCH 104N, ITALIAN 104N)0

English & Comparative Literature

Controlling people's minds through propaganda is an integral part of fascist regimes' totalitarianism. In the interwar, cinema, a relatively recent mass media, was immediately seized upon by fascist regimes to produce aggrandizing national…

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COMPLIT 21Q · Wilde's Worlds: Oscar Wilde in the International Context0

English & Comparative Literature

This course introduces you to Oscar Wilde's life and works in various international literary, artistic, social, and cultural contexts in the European fin de siecle, as well as to Wilde's posthumous reception as an iconic figure of LGBTQ+…

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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 67.5 to 69.4; 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.

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

Department	Left-framed share	Courses
Women's & Gender Studies	47.6%	82	view
Ethnic & African American Studies	43.8%	260	view
Anthropology	28.1%	171	view
Sociology	18.0%	111	view
English & Comparative Literature	12.0%	368	view
History	10.6%	340	view
Art & Art History	10.4%	250	view
Psychology	6.2%	161	view
Religious Studies	6.1%	66	view
Political Science	4.3%	138	view
Economics	2.1%	140	view
Philosophy	2.1%	144	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
Stanford University	mean_bias_score	68.4	67.5 – 69.4	2,231	353
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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