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University of California-San Diego

University of California-San Diego's course descriptions average 66.6 on the 100-to-0 ruler: clearly left of center. Across all 100 schools, the average is 67.5, so University of California-San Diego reads 0.9 points further right.

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

University of California-San Diego: 66.6 (likely range 65.3 to 68.0) All 100 schools: 67.5 each other school in the comparison

Where its courses fall

6%Far left92–100

36%Left75–91

38%Center-left59–74

10%Center42–58

5%Center-right26–41

3%Right9–25

3%Far right0–8

363 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

ANSC 192 · Liberation Bound: Struggles Against Capitalism and Imperialism Worldwide100

Anthropology

Using a variety of sources, this course surveys the varied efforts by people acting in contexts worldwide to overcome capitalist relations and imperial systems and construct new ways of organizing life on the planet. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.

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ANTH 233 · Critical Studies of Capitalism100

Anthropology

This seminar takes up Marx’s varied critiques of capitalist forms, categories, doctrines, practices, and tendencies and brings them to bear on contemporary conditions. In particular, the seminar examines what may be understood as Marx’s…

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CGS 110 · Intersectional Struggles for Environmental Justice100

Women's & Gender Studies

Colonial and capitalist exploitation has left a trail of environmental destruction and devastated communities stretching across the globe. This course will apply an intersectional lens to analyzing racialized, gendered extractivist…

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Furthest-right subjects

ETHN 1 · Introduction to Ethnic Studies: Land and Labor0

Ethnic & African American Studies

This course examines key historical events and debates in the field that center around land and labor, including disputes about territory and natural resources, slavery and other forms of unfree labor, labor migration and recruitment, and…

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ETHN 170 · Slavery and the Atlantic World0

Ethnic & African American Studies

The development of the Atlantic slave trade and the spread of racial slavery in the Americas before 1800. Explores the diversity of slave labor in the Americas and the different slave cultures African Americans produced under the…

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ETHN 174 · Themes in Afro-American Literature0

Ethnic & African American Studies

(Cross-listed with LTEN 185.) This course focuses on the influence of slavery upon African American writers. Our concern is not upon what slavery was but upon what it is within the works and what these texts reveal about themselves, their authors, and their audiences.

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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 65.3 to 68.0; 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 California-San Diego by department (share of courses described from the left)

Department	Left-framed share	Courses
Women's & Gender Studies	33.3%	42	view
Ethnic & African American Studies	20.3%	158	view
Anthropology	8.5%	270	view
Sociology	7.2%	181	view
History	4.5%	352	view
Religious Studies	3.1%	32	view
Political Science	2.1%	286	view
Art & Art History	2.0%	256	view
English & Comparative Literature	0.8%	363	view
Philosophy	0.8%	124	view
Psychology	0.6%	159	view
Economics	0%	152	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 California-San Diego	mean_bias_score	66.6	65.3 – 68.0	2,375	116
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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