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Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University's course descriptions average 70.9 on the 100-to-0 ruler: well left of center. Across all 100 schools, the average is 67.5, so Wesleyan University reads 3.4 points further left.

ShowCompared withDepartments

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

Wesleyan University: 70.9 (likely range 69.9 to 71.9) All 100 schools: 67.5 each other school in the comparison

Where its courses fall

12%Far left92–100

45%Left75–91

30%Center-left59–74

6%Center42–58

2%Center-right26–41

4%Right9–25

1%Far right0–8

665 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

AFAM 115F · Freedom School (FYS)100

Ethnic & African American Studies

From the point of view of the U.S. nation-state, education has always been a hegemonic means to control knowledge, to calibrate unequal forms of citizenship, and to promote the social reproduction of power. Yet as W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in…

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AFAM 116F · The Black Radical Tradition (or Black Radicalism) (FYS)100

Ethnic & African American Studies

In a nation that was founded on the liberty of white men and women, and the enslavement of people of African descent, black radical action and movements have steered the history of struggles for freedom, citizenship, equal treatment, social…

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AFAM 213 · Abolition Geographies100

Ethnic & African American Studies

"Space always matters, and what we make of it in thought and practice determines, and it is determined by, how we mix our creativity with the external word to change it and ourselves in the process. In other words, one need not be a…

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Furthest-right subjects

ENGL 353 · Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Medieval Literature0

English & Comparative Literature

Why do white supremacists celebrate the European Middle Ages as a lost era of racial and religious purity? This course approaches that question by considering the emergence of medieval ideas of race, ethnicity, and religious difference. We…

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HIST 263 · Inside Nazi Germany, 1933--19450

History

This survey course seeks to give a firm historical grounding in the processes that led to Hitler's rise to power, the nature of the National Socialist regime, and the origins and implementation of policies of aggression and genocide. The…

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ENGL 383 · Fascism and American Literature4

English & Comparative Literature

American writers were deeply engaged by the rise of 20th-century European fascism. A number of American writers took part in a generational critique of liberal democracy and thus played a role in establishing the intellectual context for…

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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 69.9 to 71.9; 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.

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

Department	Left-framed share	Courses
Women's & Gender Studies	54.5%	143	view
Ethnic & African American Studies	54.2%	153	view
Anthropology	43.8%	89	view
Sociology	41.0%	61	view
History	23.4%	239	view
English & Comparative Literature	20.7%	285	view
Religious Studies	13.9%	115	view
Philosophy	13.5%	111	view
Psychology	13.2%	114	view
Political Science	9.6%	136	view
Art & Art History	8.2%	147	view
Economics	2.2%	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
Wesleyan University	mean_bias_score	70.9	69.9 – 71.9	1,682	413
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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