EXCLUSIVE REPORT: 98.4 percent of Mizzou admin, 97.6 percent of faculty donate to Dems
Campus Reform analyzed the donation records of the University of Missouri System (Mizzou) employees from 2017-2018, using publicly available records from the Federal Election Commission, in order to determine the political leanings of faculty and administrators at the college.
According to a Campus Reform analysis, 98.4 percent of all Mizzou administrators who donated to political candidates or causes gave a total of $30,019.97 to Democrat politicians or Democrat organizations, such as congressional candidate Hallie Thomson and embattled Sen. Claire McCaskill.
In total, Mizzou employees donated $422,044.09 from 2017-2018. Of that amount, 96.7 percent were made to Democrat politicians or Democrat organizations, while just 3.3 percent of the donations were made to Republican politicians or Republican organizations. Only 12 Mizzou employees donated Republican, eight of whom were faculty members; one was an administrator.
Three hundred fifty-six faculty members, specifically, donated a total of $317,149.47 to politicians or political organizations. They contributed 97.6 percent of the money to Democrat politicians or organizations. Just 2.4 percent of donations, given by eight faculty members, went to Republican causes or politicians, like Representative Vicky Hartzler.
Meanwhile, 60 administrators donated $30,019.97 to Democrat political candidates and politicians, such as Renee Hoagenson’s congressional campaign. According to the records, there was only one donation made by Mizzou administrators to Republican politicians or Republican organizations from 2017-2018.
End Citizens United and Senator Claire McCaskill received the highest amount of donations in the Democrat category.
For the purposes of this data, Campus Reform defined “faculty” as employees of the college that have direct instructional contact with students, such as professors, teachers, and instructors. “Administrators” were defined as employees who manage programming or are responsible for students and faculty, such as department chairs, deans, presidents, and provosts.
Campus Reform sorted individual donors using their stated position at the college. For example, if the individual donor noted that they were a “professor of literary theory,” they were designated as a faculty member. If an individual noted that they were employed as an “executive director,” they were designated as an administrator. In the event an employee’s title was ambiguous and could not be confirmed, they were marked as general employees, but not sorted into faculty or administration categories. Campus Reform used a variation of keyword searches to cull data specific to University of Missouri System employees.
Campus Reform used the most recent FEC donor records from Jan. 1, 2017 to Oct. 22, 2018.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @Grace_Gotcha
