CASH COW: Vermont college employees churn out big dough for Dems

Campus Reform analyzed the donation records of college and university employees in Vermont, home of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, and found that they are churning out the cash for Democrat candidates and causes.

The colleges included in this report include: Castleton University, Champlain College, University of Vermont, Middlebury College, Norwich University, Green Mountain College, College of St. Joseph, Goddard College, Sterling College, Bennington College, Saint Michael’s College Northern Vermont University- Johnson, Northern Vermont University-Lyndon, Vermont Law, Landmark College, Marlboro College, and Southern Vermont College.

Campus Reform conducted the analysis using publicly available 2017-2018 records from the Federal Election Commission in order to determine the political leanings of faculty and administrators at Vermont colleges.

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According to the analysis, 100 percent of all college administrators in Vermont who donated to political candidates or causes gave a total of $8,748.01 to Democrat politicians or Democrat organizations, such as Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy.

In total, Vermont college employees donated $129,726.18 to partisan groups or individuals from 2017-2018. Of that amount, 99.31 percent were made to Democrat politicians or Democrat organizations, while just .69 percent of the donations were made to Republican politicians or Republican organizations.

Three-hundred ninety-nine faculty members, specifically, donated a total of $92,881.86 to politicians or political organizations. They contributed 99.04 percent of the money to Democrat politicians or organizations. Just .96 percent of donations went to Republican causes or politicians, like Michael Snyder’s congressional campaign.

Meanwhile, all of the administrators who donated to partisan causes- a total of $8,748.01 - did so exclusively to Democrat political candidates and politicians. According to the records, there were no college administrators in Vermont who donated Republican.

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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. This definition includes teaching fellows and teaching assistants. “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 Vermont college employees. The analysis did not include technical colleges, community colleges, or trade schools.

Campus Reform used the most recent FEC donor records from Jan. 1, 2017 to Oct. 22, 2018.

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