The Missing Data Depot

Exploring the stuff that's left out of our conversations about politics.

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

American national pride is in trouble, w/ only 58% now “extremely” or “very proud” to be American.

In a new post, I show the strongest predictor of pride is whether someone is “woke” or “anti-woke," w/ the “anti-woke” now 2x more likely than the “woke” to express strong pride.

[John Sailer @JohnDSailer]

NEW: a report from Vanderbilt and WashU just dropped, taking on the "state of scholarship in the humanities and social sciences," a big topic among critics of higher ed.

Read along w/ me 🧵

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

Which schools have the most politically diverse faculty? There's more diversity at public schools in red states than anywhere else.

Read the report here: https://t.co/fUL72Y16te

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

A study of 30,000 faculty campaign donors at 55 universities finds "the avg ideology of faculty donors...is only slightly less left-leaning than some of the most left-wing members of the Senate, such as Bernie Sanders & Elizabeth Warren."

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

Source: https://t.co/QxGN5vBLlA

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

The SAT & ACT are strong predictors of college performance (far better than high school GPA).

Yet, many colleges eliminated them on the assumption they hurt diversity.

Not so. From the NYT: “Once we brought the test requirement back, we admitted our most diverse class ever.”

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

Source: https://t.co/iLDV9wM4qo

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

A 2023 survey asked what should be *banned* in order to "fight climate change."

More than two-thirds of elites & Ivy League grads favored banning gas stoves, gas-powered cars, air conditioning & non-essential air travel.

Less than one in four avg. voters favored any of these.

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

A majority (52%) of Americans would like to "abolish standardized tests, such as the SAT or ACT" for college admissions.

But there’s a massive partisan divide.

While only 40% of Republicans want to "abolish" standardized tests, 70% of Democrats do.

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

"In practice, then, colleges & universities are supplanting curriculum on U.S. government and American history with courses that emphasize identity, power, and inequality."

Source: https://t.co/CnnrkDKu8x

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

What do colleges require students to take to graduate in 2026?

In one study of 120 prominent schools, 0 require economics & only 18 require US government or American history.

By contrast, 61 required a DEI course for graduation.

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

Source: https://t.co/BwfKkSBAgx

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

A 2025 Cato Institute survey found vast generational differences in feelings about capitalism, socialism & communism.

Young people were ~2x more likely than seniors to have a favorable view of socialism & ~17x more likely than seniors to have a favorable view of communism.

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

Source: https://t.co/X8FcE8Gi5V

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

Left-wing conspiracy theories about the Trump assassination attempt(s) should not be surprising.

A 2022 study of 37,000 Americans & 26,000 non-Americans found liberals are just as likely as conservatives to believe in conspiracy theories...they just believe in different ones.

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

Source: https://t.co/UHx5fWKKN7

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

It's not surprising that professors come from highly educated families. Yet the extent to which the professoriate comes from families w/ a PhD-holding mother or father is striking.

While <1% of Americans have a PhD, 22% of university faculty members have a parent with a Ph.D.

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

There is also wide variation across campuses. In 2024, while ~40% of UC Davis students said shoutdowns, blockades & violence can sometimes be acceptable to stop speech, only ~5% of students at BYU Provo did.

Read more here: https://t.co/cdEYGnkMyF

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

Students majoring in ethnic, gender & area studies are the most supportive of disruptive actions to stop campus speech (e.g. shouting down a speaker, blocking other students from attending & using violence).

The gap b/w these students & others has also been growing over time.

[YitzyFrankel @YitZionist]

Truly abhorrent and unimaginable behavior today at the @FedSocUCLA event that hosted a @DHSgov lawyer. Leftist students repeatedly disrupted the event, yelled profanities, shouted, made their phones ping incessantly, and eventually stormed out to a rally that violated all time, place, and manner restrictions. These students can’t handle @FedSoc event about the law, but will remain students at @UCLA_Law and
eventually be admitted to the Bar. It is a damning indictment on higher education that students behave so despicably.

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

Source: https://t.co/ERiwpjyR8Q

[The Missing Data Depot @data_depot]

New @HdxAcademy study finds the % of faculty job ads requesting applicants to address DEI in their applications dropped by more than half, from 25.4% in 2024 to 11.0% in 2025.

Nevertheless, ~6% of job ads in states formally restricting DEI in hiring still request DEI materials.