In last week’s DePaulia article, “Blue and Red: Political balance needed at DePaul,” it was suggested that DePaul might have a liberal bias and that the voices of the more moderate or conservative are being stifled.

However, in an article published on website Inside Higher Ed, Sylvia Hurtado, president of education at UCLA and director of the Higher Education research institute, has said that, contrary to that belief, a series of studies showed no evidence that any left-leaning faculty members were swaying the political ideals of students.

The liberal leaning policies of DePaul most likely have something to do with its location in the middle of a central city. Last week’s article made the assertion that Chicago is “a liberal beacon of American politics”; supporting this assertion, a website called The Atlantic Cities has proven the long held belief that in urban areas, the population tends to lean more to the left.

As for the point that the city of Chicago has not had a Republican mayor since 1931, that much is certainly true. However, as said before, most major cities in the U.S. tend to lean more to the left. This is not only true for northern cities like New York; some states like North Carolina played a huge role in re-electing Chicago’s own President Barack Obama, famous for his highly liberal stance.

But why are major cities, and the universities within them, more left leaning? The answer could be due to the high density of people, or due to the broader opportunities for higher education that exist in cities like these, according to The Atlantic Cities.

They also found that people who work in creative, liberal arts-related careers – of which there are far more in urban areas – almost always lean to the liberal side. DePaul itself, liberal as it is, is a Catholic university.

According to the Inside Higher Ed website, professors who teach at private four-year Catholic schools are, on average, 48 percent liberal, 30.7 percent moderate, and 13.3 percent conservative. Only 7.8 percent admitted to leaning to the far left. These numbers, while certainly suggesting a more liberal stance, arguably prove to us that neither the far left nor the far right are dominating, with the far right at 0.3 percent.

In addition, DePaul also has organizations like DePaul Young Republicans where conservative students can gather to share their views. Is DePaul liberal? Absolutely. But its liberal stance is merely reflecting the views of the surrounding city, like any college.

A college in rural Alabama, such as University of Alabama or Auburn University, would almost definitely be highly conservative. Although the conservative population of DePaul is not as high as it would be in a more suburban or rural area, that does not mean it is not present.

In addition, there certainly aren’t many major obstacles to prevent this conservative population from fairly expressing their opinions. Liberal or conservative, the focus of college is to learn to get along with people with different political values than ours.