This study uses data from the 1969, 1975, and 1984 Carnegie surveys of faculty at U.S. colleges and universities to show that the distribution of political orientations among the professoriate changed minimally between the late 1960s and mid-1980s. The largest net shift, about 7% of the respondents, was from liberal to conservative self-identifications. The 1975 and 1984 surveys show the same patterns of disciplinary differences present in 1969, but the patterns by age and type of institution changed. Analyses by disciplinary political context and type of institution show that the incidence of leftism had been considerably exaggerated in much of the current literature. The institutional types with the largest numbers of students, moreover, have the most conservative or moderate faculties