Melissa Deckman

Melissa Deckman is an American political scientist. She is the Louis L. Goldstein Professor of Public Affairs at Washington College, where she has also been Chair of the Political Science Department. She studies religion, gender, and American politics. Her research includes books on women and politics, the political activities of clergy members in the United States, and the role of women in the Tea Party movement. She is the CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute.

Education and early work Deckman attended St. Mary's College of Maryland, graduating with a BA degree in political science in 1993. Deckman was the 1993 Valedictorian at St. Mary's College. In School board battles, Deckman studies the Christian right movement that fielded local school board candidates in an attempt to combat what it saw as a left-wing political bias in American public school districts. She employs both a cross-sectional national survey of 671 school board candidates, of whom 127 were affiliated with the Christian right movement, as well as case studies in Garrett County, Maryland, and Fairfax County, Virginia, to study the differences between the Christian right candidates and other candidates. Although Deckman's study confirmed certain differences between candidates who were not affiliated with the Christian right and those who were, it also contradicted the conventional wisdom that Christian right candidates were dramatically different from other candidates, to study the political role of clergy and how gender affects this role. They demonstrate that women members of the clergy tend to be politically motivated by progressive goals such as social justice and fighting discrimination. Through detailed interviews with women involved in Tea Party activism, Deckman argues that the Tea Party functioned as a novel mechanism for women to enter Republican Party politics despite other barriers to their participation.

Deckman has been quoted, or her work has been cited, in news outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and Vox.

Selected works "Balancing work and family responsibilities: Flextime and child care in the federal government", Public Administration Review, with Marni Ezra (1996) School board battles: The Christian right in local politics (2004) Women with a mission: Gender, religion, and the politics of women clergy, with Sue E. S. Crawford and Melissa M. Deckman (2005) Women and politics: Paths to power and political influence, with Julie Dolan and Michele Swers (2006) Tea party women: Mama grizzlies, grassroots leaders, and the changing face of the American right (2016)