What do all the numbers mean? While the total donations show plenty of conservatives on campuses, the figures show that most academics do indeed back Kerry and the Democrats. In fact, it's not hard to find academics who think the choice on Election Day is between Kerry and Nader, or people whose anger over the war in Iraq leads them to say things that sound like apologies for Saddam Hussein, or people who just 100 percent hate President Bush.

Either way, Bush critics in academe make no apologies for wanting a change in the White House. "Unsurprisingly, people who are intellectually serious are acutely revolted by the pattern of deception and stupidity that is manifest in the Bush presidency," says Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University.

A good part of the anti-Bush seething on campuses is related to the president's policies. Many academics disagree with the president on Iraq, the economy, social policy and other issues that directly relate to higher education, notably expanded stem-cell research and affirmative action in college admissions. He opposed both, ignoring the advice of most research and academic leaders. The president's stance against using ethnic preferences in college admissions was particularly galling; after all, Bush's own academic record in high school does not seem to have been how he was admitted to Yale.

Beyond policy, the president's history and personality offend many. It's not just that he was never much of a student; he seems to take pride in it. When he spoke at his alma mater, he said, "To the C students, I say, 'You too can be president of the United States.'" So much for standards.

The president may be a lot smarter today than he was as a student but he still promotes the idea that this is a black-and-white world, when academics love gray. When President Bush says he doesn't "do nuance," he portrays himself as strong and decisive -- in perfect contrast to academics, who thrive on nuance. After all, many a Ph.D. dissertation has been written about a nuance in someone else's book.

For all the vitriol that the president inspires among faculty members, it's still the case that campuses aren't all liberal. Gitlin says he walks by Bush-Cheney posters on his way to his New York office everyday. Indeed, if you track campus posters and what students put up in their dorm rooms since 9/11, there has been a notable addition of American flags, even in places like Ann Arbor and Cambridge. Many campuses oppose the war in Iraq but the war in Afghanistan won broad backing in academe. Still, conservatives insist on portraying academics as '60s-era radicals who believe U.S. force can never be justified -- an image that doesn't ring true.

Even at institutions that lean left, you will find active, vocal, respected conservative faculty members. And while the institutions that lean left are among the most prestigious in the country, they also educate a tiny fraction of American students.

In the end, Republican claims that universities are dangerous to conservative values may be little more than a political ploy. When it comes to Republicans' own children, few enroll at institutions where faculty members are reliably conservative. The president's daughters just graduated (with no apparent damage to their GOP loyalties or social lives) from Yale and the University of Texas at Austin, two institutions where Kerry overwhelms the president in faculty financial support.

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