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| From the issue dated June 17, 2005 |
How to Look Good in Red
As the U. of Georgia shows, public colleges and political conservatives can get along pretty well, actually
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Athens, Ga.
In color-coded maps showing local voting patterns in the 2004 presidential election, this city, the home of the University of Georgia, stands out as a blue island of Democrats in a Republican-red sea.
Georgia, on the whole, is a conservative place, its state capital dominated by Republicans who ran for office promising to cut taxes, rein in government spending, and uphold what they see as traditional family values.
The University of Georgia, by contrast, has long had a reputation among many Peach State residents as a bastion of liberalism, where professors bash President Bush, doubt the Bible, and pressure young people to abandon the values instilled in them back home.
Georgia is hardly the only state in which a perceived ideological gap separates public colleges from the public. As the nation's electorate has shifted rightward in recent years -- putting the White House, Congress, and a growing number of statehouses under Republican control -- many public colleges, especially flagship universities, have maintained liberal reputations, as evidenced by a 2004 Chronicle poll showing that 68 percent of the nation's conservatives believe that colleges are liberally biased.
Conservative advocacy groups routinely criticize colleges as bent on liberal indoctrination and eager to trample students' rights in the name of multiculturalism and diversity. Meanwhile, many academics equate political conservatism with anti-intellectualism and with declining tax-dollar support for higher education.
But at least at the state level, the relationship between public colleges and political conservatism is much more complex -- and, in some respects, much friendlier -- than many people in academe think.
A close examination of the University of Georgia and its interactions with elected officials reveals that most of the state's conservative lawmakers accord its flagship university a great deal of deference and respect, taking pains to protect its share of the state budget. And the university, rather than opposing, or even just tolerating the forces of conservatism, has in some ways embraced and nurtured them.
"I think we have a pretty good relationship with the leading political establishment in the state and I think generally that has served us well," says the university's president, Michael F. Adams.
National experts on higher-education policy say they have observed similar political dynamics at work in other states.
"There tends to be a belief in the academy that Democrats treat higher education better than Republicans," but such perceptions "don't reflect what happens in the real world of politics," says Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
Mixed Perceptions
A visit to the town of Commerce, Ga., confirms the mixed feelings that many Georgians have toward their state's flagship university.
Although it lies just 18 miles north of Athens, Commerce is a very different place. Athens has hip nightclubs and bohemian coffee shops and favors red Georgia Bulldog banners. Commerce still has a pharmacy lunch counter that serves pimento-cheese sandwiches and Campbell's soup, and it flies a Confederate flag on the road into town.
Most of the local residents encountered on Commerce's Main Street look upon the University of Georgia with a combination of appreciation and suspicion.
Lee Hagan, a gift shop owner, questions whether the university spends tax dollars wisely, and sees it as home to "a lot of very liberal-minded people." But he also thinks it educates students well -- and, as a weekend apiarist, welcomes the beekeeping advice that he gets from its extension agents.
Terry W. Minish, proprietor of a department store, senses that not as many children of local families are attending the university as once did, and wonders if they are being squeezed out by students from other states or abroad. "I don't think the Georgia taxpayer should be responsible for educating kids from all over the nation and world," he says.
At the public library, two women behind the counter burst into laughter when asked if Athens is at all representative of the rest of Georgia. Joel C. Hammond, chaplain of the Commerce Police Department, says he knows a lot of people who have benefited from attending the university. But when he visits Athens, he says, he often gets into arguments with liberals who "don't want me to have my viewpoint." He says he has heard and read that the university's faculty members "ridicule students who have Christian beliefs."
Nonetheless, surveys conducted by the university's Carl Vinson Institute of Government show that, despite such qualms, Georgians have more confidence in their public colleges than in many other institutions.
In a poll conducted last February, 55 percent professed either "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the state's public colleges. By comparison, 50 percent held such a view of their local police, and less than 30 percent felt as positively about the state's courts, legislature, or public schools. Polls in other states and two national surveys commissioned by the Chronicle have yielded similar results.
What's more, in the Georgia institute's February poll, those on the rightward side of the political spectrum were even more likely than those on the left to look favorably upon public colleges: 57 percent of self-described conservatives expressed high levels of confidence in colleges, compared with 48 percent of liberals.
George C. Leef, executive director of the North Carolina-based John William Pope Center for Higher Education, which takes a traditionalist view of academe and often assails "political correctness," argues that most people base their views on public colleges on "an image that is very carefully crafted by the college public-relations professionals" to depict the institutions as "generally very beneficial to the state." As a result, he says, "higher education is usually rather far down the list of what is on voters' minds."
He says there have been a few states where conservative lawmakers have substantially altered higher-education policy -- Colorado's adoption of a voucher-based approach to public-college financing comes to mind -- but in most they tend to focus mainly on taxes and social issues and to "let the state-university administrators continue to run things the way they have."
Pragmatic Appeals
State Rep. Bob Smith, chairman of the Georgia House of Representatives' subcommittee on higher-education appropriations, has been in office since 1998. Although his legislative district includes Athens, as a longtime Republican he generally carries less than a fourth of the vote there, relying instead on the support of surrounding communities. A commercial real-estate agent, he dresses nattily and exudes a self-effacing, folksy charm.
Mr. Smith earned his bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Georgia in 1976, but he never got over his befuddlement with some of what goes on there. He recalls dropping a philosophy class after a professor pointed to an object and asked students to consider whether it actually existed. Seeing the object with his own eyes, Mr. Smith decided that the class was a waste of his time.
He sometimes hears about students at the university dropping classes that teach "wacky thinking." But he also believes "there are some fantastic things going on" there, and he says, "The good outweighs the bad by far."
He gets visibly excited when discussing the university's research in the fields of biotechnology and nanotechnology, and says he "gets goose bumps just thinking about" the technological advances and economic development that might result. He has tried to secure the funds to help the university hire researchers in those fields, and has pushed legislation that would let the institution use endowment money as venture capital to finance investments in high-tech laboratories.
Georgia has plenty of lawmakers who, like Mr. Smith, don't care much for some things being taught at public colleges but seem more than happy to financially support the institutions and otherwise leave them alone -- as long as they tend to the state's economic needs.
Even if lawmakers wanted to meddle with the University of Georgia, it would be tough for them to do so. An amendment to the state's Constitution places the state's public colleges under the control of a gubernatorially appointed Board of Regents with a substantial degree of autonomy. The board receives a lump-sum appropriation for public colleges operations and then allocates each institution's funds, while lawmakers' purse-string power is limited mainly to determining the system's overall budget and how much each campus gets for construction projects.
That does not mean fiscal conservatism has no impact on the state's public colleges. In April, when the Georgia Parent Teacher Association held its annual state convention, in Gwinnett County, nearly every parent interviewed in the exhibit hall answered "no" to the hypothetical question of whether they would be willing to pay higher taxes to improve public colleges or to expand access to higher education. Given Georgia's antitax sentiment, "it is political suicide to raise taxes in the state right now," says state Rep. Jane Kidd, a Democrat from Athens. Lawmakers have instead adopted enough tax cuts in recent years to trim about $1.2-billion from the state's annual budget, compounding the damage done to it by the latest recession. Denied the additional state dollars needed to keep up with their rising costs, public colleges have been forced to trim expenses, increase tuition, and raise more money on their own.
But public colleges' share of the state's tax-revenue pie has remained fairly constant. Although the 34-campus public-college system's budget was cut by nearly 6 percent over the course of the past three fiscal years, it was generally not squeezed more than any other state agencies. The 8.5-percent increase in the system's appropriation for the coming fiscal year is larger than the increases that most other sectors of state government are due to receive.
When it comes to at least protecting its share of the state budget, the University of Georgia owes much of its success to skillful lobbying.
State Sen. Brian P. Kemp, vice chairman of the Senate higher-education committee, recalls how he was persuaded two years ago to push for a $39-million art-school building at the university. A Republican whose electoral district includes Athens, Mr. Kemp says he is "pretty sure most people in the art program did not vote for me." And, especially given the state's sluggish economy and tight budget, he wasn't about to pump money into a program that produces starving studio artists. But he got behind the project after campus officials gave him a tour showing him how its graphics-art program produces well-paid graduates. "I think the university does a good job in selling themselves," he says.
The university also tries to maintain good relations with its many graduates in state government, recognizing that lawmakers' alumni ties can carry substantial weight in their votes on higher-education issues. "The leadership of the state historically, overwhelmingly, went to the University of Georgia" and is "in a position to look out for the university and its interests," says Charles S. Bullock III, a professor of political science at Georgia who tracks state politics.
It helps that some of the university's leaders are themselves prominent Republicans. Among them is the president, Michael F. Adams, who served as chief of staff to U.S. Senator Howard Baker and as an aide to Gov. Lamar Alexander, both of Tennessee, and has a close personal relationship with Georgia's Republican governor, Sonny Perdue.
Some faculty members believe that the university's administration is reluctant to do anything that might annoy conservative lawmakers. Its admissions policies remain race-neutral, even though nearly two years have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court effectively overturned a lower-court ruling striking down the old race-conscious admissions policy. Gay and lesbian faculty members complain that university and system administrators seem in no hurry to extend benefits to employees' domestic partners.
Even some professors admit being hesitant to antagonize conservatives. "We really depend on having a good relationship with the legislature," explains Susan P. Mattern-Parkes, an associate professor of history and secretary-treasurer of the campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
Keeping the Peace
It's a warm spring night just before final exams, but about 80 members of the College Republicans have found time to hear Ralph Reed Jr., former executive director of the Christian Coalition and now a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. Despite Athens's liberal voting habits and the fliers around campus announcing a planned "Lavender Graduation" ceremony for gay and lesbian students, Mr. Reed, an alumnus, professes nothing but love for the place, and in his speech he vows to secure it additional tax-dollar support. Afterward, dozens of admiring students surround him. Some volunteer to work on his campaign.
While the university's faculty appears to skew Democratic, its student body seems much more reflective of the rest of the state's population. The campus chapter of the College Republicans is one of the largest in the nation -- with roughly 3,200 members, about 500 of whom are active at any one time -- and has helped many GOP lawmakers get elected.
"This is a very Republican campus," says the chapter's chairman, D. Andrew Dill, who says his group is so strong that "we can flex muscle with the people who control the university from the state level." He says he has helped the university persuade lawmakers to provide it with more money. But when interviewed, in late April, he was urging lawmakers to register their displeasure with the student union's decision to have the Rev. Al Sharpton speak on campus.
Many students and faculty members here believe that the students have become even more conservative and Republican as a result of the state's popular HOPE Scholarship program, which uses lottery revenues to pay the public-college tuition of students with at least a B average, and is credited with enticing many good students from top high schools to attend in-state institutions. Students here jokingly refer to the place as "the University of Marietta," a nod to the Atlanta suburb that was the center of Newt Gingrich's political support. Since 1993, the first year that HOPE Scholarships were distributed, the share of the university's enrollment from wealthy, heavily Republican suburbs of Atlanta has risen from about a fourth to nearly a third, a trend that can only be partly explained by the region's rapid growth.
Many conservative students on the campus seem tolerant of professors who express liberal views, but there are exceptions. State Sen. Eric B. Johnson, president pro tem of the Georgia Senate, had heard his daughter, a University of Georgia graduate, object to what she felt was her professors' liberal bias, and had read of similar complaints by students elsewhere. Convinced that "a warning shot, at the very least, was appropriate," he was persuaded by David Horowitz, a conservative activist, to introduce an "Academic Bill of Rights" resolution calling on colleges to protect the free-speech rights of conservative faculty members and students.
As the State Senate considered the measure last year, however, many members were swayed by professors who argued that the resolution threatened academic freedom and represented a legislative intrusion into colleges' affairs. The measure that the Senate finally passed had been stripped of its teeth. It urged colleges merely to make sure that political views do not influence personnel decisions or students' grades. It omitted Mr. Johnson's proposed language calling for colleges to make records of their personnel decisions available for official inquiry; for the curricula and reading lists in the humanities, social studies, and arts to provide dissenting sources and viewpoints; and for colleges' speaker programs to promote intellectual pluralism.
Mr. Dill, of the university's College Republicans, nevertheless believes that the resolution has had an impact. "If I feel that my views are being suppressed," he says, "I know that I can contact members of the legislature, or the governor, and know that they will take the necessary actions to make sure it doesn't happen again." Senator Johnson concurs with that assessment.
For its part, the University of Georgia appears to be taking accusations of faculty bias seriously. When John H. Morrow Jr., a professor of history, clashed in the classroom and on the History News Network Web site with Bradley J. Alexander, a sophomore who had objected to his use of instructional time to launch into a profanity-laced denunciation of the Bush administration, the university's legal-affairs department investigated the matter, and the professor, convinced that his side of the dispute was being ignored, hired his own lawyer. In the end, administrators took no action other than urging Mr. Morrow to watch his language and be more sensitive in his interactions with students.
Faculty members are divided in their views of the impact of such developments. Nancy R. Felson, a professor of the classics who last year headed the Faculty Senate in the College of Arts and Sciences, says "faculty don't feel that they are stifled." But Eve M. Troutt Powell, an associate professor of history, says Georgia's treatment of Mr. Morrow has created "an environment in which junior faculty are scared, are nervous about what students will say about them, and are nervous about whether the university will support them."
For all of the attention they receive, clashes between campus conservatives and liberals are rare. James Folker, editorial adviser to the student newspaper, The Red & Black, observes that when it comes to politics, most students here are basically apathetic. But a better explanation may be the tendency of students and faculty members alike to self-segregate into those academic fields and social scenes where people are more likely to share their values. Many conservative students gravitate toward fraternities and sororities and shun some of the liberal arts. "Usually, conservative values are taught in businesses classes," says Preston D. Mintz, a sophomore majoring in that field.
Adrian P. Childs, an assistant professor of music, says that as a gay man, he has some reservations about working in a state where more than three-fourths of the electorate voted last fall to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. While he feels well-accepted in the music school, he says "there are other places on campus that are considered less friendly and less open."
Likewise, Christopher N. Johnson, a sophomore who is president of the campus's chapter of the NAACP, says black students generally feel welcome here. But, he adds, "you just don't go to a white frat party, because you know you won't be welcome there. It is just an unwritten rule. Don't do it."
William R. Childs, a sophomore who is president of the university's student government, says students self-segregate so much that he "never would have come in contact with a homosexual student" if he had not sought such a leadership position or become involved philanthropic organizations.
"There are several bubbles on campus," he says.
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THE DOMINANCE OF GEORGIA'S GOP 
Clarke County, home of the University of Georgia, was one of only a few in the Peach State that backed the Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, in 2004. Most of the other counties that went Democratic had large black populations, mainly in urban areas. George W. Bush, the Republican incumbent, got about 58 percent of the state's vote.
SOURCE: Georgia Secretary of State
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http://chronicle.com
Section: Government & Politics
Volume 51, Issue 41, Page A14