The 2004 election is no different. This year's canard is that all professors are liberals, making colleges and universities distorted, irrelevant and closed to conservative ideas. The straw professor makes an easy election-year target. After all, many professors are liberal. Many academic ideas are hard to understand.

Recent attacks on academe, however, are more than election-year tactics. The image of higher education as having a single party line helps conservative academic groups raise money. Which in turn leads lawmakers to propose legislation to require colleges to achieve "balance" in their faculties -- a requirement many academics view as forcing faculty members to justify and perhaps soften their opinions. Congress is currently reviewing the Higher Education Act, a mammoth federal law that governs most student-aid programs, and a perfect vehicle for lawmakers to tack on amendments to make points about the academy. So this debate comes at a very sensitive time.

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