American colleges and universities are very different from the nation that surrounds them. The United States is narrowly divided between two major political parties, yet one would not know this looking at the political environment on America’s campuses. Federal Election Commission records show a wide disparity in donations to the two major presidential candidates from college and university employees.

How can students get a balanced education if the people running the school are so imbalanced? Just how imbalanced are the donation figures?

Employees at Harvard University gave John Kerry $25 for every $1 they gave George W. Bush in 2004. At Duke University, the ratio stood at $8 to $1. At Princeton University, a $302 to $1 ratio prevails. The numbers of donations provide an even starker contrast. John Kerry received 257 donations of $200 or more from Stanford, while his opponent got just 28. At Northwestern, Kerry received 100 such contributions and Bush six. Georgetown University donations swung 132 to six in Kerry’s favor.

Leadership Institute research, published in a booklet entitled “Deep Blue Campuses," located in CampusReform.org's Activism Resources section, examined the political donations of employees at the top twenty-five national universities listed in U.S. News and World Report’s 2004 college issue.

Using methods provided in this booklet, you can investigate the 2008 political donations on your campus and spread awareness of the major political disparities amongst campus faculty and administrators.

Many sites, such as www.tray.com, feature FEC data. Determining the political imbalance of the faculty requires four steps. First, confine your search to the “employer/occupation” category. Second, search by typing in the variations of a school’s name, ensuring that one variation doesn’t overlap another resulting in double-counting donors. Third, do a “find” search for Obama and then for McCain. Finally, tabulate the numeric results from your “find” searches. Be sure to consult “Deep Blue Campuses” for thorough instructions on methodology.

Exposure of a major political imbalance will put the campus left on the defensive and boost your reform effort. And when taxpayers, parents, students, and alumni become aware, they can make educated choices – for example, choices about which schools to avoid in the application process and which schools to withhold donations from.

HOW TO TAKE ACTION

1. Collect and dissect the FEC filings for your school. Read “Deep Blue Campuses” carefully for instructions on collecting accurate campaign donation numbers. Be very careful to document the numbers and triple check for accuracy. Your findings will inevitably be analyzed and critiqued by the left and must stand up to news media scrutiny.

2. Plan the exposure of these findings. You may decide to release your information by a news release or in a prepared statement at a news conference. Gather a list of the contact information for local and state print, broadcast, and online media you will inform. Carefully prepare the statements and figures you will release. At a news conference, reporters may ask you tough questions. If you have your facts right and your hands are clean, you can handle any question asked. Your news release should include the phone number and email address of an informed and articulate spokesperson who is prepared to answer questions and provide additional information.

3. Invite allied organizations. Ask other fiscally conservative organizations on campus or in the outside community to sponsor your release event. Invite them to attend in support of your findings. This is a great way to strengthen cooperation between different groups in the conservative movement, and to increase attendance and volunteers in the form of members of the other groups.

4. Advertise! This depends on the nature of any event you decide to conduct. For a news conference, you might want to put up posters or flyers around campus to advertise its topic, date, time, and location. Click here to learn several important publicity measures to use before, during, and after the event.

5. Prepare for opposition. Keep a video camera and audio recorders available at all times. Record any aggression – verbal or physical. If someone behaves belligerently, ask why he or she supports abuses or objects to your exercise of your right to free speech. Take special care if administrators or professors show up to question your event. Give them whatever respect they deserve, even if they do not accord you the same respect.  For more information on how to deal with opposition on campus, reference "Fight Back."

6. Advertise! (again) The fact that your event is over does not mean that your public relations work is done. Earned media can be extremely useful to you. Click here to learn several important follow-up publicity measures to do after the event is finished.