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Website ranks student organizations, professors as liberal

Natalie McKerjee, Senior Staff Writer

A recent survey conducted by CampusReform.org assessed the political climate of Miami University and disclosed insight regarding the university's tendencies in the realm of political preferences.

According to Bryan Bernys, national director of CampusReform.org, a website dedicated to providing resources for conservative activists against leftist bias on college campuses, Miami was chosen to be included in this survey based on its ranking of 78 in the U.S. News and World Report Top 100 Colleges in the Nation.

"We considered those rankings as credible and decided to focus on those schools," Bernys said. "We took the entire list and went through every school."

Bernys said there are assumptions that most colleges are more liberal, and in certain aspects of the political atmosphere Miami proved this theory.

"Of all the faculty members who made political donations, 95 percent gave to Democratic candidates and 5 percent donated to Republican candidates," Bernys said.

Miami senior Mandi Martanovic is not surprised by the results of the survey.

"Students in our generation are generally stereotyped as liberal as are professors of universities," Martanovic said.

According to Martanovic, while there are assumptions regarding students and faculty associated with universities as primarily liberal, Miami can be easily interpreted as a conservative school.

"That surprises me," junior Alex Josephs said. "I know for the presidential campaign our county went red even with the school, but that still surprises me."

According to Bernys, campaign finance data was collected from The Huffington Post and revealed that out of 70 faculty members who donated to the 2008 presidential candidates, 65 donated to the Democratic candidate and five donated to the Republican candidate.

Another component of Miami's political climate that was examined for the survey was the amount of student groups who were politically affiliated.

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"The student groups were considerably more balanced and not as extreme," Bernys said. "They resembled many of the other schools who were surveyed."

According to Bernys, out of the 16 political student groups at Miami, nine were more liberal leaning. These groups included the Association for Women Students, College Democrats, Haven: Queer Graduate Alliance, Muslim Students Association, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Association of Environmental Professionals, Pro-Choice Miami and Students for Peace and Social Justice.

Bernys said seven of the groups were right-leaning. These groups included College Libertarians, College Republicans, Intercollegiate Students Institute of Miami, Pistol/Rifle Teams, Students for Israel Miami, Students for Life MU and Young Americans for Liberty.