The Students for Academic Freedom aim to make it more comfortable for conservative college students to thrive in a liberal arts atmosphere.

WASHINGTON - Across the nation, liberal professors are being accused of abusing their conservative students by humiliating them in classes, lowering their grades, forcing them to listen to radical leftist views.

Some lawmakers want to even the score. They want to forbid professors from bashing President Bush, mandate that they teach creationism alongside evolution and require them to explain in history class that some doubt the Holocaust existed.

In California, legislators considered an academic bill of rights, an eight-point credo designed to increase political diversity in the classroom. The same declaration was debated in Maine. And in Florida and 12 other states. Congress also is considering something similar.

The proposals are alike because a single group is behind the national effort: Students for Academic Freedom.

It's the latest crusade for David Horowitz, political activist and head of the conservative Center for the Study of Popular Culture.

Run by Horowitz, 66, and three other people - none of them students - Students for Academic Freedom has encountered fierce opposition from faculty and administrators, who accuse outsiders of trying to dictate the number of Republican and Democratic professors on campus.

Universities are undergoing a conservative resurgence by students. An already deeply divided nation is even more so at a time of war and terrorism. Several professors have made headlines with recent controversial statements.

"I've changed the dynamics," Horowitz said from his Los Angeles home. "I've introduced a game plan here that is effective. This will work."

MUCH MUCH MORE AT THIS LINK:

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/05/29/Worldandnation/Taking_the_cause_of_t.shtml