Employees of the University of California have contributed more
to John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign than employees in
any other organization, according to data compiled by the Center
for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan, non-profit research
group.
According to the center, contributions made by UC employees in
2003 and 2004 totaled $180,825, making the UC No. 1 on the
center’s list for contributors to Kerry’s campaign.
Harvard was the third highest contributor to Kerry, and Stanford
came in 17th on the top 20 list.
“Often you don’t see any universities ranking this
high. Having three universities among the top 20 is unusual.
Clearly he has strong appeal on colleges,” said Steven Weiss,
communications director for the center.
No university made the top 20 contributors list for President
Bush’s reelection campaign. UC employees’ contributions
totaled $23,299 for Bush.
Weiss said the UC’s status as the top contributor to Kerry
may be a result of Kerry’s campaign visits to many of its
campuses, including his visit to UCLA in March.
Political science professor Susanne Lohmann said the UC’s
top ranking might not necessarily mean UC employees are more likely
to donate to Kerry than employees of other organizations.
Because the list of top contributors does not account for how
many employees each organization has, the UC might be the top
contributor merely because it has a large number of employees.
The UC employs over 155,000 people. In contrast, Stanford
University only has 12,000 employees.
Helene Brown, director of community applications of research at
the UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center, donated $1,250 to the Kerry
campaign earlier this year.
Brown said she contributed to Kerry because she does not agree
with Bush’s unfunded education plan, his stance against stem
cell research, and his decision to go to war against Iraq.
A lifelong Democrat, Brown said it was a combination of her
personal political preferences and her work at UCLA that led her to
donate to Kerry.
Brown said she would not be as finely tuned to the needs of
education and to the importance of stem cell research if she did
not work in the cancer center of a university.
“When you work at a place like the UC, it’s hard to
pull one out of the another. You begin to get your personal
feelings as a result of what you do,” Brown said.
Though some professors may have liberal political views, Lohmann
warned against assuming that overall UC employees are more liberal
than the general public.
Lohmann said there is a tendency to think professors of
universities are more liberal than the general population. Though
this might be true, she said she is not aware of any studies which
prove employees of universities are more liberal.
She added that if it is true that professors are more likely to
support Kerry, it might not be because Kerry inherently has better
answers than Bush or because working in a university makes
professors more liberal.
“You have to look at what sort of person decides to become
a professor in the first place. It is quite possible that selection
affects where more liberal people tend to go with their
careers,” she said.
George Abe, manager of business development in the Office of
Intellectual Property at UCLA and a lecturer in the Anderson School
of Management, says his affiliation with the UC did not influence
his decision to contribute to Kerry.
Abe said he does not normally contribute to campaigns, but he
felt particularly motivated to do so this year because of
Bush’s political conservatism.
Abe has already contributed $500 to Kerry’s campaign and
plans to donate up to the $2,000 limit placed on contributions from
individuals.
“I think Bush is the most conservative president we (have)
ever had and I’m against that,” Abe said. “I
liked his father a lot better. I actually voted for his father, so
it’s quite a change for me.”