One of the classic myths in academia is that liberals are smarter than conservatives. This crops up frequently after elections, when the liberal elite felt the need to comfort themselves with falsified statistics regarding intelligence. After 2000, 2002 and 2004, the now-debunked "IQ by State" table was circulated, purporting to show that states with the higher average IQ voted Democratic while the states with lower average IQ voted Republican.

However, no such data exists; the actual educational data shows that the average testing scores as well as the average degree levels of both parties are basically identical.

Jessie Beers-Altman ("Liberal thinking is part of university," April 11), like many liberal elitists, does not hesitate to insult all Republican voters by equating conservative thought with a lack of intelligence. She also confuses formal education with intelligence, which is not directly measurable. She assumes that university professors are overwhelmingly liberal because they are intelligent.

Faculty in liberal arts institutions are neither tolerant nor open-minded when it comes to political affiliation -- a fact directly reflected in the political demographics of faculty hiring. Liberals do not seek out intellectual debate -- political discourse has long been stifled on campus by the mandatory subscription to liberal groupthink. The fact is that universities attract more liberals because the socialist structure and conformity of thought appeal to them. For all the self-congratulatory rhetoric that liberal academics spout, they fail to realize the lack of intellectual diversity and prevalent groupthink are inherently anti-intellectual.