>Some campus free speech critics, I suspect, aren’t operating in good faith. For them, the entire debate is a way to attack universities as hopelessly and dangerously liberal — to undermine higher education for nakedly partisan reasons.

This is almost assuredly so. However, I find it curious that partisans would seek to attack an institution, unless the institution were itself seen as nonpartisan. And wonder whether there is any truth to that perception. What causes said perception?