The day the donkey died, few were sadder than we were here at Boston University.

BU students who flocked to the polls in unusually large numbers this Nov. 5 went to bed that night feeling a little betrayed by democracy. They thought they had pulled all the right levers. Most of the country, however, disagreed.

James Shoch, former socialist activist and current BU political science professor, wore his depression for everyone to see. Reeling from a political hangover, Shoch arrived at post-Election Day class dressed all in black, respectfully mourning his Democratic Party. For his students that day, never before had a lecture sounded so much like a eulogy.

Others joined in Shoch’s despair. On a large scale, the people of Massachusetts, and the Boston University community therein, shed a tear for liberalism this month. It’s a Republican party, and we weren’t invited. Losers don’t get to go to the big dance.

But here on the BU campus, it’s as though nothing ever changed.

From Professor Emeritus Howard Zinn to others like Shoch, the BU campus is dominated by liberal thought. Political science classrooms are overwhelmingly headed by Democrats or, failing that, professors even further to the left. Other departments, too, have a strong left bias, as does the University administration. Chancellor John Silber was a Democratic candidate for governor, and he and former BU President Jon Westling contributed thousands of their own dollars to Democratic campaigns over the years.

On the whole, BU employees making large donations in the last election cycle gave nearly five times more to Democratic candidates than to Republicans, according to Federal Election Commission data. Where Political Action Committee and soft money contributions were made, big spenders at Boston University gave liberal groups, from female-oriented Emily’s List to the Democratic National Committee, more than seven times what they donated to conservative ones.

This boils down to a dramatic left slant in the classroom, particularly in the social sciences. The political science department is dominated by such lefties as Betty Zisk, an elected member of the Massachusetts Greens State Committee, and Cathie Jo Martin. Of more than 20 faculty members in the department, there may be no more than one registered Republican, eastern Europe specialist Walter Connor.

The environment can be stifling to the few conservative students there are at BU. College of Arts and Sciences junior Lou Saban, who has taken nine political science courses since matriculation, said he has had to read the Communist Manifesto three times over the years. He has never, however, been assigned anything by Edmund Burke.

For students like Saban, BU can be downright alienating. And it isn’t just the professors. More than 1,000 students have signed up with the College Democrats, compared to only 250 for the College Republicans. Others are even further to the left than Democrats, registered with the BU Greens. Though their views are outside the vision of the political center, they are too common on campus to be labeled radical. Only the right can claim that distinction.

The imbalance was illuminated on the eve of Election Day, when a debate between campus Republicans, Democrats and Greens turned into a left-wing ambush. CAS senior Katherine Borden, president of BU’s College Republicans, said she came expecting a three-way debate. The way she saw it, there were only two ways, with the Democrats and Greens attacking unilaterally.

‘They didn’t disagree with each other the entire night,’ Borden said.

The classroom poses the biggest threat to student conservatives. Right-wing students are rare in these parts, and they’re generally not inclined to inject their own views into class discussion. In raising his hand, the conservative student only opens himself to rolled eyes and bitter criticism. Though he may have to bite his tongue, it’s usually better to avoid controversy than to initiate real debate.

Borden, who has never been shy about her ideology, has simply come to accept the problem. ‘I just go into pretty much every class assuming I’m the most conservative student there,’ she said.

Of course, no one should expect an unbiased classroom. It’s a fact that college campuses everywhere are by and large liberal in both their students and faculty. Conservative author David Horowitz has written that ‘in the nation’s universities, Republicans (and conservatives) have become almost as rare as unicorns.’ It makes sense. Right-leaning thinkers are driven to the boardroom, not the classroom.

Liberals being the only influence on social science students, it seems the university is a breeding ground for tomorrow’s Democrats and Greens. Unless one enters as a principled conservative, he or she is unlikely to leave as one. And if college is supposed to be a time of personal discovery, there is something very wrong with that.

However, professors are not helpless victims of their own biases, and many BU faculty members effectively overcome them. In any class concerned with public policy, it is the professor’s responsibility to come clean to the students. If discussion is to flow freely, objectivity is not an option. Honesty, therefore, is necessary.

It would be wrong to seek out Republican professors (and ironic, given the party’s stance on affirmative action). Still, the need for balanced discussion is undeniable. As it stands, BU’s Democrats are so overwhelming, you’d have a hard time remembering they’re the minority now.