ATLANTA --- Despite the fact that they are side-by-side in the report of a survey about politics on Georgia's campuses, the comments couldn't be more different. "I had a professor that hated George Bush and loved to talk about how much he hated him in class," the first one says. "I support George Bush, so I did not feel comfortable with him doing this." Another student had the opposite experience.

"I had an education teacher who basically said if you don't agree with me then you are wrong, if you don't support Bush you are dumb, get on the bandwagon folks!" this student said. "She was VERY closed-minded."

Different students, potentially on different campuses. And part of a survey that is the latest volley in a political battle over what is being taught in Georgia's college classrooms.

THE SURVEY was in part a response to persistent fears among some GOP lawmakers that college professors are pushing liberal views on students, trying to reach impressionable young adults and change their minds.

"Teachers should not take unfair advantage of the immaturity of students by indoctrinating them with their own opinions before the students have had an opportunity to examine other opinions," said one failed bill that would have essentially ordered the University System of Georgia to conduct a study it instead did on its own.

But some see the efforts to encourage "intellectual diversity" as little more than a covert effort to insert conservative ideology in the classroom.

"In practice, (two common) proposals would place government entities directly into the academic process and inappropriately insert political decision-making into academic affairs," according to a 2007 report from the National Education Association's Higher Education Research Center.

THE SURVEY was conducted between April 17 and May 5. Of the 14,820 students asked to answer, about 1,220 filled out the questionnaire online. The margin of error was 2.8 percent.

For the most part, the university system sees the results as positive. Asked whether a professor had inappropriately presented his or her views in class, only 13.3 percent of students agreed, though Republican students were almost twice as likely as Democratic students to agree -- 17.1 percent and 9.7 percent, according to the survey.

Dr. Susan Herbst, the executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer for the university system, cautioned against reading too much into those numbers. She noted that the survey included moderate and conservative Republicans in the GOP numbers and moderate and liberal students in the Democratic numbers.

Looking at the entire study left her without the impression that one particular viewpoint is being pushed on campuses.

BUT SOME SAY PARTS of the survey still raise troubling questions. For example, about 23.3 percent of students said they agreed or strongly agreed with a statement that they "personally had class where I felt I had to agree with the professor's views to get a good grade."

That's too high, said Charles Mitchell, the project director at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

"If that number is right, that's 50,000 students a year in your state who are encountering one of the most unprofessional types of behavior that you can pretty much think of in a classroom, that everyone agrees is wrong," he said.

Mr. Mitchell said the university system needs to repeat the survey and make sure campus grievance procedures are fair.