New studies show academics do not influence their students' politics. But, says Joanna Walters, fears run deep The urban legend held dear by many conservatives that liberal academics at universities routinely - indeed, systematically - indoctrinate their students with leftwing politics has been dismissed as myth by a sheaf of new studies just published. Fresh research carried out in the US on America's universities has produced results purporting to show that students' politics are not formed by their tutors. Although American universities are indeed stuffed full of liberal and social democratic faculty, they do not try to turn their students...