Trouble for the Bush Library?

From librarian.lishost.org

A group of Methodists is stepping up efforts to force a church vote in July on whether Southern Methodist University has the right to lease out land for the George W. Bush Presidential Library and policy institute….

Rev. Andrew Weaver, an SMU alumnus who is spearheading a fight against the land deal from New York, said he hopes to force a vote at a regional meeting in Dallas in July and persuade delegates not to ratify the mission council action.

Professors at Southern Methodist University who are worried about plans to create a George W. Bush policy institute there have said that they don’t want a partisan center to hurt the institution’s academic reputation.

Faculty critics say that although many of them disagree with President Bush’s policies, they would not object to a library-oriented archive and museum — and they say that in discussions with professors, the university has discussed a vision for such a Bush center. But creating an academic center with a specific goal of boosting the Bush image and agenda strikes many professors as antithetical to a university’s academic values.