Professors' political views are often expressed subtly in class--one professor in a popular science lecture course told the class this week that his depth demonstration of a "W" shaped-figure wasn't a political endorsement.

But in the real world, professors are ordinary citizens. Along with University officials, many contribute money to election campaigns.

So whom do Harvard professors support?

Since the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and several privately-run web sites publish most of the data about campaign contributions, The Crimson decided to take a look--and found some problems with how the FEC collects its data. Some Harvard officials deny making the contributions listed on official donation websites.

One of those websites, www.tray.com, which is run by a former FEC official, cross-lists donors by name, occupation, place of employment and zip code. Interested citizens are a few clicks away from finding who donates to who. All contributions though Jan 31. over $200 are listed.

Harvard employees, it turns out, have donated more than $23,000 to alumni Al Gore '69--more money than the employees of Gore's home state of Tennessee have given.

Harvard employees have also given nearly $21,000 to former Senator Bill Bradley. (Stanford and Princeton are the only other universities whose employees have given more).

George W. Bush has received a bit more than $10,000 from rival Harvardians. FEC records show that Yale has only given the Texas Governor a fifth of that total.