Research has established that a variety of factors predict educators' perceptions of students' performance; however, no studies have looked at the impact of educators' political views. The present experiment investigated the effect of educators' political biases on their grading of student essays. Participants included 122 volunteers who were randomly assigned to read an essay that supported or opposed the reelection of President Bush. Participants then evaluated the essay by assigning a holistic grade using a 4.0 grading scale and by assessing the essay's components using a rubric. Essays that matched educators' self-reported political views received higher holistic grades than those that did not. This same relationship, where essays that matched educators' views received higher grades, was found when educators used a rubric, indicating that a rubric was not an effective tool in preventing grader bias. The experiment suggests that educators' political views affect evaluations of student performance; the implications of these findings are discussed. (Contains 2 figures.)