There have been other big presidential libraries attached to universities, sure. But the planned SMU Bush library, up for a vote in the next one or two days, would come with an autonomous and heavily funded, politically  partisan far-right wing think tank which would be attached to but not under the supervision or jurisdiction of Southern Methodist University, and there are no doubt many possible legal and 501(c)(3) issues that historically bizarre arrangement would raise, but in legal terms precedent, once established, can be hard to change. Karl Rove's attempt to abuse SMU's integrity by saddling it with a rogue, partisan political think tank would establish a horrible precedent that would accelerate the demolition of academic integrity at America's universities - at base, Rove's ploy threatens to undermine American higher education.  

As Andrew Weaver further describes in his Media Transparency story,

Unless the UMC takes a stand, neither SMU nor the UMC will have any say over the actions, agenda, or direction of an autonomous $500 million partisan-driven complex at one of its major universities. Karl Rove, who has a long history of hard-ball partisanship, will be in charge and he will roll out a giant Trojan horse and push it right through the front gate. The 99 year lease for a single dollar with a 249 year option (that the Bush foundation has required) means that after July, 2008 the next chance for the church to address the issue is the year 2357...

Rove has devoted his adult life to one vision -- the dominance of American politics by the right wing of the Republican Party at any cost... He will use all the resources at his disposal, particularly the Bush think tank proposed at SMU, to recruit, train, support, organize and deploy the next generation of right-wing political operatives.

*Andrew Weaver, a Methodist minister turned criminal forensic psychologist (and author of a number of books on that subject) has been a key leader in the fight against the right-wing attack on the Mainline Christian denominations (which have historically constitute much of the heart of the religious left) and Weaver has also been a key activist leading the fight to oppose the unprecedented Karl Rove led push to get a planned mega-library, which would house the George W. Bush presidential papers, into Southern Methodist University.