Just the other day, a friend's daughter, who is a freshman in college, complained about being forced to write a flowery essay about how Obama mirrors Martin Luther King. It is a shame that this brilliant young lady must choose between publicly standing up for her principles or a passing grade.
My daughters and I figured out a way for them to do both. Simply state at the beginning of the paper something like, "the texts say..." or "my professor taught...." and end with a closing paragraph of personal belief. Two of mine have done this and actually garnered positive feedback from their professors on that.