Posted on 11/15/2004 8:44:57 PM PST by bstein80
The Conservative Revolution How To Win The Battle for College Campuses
By Brendan Steinhauser
Review by Ethan Davis
What do you do when your college denies religious groups use of college property, tells you that certain conservative speakers aren't welcome on campus, or files amicus briefs in support of affirmative action with the Supreme Court? Form a College Republicans chapter, says Brendan Steinhauser in his new book, The Conservative Revolution: How to Win the Battle for College Campuses.
Steinhauser's book is a comprehensive and meticulous manual for conservative college students anywhere in the country. His ideas range from the essential - recruitment and fundraising - to the sensational - commandeering the college newspaper, parodying the homosexual agenda with a "Straight Pride Day," and infuriating the far left with an affirmative action bake sale. Steinhauser shows young conservatives how to compile reading lists, lobby state legislatures, and run efficient, professional meetings. Peppered with entertaining anecdotes of how to make any college organization succeed from the grassroots level on up, The Conservative Revolution is a must-read for serious College Republicans at any school.
Steinhauser scores entertainment points with his account of the "professor watchlist," a registry of professors, compiled by the Young Conservatives of Texas, "whose main teaching method was indoctrinating students into their own political ideology." Steinhauser's group "scoured the campus for the most biased and one-sided teachers" they could find, wrote up the list, and released it to the world. The reaction was predictable: the campus left labeled the Young Conservatives of Texas everything from "McCarthyites" to "fascists" and vehemently demanded that the list be rescinded. Local media covered the story from the beginning, and soon it spread to major national sources, eventually reaching the ears of David Horowitz, who called Steinhauser personally to compliment him.
Steinhauser documents how Horowitz then employed the Texas conservatives' professor watchlist as valuable evidence in his campaign for an Academic Bill of Rights - a movement to outlaw ideological intimidation and to legislate academic freedom in the nation's public colleges and universities. Steinhauser's account lets College Republicans know that age is no barrier to making meaningful changes in the single-minded world of academia.
Steinhauser speaks specifically from his experiences at the University of Texas at Austin, so some of his insights may not apply well to schools very different from his own. But even so, his advice does not suffer. Although the Academic Bill of Rights wouldn't apply to private schools like Amherst or Cornell, affirmative action bake-sales, "Straight Pride" days, and protests of abortion clinics can be staple events of College Republican organizations at any school. And of course, Steinhauser's well thought-out ideas for recruitment, membership retention, and organization will serve any club well.
Steinhauser is careful to note throughout The Conservative Revolution that "[p]olitical activism is not to be used solely to make the evening news and get your name in the paper. It is the tool to spread your message, change public opinion, and convince the fence sitters of the truth of your position." If young conservatives everywhere do their part to promote academic freedom, Steinhauser writes, we can "take back our college campuses, the media and popular culture from the grip of the far left." Given the current state of the American campus, it's a message College Republicans everywhere should heed.
Ethan Davis is a student at Amherst College in Massachusetts, and co-editor of The Indicator, a non-partisan campus political journal.
lol
I like this premise of your book! As a college teacher in Wichita Falls I would love to hear some students here latch onto this information!
Well, you should know better than anyone. Sounds like an excellent book. Is Ethan Davis your cousin? Actually, I'm happy to see ANY sign of common sense coming out of Amherst. Continued success to you.
well, whaddaya know... another FReeper wrote a book.
Thanks for the ping!
Great job, mate! Looking to pick up your book and hand it to a few friends' sons now in college. (N.B. nothing against daughters -- all my friends' children of college age happen to be sons).
ping
Thanks!
You guys are awesome. Thanks for the support!
What an honor to hear from and work with Horowitz. There are few people alive who know the liberal side as well as the conservative as he does.
This may be a repost - but we are getting very involved with the local colleges and I'm going to handing your book out like it was candy to our young conservatives.
bump
BTTT
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