Posted on 02/04/2005 6:12:15 PM PST by Indy Pendance
(The reader is cautioned that not every quote or reference to what David Horowitz said is accurate in this account. E.g. he did not say that the United for Peace and Justice was "led by 60 Stalinists" but by "a Sixties' Stalinist;" he reviewed America's record on slavery and race and said America is a country you can be proud of but leftwing academics are teaching students to be embarrassed by America, and warned "if you're not proud of your country, you cannot defend yourself." He said that Stanford was civilized relative to some universities not because the Hoover Institution was on campus but because there no students obstructing his speech. -- The Editors).
In his talk Tuesday night, author David Horowitz accused American academia of systematically filling university departments with “leftist” professors and barring political conservatives from gaining presence on campuses.
Horowitz, who is nationally recognized as a figurehead of the U.S. political right, is currently lobbying for universities and state legislatures throughout the country to adopt his "Academic Bill of Rights," which would commit campuses to disregard political beliefs in the promotion and hiring of faculty.
Co-sponsored by Hillel and the Stanford Jewish American Alliance, Horowitz’s lecture touched on various issues in contemporary politics, but focused mainly on the lack of “intellectual diversity” in American higher education and his own crusade stem this problem.
The political imbalance, Horowitz claimed, is largely due to the blacklisting of conservative scholars. As an example, Horowitz cited the case of Hamilton College, which he called a “typical leftist” institution.
“If you are a terrorist, or if you are a supporter of terrorism, you can be invited by the faculty of Hamilton . . . to work as a visiting professor,” Horowitz said.
It is actually the liberal-minded students who suffer most from this breed of discrimination, Horowitz claimed, because “it is the conservatives who are the innovative and creative forces on college campuses.”
The conservative students, on the other hand, have in a sense been “strengthened” by having to defend their views when “accosted by leftist professors,” he said.
Horowitz praised Stanford as one of the few “civilized institutions” left in America, citing the influence of the Hoover Institution and its relatively strong conservative presence.
But he did not spare several of the liberal activist groups on campus, stating that United for Peace and Justice is “led by 60 Stalinists and includes Muslim pro-terrorist groups” as well as “North Korean Marxist-Leninist groups.”
Horowitz attacked these and similar groups all over the country for having organized protests against the war on Iraq. He also skewered the professors who held strikes to protest the war and said they “betrayed their professional responsibility and their country.”
Diverting the talk from issues of academia, Horowitz touched on current political events, at one point linking Saddam Hussein to the terrorist groups that carried out the attacks on Sept. 11. He also applauded the current war in Iraq for establishing a strategic military position between Syria and Iran, and he hailed the War on Terror for having “crippled and neutralized” Osama bin Laden.
Again stressing the importance of intellectual diversity, Horowitz told the students in the audience, “If you are not taught to be proud of your country, then this institution is betraying both itself and this country.”
During his time on campus, Horowitz met with Jeff Wachtel, senior assistant to University President John Hennessy, to lobby for the adoption of the Academic Bill of Rights at Stanford.
If adopted, the Academic Bill of Rights would discourage professors from using their classrooms to voice their political opinions.
Senior Nathan Mintz, the moderator for the event, said that Horowitz’s lecture was particularly appropriate in light of recent antiwar protests on campus. Stanford Israel Alliance co-sponsored the event in an attempt to combat the “anti-Zionist indoctrination” that Mintz said he believes occurs in Stanford classrooms.
He spoke at our first college Republicans meeting of the year way back in September or October. His speech was long--I think 65 to 70 minutes--but he gave amazingly intelligent dissertation. I was impressed.
horowitz always has his ducks in a row before he shoots.
i own most of his books.
I think leftists seek professorships because they're afraid to leave the campus. I mean, what else can they do? Plus they get to indoctrinate young minds.
I think leftists seek professorships because they're afraid to leave the campus. I mean, what else can they do? Plus they get to indoctrinate young minds.
=======
For sure and my assertion too, for a long time. The utopian world of text books and pseudo-reality is far more comfortable to the meek and weak (liberal academia) souls who would rather limit thier life to words on paper, rather than facing the real world, head to head, with non-utopians.
Welcome precisely to leftist academia. The land of Oz.
It gives them a sheltered institution, a chance for tenure at the spigot of public funding, and they get a position of authority over the innocent and uninitiated. Where else could they go to spout wild ideas and get paid for it while being listened to attentively?
Academia: a refuge for the mediocre-to-piss-poor-liberal-progressive-demokkkRAT-socialist-commie-nazi-fascist-islamofascist-tyrant-murderer-homo-dictator-subhuman filth.
Y-a-w-n.
He is a lefty who converted so he knows all about their insanity and tilts. He is probably their worst enemy.
If the Alumni quit contributing to these left wing brain washing universities this crap would stop overnight
David Horowitz is wonderful. Hard worker too. He's never stopped growing and learning and thinking. He'll be 20 when he's 100.
It's not so much that Stanford is conservative, but that as it's more a gigantic research lab, with probably more adults on campus at any one time than younger students, it tends not to be the hotbed that Berkeley tended to be (don't know if it still is). But there's no question that there is not merely a pro-Muslim bent in many of 'soft sciences' departments, but that you can see virtual pro-terrorist lectures, on occasion, if the flyers posted on these doors and walkway boards are any indication. I wish I'd known about Horowitz. I would have loved to have been there.
I have all of his books, from Prodigal Son to Unholy Wars. Horowitz was instrumental in my conversion from left to right. Quite an articulate, intelligent man.
yep.
i rather enjoyed what he had to say about robert scheer of the los angeles times circa 1970!
scheer wanted to translate the elder kim's korean books for americans! unbelievable.
meanwhile, scheer was making a $100k at ramparts, got fired, moved on to tell some true believer that she was a loser, while he lived the good life with a house and a ocean-going boat tied up in back on the huntington beach, ca harbor!
David Horowitz is a national treasure. His web site Frontpagemagazine is a wonderful source of conservative opinion. His work to "integrate" liberal academia with conservative scholars is beginning to bear fruit.
Very good point by Mr Horowitz, but something that is not being done at many institutions around the country.
BUMP
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.