It’s no secret that our universities have become hotbeds of radical leftist thought. While professors and administrators pay lip-service to concepts like open-mindedness and robust debate, they try to squash any opinion that doesn’t match their radical left world view. Well, world-renowned campus activist David Horowitz wants to bring diversity back to the college campus! This Fall, he will launch a new book—and a new campaign—to shine the light on the college thought police. In his new book,Reforming Our Universities, Horowitz will describe his decades-long campaign against intellectual bigotry, grade discrimination, and the denial of basic rights to any and all whose opinions diverge from the extreme liberal orthodoxy. And on college campuses across the country, Horowitz will launch an “Adopt a Dissenting Book” campaign, which urges professors to include conservative and pro-American books and resources as part of their overall curriculum. Reforming Our Universities will lay out his blueprint for reversing leftist indoctrination on campus though an Academic Bill of Rights. Horowitz’s reform is not a partisan call for universities to hire more conservatives, but rather a call for true academic freedom, where students as well as teachers are free to say what they think.
Reforming Our Universities
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From the Inside Flap
A Modest Proposal to Fight Liberal Intolerance on College Campuses:
An Academic Bill of Rights
For far too long our colleges and universities have been allowed to ignore their chartered responsibilities to educate rather than indoctrinate.
Instead of providing a forum for the free exchange of ideas, they intimidate students into ideological submission to leftist professors; rather than pursuing meaningful research, they proselytize for radical causes.
In this important new book, New York Times bestselling author David Horowitz tells the dramatic story of his ongoing campaign for an Academic Bill of Rights to protect students who want to think for themselves and refuse to conform to radical orthodoxies.
As Horowitz shows, despite his pleas for tolerance of diverging points of view, his modest proposal that universities should respect intellectual diversity has been greeted with hateful hysteria, protests, and even violence—exposing, in the process, how thoroughly rotten, corrupt, and radical higher education has truly become.
Horowitz means to recall higher education to its better self, to become—as it once was—a place where students and teachers were not afraid to question opinions, create their own, and engage in Socratic dialogue. Horowitz remembers when the university was exactly that, and he acknowledges his own part in helping to tear it down. And now he wants to undo the damage and make our colleges and universities once again centers of learning and free
discussion.
Reforming Our Universities just might be David Horowitz's most important book.
From the Back Cover
"No one has been more important to the cause of academic freedom in America than David Horowitz. Reforming Our Universities is not only a must read for those concerned about left–wing bias on campus; it is the story of how a small group of determined people, armed with the truth, can stand up to powerful, entrenched interests and make a difference."
—Newt Gingrich, New York Times bestselling author of To Save America
"This impassioned rehearsal of David Horowitz's efforts to have the Academic Bill of Rights adopted by states and universities will provoke counter–narratives by those who are on the other side (as I sometimes am) of the issues he raises. If so, all to the good; it is exactly what Horowitz wants, a dialogue on these questions, and it is a dialogue we should have."
—Stanley Fish, Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor and professor of law at Florida International University
Reforming Our Universities is the story of one man's efforts to restore educational principles to academic classrooms, and why he failed. It exposes the voices inside the educational establishment who are opposed to change and indifferent to principle, and explains why liberal arts colleges are becoming indoctrination centers for partisan interests and political sects. An indispensible book."
—Candace de Russy, former trustee, State University of New York
"David Horowitz is a national treasure. In his courage, passion, and perseverance he has done more than anyone to expose the rottenness—moral and political as well as intellectual—that has infected the heart of American higher education. In this explosive new book, he adds treatment to diagnosis, providing concrete, workable strategies to achieve what many of us had given up as hopeless: reclaiming the university. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned about the future of American culture."
—Roger Kimball, author of Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education
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15 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The author not only uses anecdotes but backs them up with statistics re the one-sided indoctrination extant on many campuses. This is not just argument but conclusion based upon many abuses in so-called humanities and "studies" depts.
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By TuffCookie
Format:Hardcover
Not to discount the statistics and history behind the effort in this book, as described more in depth by other reviewers, I found the message of the struggle itself to be very important. In a time when we are struggling in just about every area of our culture, Horowitz is inspirational. Many people would have given up this fight long before. He makes progress, they knock it down or disregard it, and he takes a fresh approach over and over. If we all had this kind of dedication, our country would not be in the mess it is now. I hope readers will learn from this and keep fighting the good fight.
We also have to make others aware of just how vital it is for students to be exposed to many viewpoints rather than indoctrinated. His fight here should be everyone's fight. The brainwashed students of today are the (potentially) Marxist power players of tomorrow.
We also have to make others aware of just how vital it is for students to be exposed to many viewpoints rather than indoctrinated. His fight here should be everyone's fight. The brainwashed students of today are the (potentially) Marxist power players of tomorrow.
27 of 40 people found the following review helpful
By Paul Dueweke
Format:Hardcover
My original review begins below with "A GREAT BOOK. . ." This introduction was added September 10.
In that earlier review of "Reforming Our Universities", I went directly to what I perceive as some shortcomings of this book because I expected to see an abundance of highly positive reviews. To my surprise, those positive reviews have not yet materialized in over two weeks since my first review. So here is my overview of what I expected to see written but has not yet appeared.
The problem articulated in this book is that Academic America, at least in the liberal arts, has failed us in the following ways: 1) it has rejected its traditional mission of providing a fact-based education to its students, 2) it has stacked its faculties overwhelmingly with collectivists from the political left, and 3) it has failed to tolerate dissent from the politically correct views of its leftist faculties by its students or by visiting scholars. In addition, Horowitz maintains that other departments than liberal arts have capitulated or worse by refusing to criticize this clear divergence of academia from the traditions of true liberal education.
Horowitz's writing is clear and concise. He does not denigrate or attack those in disagreement with him as apparently they have repeatedly done to him during many of his campus visits. The problem with academia that he discusses is critically important to the survival of America as a constitutional republic. He understands the gravity of this threat and treats it with honesty and dignity. Horowitz has dedicated his life to solving this and other problems foisted on Americans by fuzzy-thinking, politically correct, collectivist, and truly un-liberal people in our society. For this he should be honored as one of our modern American heroes.
And now to my original review . . .
A GREAT BOOK . . .
David Horowitz writes on page xxi about the purpose of his book: "What follows is the history of the campaign--the obstacles we encountered along the way, the successes we achieved, and the prospects for making further progress. It is in some ways a personal story . . . The possibility that this history might be of service to other reform efforts is the most important reason for publishing it."
That's a worthwhile objective, and as a personal history, it is well done. In addition, his mission is an important one for the sustainability of our constitutional republic because academia is a critical element of that republic. He has concisely documented a problem with academia and his attempt to fix it. There will be other reviews extolling his and the book's virtues, so let me fast-forward to . . .
BUT . . .
-- Insufficient Data --
In the first few chapters, Horowitz lays out the case against academia's evolution toward authoritarian faculty tactics and the substitution of the teacher's opinion for provable facts. The problem with his case is that it doesn't really prove what he says it proves. He presents several anecdotes about the authoritarian actions of several universities that he visited, but he never compiles a statistically significant data set for his campus experiences with any kind of evaluation scheme to show quantitatively how un-liberal academic America really is. Reading a half dozen accounts of intellectually and physically shabby treatment out of hundreds of campus visits speaks very poorly of those few universities, but hand-selection of data is exactly one of the biases that many academics use today that he is fighting against.
Likewise he cites a study of the political party affiliations of 150 departments at 32 "elite universities." The few extremely low ratios of Republicans to Democrats he presents really do indicate a possible serious bias. But his data set comprises an average of five selected departments from each of 32 selected universities. If your intention is to prove something, then prove it with a broad sample of academia. Anything less is disingenuous. The reason I'm being so rigorous about this is that members of academia who want to reject his hypothesis have no problem shooting his "proofs" full of holes. I have read some of those rebuttals; and, though they themselves are soft arguments, they have merit. A major question Horowitz has not answered is -- how much of academia has been infected by the extremely un-liberal behavior he has presented in his book? Is it 10% of the faculty at 20% of the universities (a total of 0.1 x 0.2 = 2% of academia), or is it 60% of the faculty at 90% of the universities (a total of 54%). It makes a great deal of difference. A scientific approach to clearly dichotomize fact from opinion is essential, especially in this debate.
-- Missing Documents --
Horowitz states that his Academic Bill of Rights is "based squarely on" the "Declaration of the Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure," which was issued in 1915 by the American Association of University Professors. He needs to present as much of that declaration as necessary for us to make our own independent judgment. He did not. Likewise the American Council on Education issued a statement in 2005 that "shared key principles with the Academic Bill of Rights." He needs to present that statement so we can make our own judgment. He did not. There is always pressure on writers to keep the size of the book within some bounds, but at 258 pages with large margins, a large font, and wide line spacing, the $28 price can surely support significantly more information without even adding more pages.*
-- Other Strategies --
Horowitz has created an Academic Bill of Rights that is confrontational to the academic establishment. That's fine as a strategy, but he then carried the confrontation only to the legislatures for muscle to force a reformation of universities. That has had only marginal success. There are three other avenues he has not yet addressed.
1) The schools of science, engineering, business, medicine, and law know the difference between fact and opinion. They should be embarrassed by their association with an institution that exhibits such ideological zeal at the expense of reality. Why does Horowitz not carry his case to them to stand up to the obviously frivolous and authoritarian methods of the social science and humanities schools? He merely hints at this issue in one sentence in the second-last paragraph of the book.
2) There are state and federal laws that are being broken. File suits.
3) The alumni can be a huge source of pressure against universities. And as people age, they generally become more conservative. Recruit them.
-- Motive --
The thing that everybody wants to know in a mystery story is motive -- why did the criminal act the way they did? Motive helps us understand and thus believe. In this case, the big question is -- how could such a huge growth in academic irresponsibility have taken place in an institution so dedicated to truth and its free access? It's difficult to fully accept the intellectual fraud of academia presented by Horowitz without understanding why it happened. Horowitz makes no attempt at answering this question. So let me try.
The founders of the American government understood a simple fact about autocracies that Americans seem to have forgotten. Jefferson said it best:
"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."
The evolution of academia (since about 1970 according to Horowitz) has taken place during the same period as: 1) the rise of big-money politics fed by big-money multinational corporatism, 2) the decline in individual responsibility in favor of collectivism, and 3) the destruction of the United States Constitution by reinventing it as a politically malleable "living constitution" rather than the law of the land. These are related to the growth of authoritarianism and thus the decay of academic integrity.
Big Money, Government, and the Intellectual Elite are all working toward authoritarianism, but they each have a different reason to support government growth since powerful government benefits each group in different ways. It's not a conspiracy. Each group is simply following its own path toward its own goal. Big Money sees a great benefit in growing Government. Since Big Money intends to own Government and groom it to serve it at the expense of We the People, Big Money wants Government to dominate We the People, not be accountable to them. The Intellectual Elite (academia, think tanks, research institutes, media) get their pay, status, and perks from Government and Big Money, both directly and via the media's access to the Government celebrities. Since 1970 we have created a Department of Education and dramatically increased the flow of federal dollars and regulation to education. The quality and independence of education at all levels has declined dramatically as a result. This focus on money and authoritarianism has turned academia toward political correctness, following rules, and soft logic, especially in the humanities and social sciences.
* The 42 pages of endnotes, if replaced by footnotes, would add only about 12 pages to the main text, thus saving 30 pages for more information without adding any more total pages to the book. In addition, the footnotes would be much more convenient to use than continually paging to the endnotes.
In that earlier review of "Reforming Our Universities", I went directly to what I perceive as some shortcomings of this book because I expected to see an abundance of highly positive reviews. To my surprise, those positive reviews have not yet materialized in over two weeks since my first review. So here is my overview of what I expected to see written but has not yet appeared.
The problem articulated in this book is that Academic America, at least in the liberal arts, has failed us in the following ways: 1) it has rejected its traditional mission of providing a fact-based education to its students, 2) it has stacked its faculties overwhelmingly with collectivists from the political left, and 3) it has failed to tolerate dissent from the politically correct views of its leftist faculties by its students or by visiting scholars. In addition, Horowitz maintains that other departments than liberal arts have capitulated or worse by refusing to criticize this clear divergence of academia from the traditions of true liberal education.
Horowitz's writing is clear and concise. He does not denigrate or attack those in disagreement with him as apparently they have repeatedly done to him during many of his campus visits. The problem with academia that he discusses is critically important to the survival of America as a constitutional republic. He understands the gravity of this threat and treats it with honesty and dignity. Horowitz has dedicated his life to solving this and other problems foisted on Americans by fuzzy-thinking, politically correct, collectivist, and truly un-liberal people in our society. For this he should be honored as one of our modern American heroes.
And now to my original review . . .
A GREAT BOOK . . .
David Horowitz writes on page xxi about the purpose of his book: "What follows is the history of the campaign--the obstacles we encountered along the way, the successes we achieved, and the prospects for making further progress. It is in some ways a personal story . . . The possibility that this history might be of service to other reform efforts is the most important reason for publishing it."
That's a worthwhile objective, and as a personal history, it is well done. In addition, his mission is an important one for the sustainability of our constitutional republic because academia is a critical element of that republic. He has concisely documented a problem with academia and his attempt to fix it. There will be other reviews extolling his and the book's virtues, so let me fast-forward to . . .
BUT . . .
-- Insufficient Data --
In the first few chapters, Horowitz lays out the case against academia's evolution toward authoritarian faculty tactics and the substitution of the teacher's opinion for provable facts. The problem with his case is that it doesn't really prove what he says it proves. He presents several anecdotes about the authoritarian actions of several universities that he visited, but he never compiles a statistically significant data set for his campus experiences with any kind of evaluation scheme to show quantitatively how un-liberal academic America really is. Reading a half dozen accounts of intellectually and physically shabby treatment out of hundreds of campus visits speaks very poorly of those few universities, but hand-selection of data is exactly one of the biases that many academics use today that he is fighting against.
Likewise he cites a study of the political party affiliations of 150 departments at 32 "elite universities." The few extremely low ratios of Republicans to Democrats he presents really do indicate a possible serious bias. But his data set comprises an average of five selected departments from each of 32 selected universities. If your intention is to prove something, then prove it with a broad sample of academia. Anything less is disingenuous. The reason I'm being so rigorous about this is that members of academia who want to reject his hypothesis have no problem shooting his "proofs" full of holes. I have read some of those rebuttals; and, though they themselves are soft arguments, they have merit. A major question Horowitz has not answered is -- how much of academia has been infected by the extremely un-liberal behavior he has presented in his book? Is it 10% of the faculty at 20% of the universities (a total of 0.1 x 0.2 = 2% of academia), or is it 60% of the faculty at 90% of the universities (a total of 54%). It makes a great deal of difference. A scientific approach to clearly dichotomize fact from opinion is essential, especially in this debate.
-- Missing Documents --
Horowitz states that his Academic Bill of Rights is "based squarely on" the "Declaration of the Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure," which was issued in 1915 by the American Association of University Professors. He needs to present as much of that declaration as necessary for us to make our own independent judgment. He did not. Likewise the American Council on Education issued a statement in 2005 that "shared key principles with the Academic Bill of Rights." He needs to present that statement so we can make our own judgment. He did not. There is always pressure on writers to keep the size of the book within some bounds, but at 258 pages with large margins, a large font, and wide line spacing, the $28 price can surely support significantly more information without even adding more pages.*
-- Other Strategies --
Horowitz has created an Academic Bill of Rights that is confrontational to the academic establishment. That's fine as a strategy, but he then carried the confrontation only to the legislatures for muscle to force a reformation of universities. That has had only marginal success. There are three other avenues he has not yet addressed.
1) The schools of science, engineering, business, medicine, and law know the difference between fact and opinion. They should be embarrassed by their association with an institution that exhibits such ideological zeal at the expense of reality. Why does Horowitz not carry his case to them to stand up to the obviously frivolous and authoritarian methods of the social science and humanities schools? He merely hints at this issue in one sentence in the second-last paragraph of the book.
2) There are state and federal laws that are being broken. File suits.
3) The alumni can be a huge source of pressure against universities. And as people age, they generally become more conservative. Recruit them.
-- Motive --
The thing that everybody wants to know in a mystery story is motive -- why did the criminal act the way they did? Motive helps us understand and thus believe. In this case, the big question is -- how could such a huge growth in academic irresponsibility have taken place in an institution so dedicated to truth and its free access? It's difficult to fully accept the intellectual fraud of academia presented by Horowitz without understanding why it happened. Horowitz makes no attempt at answering this question. So let me try.
The founders of the American government understood a simple fact about autocracies that Americans seem to have forgotten. Jefferson said it best:
"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."
The evolution of academia (since about 1970 according to Horowitz) has taken place during the same period as: 1) the rise of big-money politics fed by big-money multinational corporatism, 2) the decline in individual responsibility in favor of collectivism, and 3) the destruction of the United States Constitution by reinventing it as a politically malleable "living constitution" rather than the law of the land. These are related to the growth of authoritarianism and thus the decay of academic integrity.
Big Money, Government, and the Intellectual Elite are all working toward authoritarianism, but they each have a different reason to support government growth since powerful government benefits each group in different ways. It's not a conspiracy. Each group is simply following its own path toward its own goal. Big Money sees a great benefit in growing Government. Since Big Money intends to own Government and groom it to serve it at the expense of We the People, Big Money wants Government to dominate We the People, not be accountable to them. The Intellectual Elite (academia, think tanks, research institutes, media) get their pay, status, and perks from Government and Big Money, both directly and via the media's access to the Government celebrities. Since 1970 we have created a Department of Education and dramatically increased the flow of federal dollars and regulation to education. The quality and independence of education at all levels has declined dramatically as a result. This focus on money and authoritarianism has turned academia toward political correctness, following rules, and soft logic, especially in the humanities and social sciences.
* The 42 pages of endnotes, if replaced by footnotes, would add only about 12 pages to the main text, thus saving 30 pages for more information without adding any more total pages to the book. In addition, the footnotes would be much more convenient to use than continually paging to the endnotes.
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