Volume VIII – The Left in the University

September 25, 2017

Below is Bruce Thornton’s review of David Horowitz’s new book, “The Left in the Universities” which is volume 8 of The Black Book of the American Left, a multi-volume collection of David Horowitz’s conservative writings that will, when completed, be the most ambitious effort ever undertaken to define the Left and its agenda. (Order HERE.) We encourage our readers to visit BlackBookOfTheAmericanLeft.com – which features Horowitz’s introductions to Volumes 1-8 of this 10-volume series, along with their tables of contents, reviews and interviews with the author.

Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

The corruption of American higher education has been in the news a lot in the last few years. “Snowflakes” and “safe spaces,” crowds of thugs shutting down conservative speakers, craven administrators caving in to demands of activist students and faculty have become increasingly common since the rise of Donald Trump sparked a “resistance” movement. Even progressives who have run afoul of campus Robespierres are writing books about free speech now that their revolutionary children have started devouring their own. What David Horowitz has been warning about in his books and speeches for more than thirty years — the ideological hijacking of the university and the betrayal of its traditional mission — has finally grabbed the national spotlight.

Originally published September 18, 2017 at seethruedu.com

There is a book coming out that everyone interested in campus politics should read. It is a refresher course in the recent past, years 1998-2010, well before the current protests and disinvitations and riots broke out, though it foreshadows everything that has happened since.

But before that, a little background.

I first came upon the distinction between respectable conservatives and right-wing ideologues some 15 years ago. I don’t mean to say that it really existed and representatives of each were easily found, only that there was a distinction, real or fabricated. Up till then I had no idea there was a split in the right between those figures who seemed politic and statesmanlike and those who had a rougher edge and approached politics as combat, not compromise. I remembered the Pat Buchanan vs. George H. W. Bush contest in 1992, highlighted by Buchanan’s rousing culture wars speech at the convention, but didn’t mark much difference between the two figures from my position well on the left and largely ignorant of conservative politics and tradition.

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The Ideological Hijacking of the University and the Betrayal of its Traditional Mission

The Left in the Universities: A Review by Mark Bauerlein