Review: The high risks of higher education
Mar 28, 2006
Review by Monique E. Stuart
David Horowitz, in his new book The Professors The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, exposes the Left’s stronghold on academia and how they use their positions of power to indoctrinate the young people, as well as to promote and protect their own [fellow professors] from the public, the administration, and any shred of accountability.
Pointing out early in the book that these problems are not limited to the 101 professors profiled in the book, Horowitz writes, “To identify 101 radical professors for this volume, it was not necessary to scour university faculties. This sample is but the tip of an academic iceberg, and it would have been no problem to provide a thousand such profiles or even ten times the number.”
Horowitz also explains that these professors, from a variety of different institutions, are at the top of their field, “Among them are individuals prominent in their institutions and at the forefront of their professions. They are the authors of books widely used as texts in their fields. They have been funded by prestigious foundations and awarded the highest professional honors in their fields. They are department chairs and directors of academic institutes and programs and heads of large professional associations.”
The book starts with a snapshot of Professor M. Shahid Alam, professor of economics at Northeastern University in Boston, Mass. As Horowitz writes, “M. Shahid Alam is one of thousands of tenured academics at American universities whose intellectual guide is Marxism and who thinks that America’s terrorist enemies are really ‘freedom fighters’ and America a Great Satan…. Alam likened Mohamed Atta and al-Qaida terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11 to the American patriots who defended themselves against the British at Lexington and Concord and launched an historic movement for liberty and freedom.”
Another professor recorded in the book is Amiri Baraka, born Everett Leroy Jones, a professor at Rutgers University, Stony Brook. As Horowitz reports, anti-Semitic and racist writings are what “gained Jones a reputation as a courageously candid genius, which paved his way for an academic career.” A former poet laureate of New Jersey, in one of his poems, as reported by Horowitz, Baraka wrote, “Rape the white girls. Rape their fathers. Cut the mothers’ throats.” This is who is teaching your children in the classrooms of higher education.
Professor Norman Finkelstein is an assistant professor of political science at De Paul University who “Asserts that the Holocaust has been exaggerated and exploited by Jews just to justify Israeli human rights violations and crimes against humanity.” De Paul recruited him after being “fired from two New York-area adjunct teaching jobs (New York University and Hunter College) because of his pseudo-scholarship and rantings against Jews and Israel.” In an interview with Counterpunch Magazine, Finkelstein was reported as saying, “If you understand terrorism to mean the targeting of civilian populations in order to achieve political goals, then plainly the U.S. qualifies as the main terrorist government in the world today…”
Horowitz reported in The Professors about Professor Michael Vocino of the University of Rhode Island, that “A student named Nathaniel Nelson who took Professor Vocino’s political science class, ‘Political Philosophy: Plato to Machiavelli,’ was struck by the professor’s aggressive disregard for professional standards of conduct. According to the student, Professor Vocino entered the classroom on the first day announcing, ‘My name is Michael Vocino and I like d**k.’” It was reported, he then asked the student, “Are you queer?” And, at a later time, “cognizant the student was a Christian, demanded to know why Christians ‘hate fags.’” Horowitz notes that Vocino doesn’t even qualify for the position of an assistant professor, never mind that he’s a full professor with tenure rank.
If you think these four professors are bad, just remember, there are 97 more profiled in this book which exposes higher education for what it truly is: a liberal fortress almost impossible to penetrate by anyone who is not some sort of leftist radical. No school is exempt, as is shown by the fact that he describes professors from every type of school, public and private, religious and secular, small and large.
Some schools did appear more than others, with numerous faculty members being showcased. The school with the most professors featured in this book was Columbia University with an astounding nine. A number, judging by the profiles, these radicals would be proud of. The closest schools to Columbia were the City University of New York and Georgetown University, each with four.
If your kids are heading off to college anytime soon, they should read this book before picking a school and you should read this book to see what they are up against once they get there. If you thought peer pressure was bad, imagine the threat of receiving lower grades or being verbally harassed in class on a daily basis because of your personal views. As a conservative, your kids might enjoy arguing with their professors, but if they are interested in learning, this book can help them see which schools, professors, and academic fields to avoid.
Review by Monique E. Stuart
David Horowitz, in his new book The Professors The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, exposes the Left’s stronghold on academia and how they use their positions of power to indoctrinate the young people, as well as to promote and protect their own [fellow professors] from the public, the administration, and any shred of accountability.
Pointing out early in the book that these problems are not limited to the 101 professors profiled in the book, Horowitz writes, “To identify 101 radical professors for this volume, it was not necessary to scour university faculties. This sample is but the tip of an academic iceberg, and it would have been no problem to provide a thousand such profiles or even ten times the number.”
Horowitz also explains that these professors, from a variety of different institutions, are at the top of their field, “Among them are individuals prominent in their institutions and at the forefront of their professions. They are the authors of books widely used as texts in their fields. They have been funded by prestigious foundations and awarded the highest professional honors in their fields. They are department chairs and directors of academic institutes and programs and heads of large professional associations.”
The book starts with a snapshot of Professor M. Shahid Alam, professor of economics at Northeastern University in Boston, Mass. As Horowitz writes, “M. Shahid Alam is one of thousands of tenured academics at American universities whose intellectual guide is Marxism and who thinks that America’s terrorist enemies are really ‘freedom fighters’ and America a Great Satan…. Alam likened Mohamed Atta and al-Qaida terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11 to the American patriots who defended themselves against the British at Lexington and Concord and launched an historic movement for liberty and freedom.”
Another professor recorded in the book is Amiri Baraka, born Everett Leroy Jones, a professor at Rutgers University, Stony Brook. As Horowitz reports, anti-Semitic and racist writings are what “gained Jones a reputation as a courageously candid genius, which paved his way for an academic career.” A former poet laureate of New Jersey, in one of his poems, as reported by Horowitz, Baraka wrote, “Rape the white girls. Rape their fathers. Cut the mothers’ throats.” This is who is teaching your children in the classrooms of higher education.
Professor Norman Finkelstein is an assistant professor of political science at De Paul University who “Asserts that the Holocaust has been exaggerated and exploited by Jews just to justify Israeli human rights violations and crimes against humanity.” De Paul recruited him after being “fired from two New York-area adjunct teaching jobs (New York University and Hunter College) because of his pseudo-scholarship and rantings against Jews and Israel.” In an interview with Counterpunch Magazine, Finkelstein was reported as saying, “If you understand terrorism to mean the targeting of civilian populations in order to achieve political goals, then plainly the U.S. qualifies as the main terrorist government in the world today…”
Horowitz reported in The Professors about Professor Michael Vocino of the University of Rhode Island, that “A student named Nathaniel Nelson who took Professor Vocino’s political science class, ‘Political Philosophy: Plato to Machiavelli,’ was struck by the professor’s aggressive disregard for professional standards of conduct. According to the student, Professor Vocino entered the classroom on the first day announcing, ‘My name is Michael Vocino and I like d**k.’” It was reported, he then asked the student, “Are you queer?” And, at a later time, “cognizant the student was a Christian, demanded to know why Christians ‘hate fags.’” Horowitz notes that Vocino doesn’t even qualify for the position of an assistant professor, never mind that he’s a full professor with tenure rank.
If you think these four professors are bad, just remember, there are 97 more profiled in this book which exposes higher education for what it truly is: a liberal fortress almost impossible to penetrate by anyone who is not some sort of leftist radical. No school is exempt, as is shown by the fact that he describes professors from every type of school, public and private, religious and secular, small and large.
Some schools did appear more than others, with numerous faculty members being showcased. The school with the most professors featured in this book was Columbia University with an astounding nine. A number, judging by the profiles, these radicals would be proud of. The closest schools to Columbia were the City University of New York and Georgetown University, each with four.
If your kids are heading off to college anytime soon, they should read this book before picking a school and you should read this book to see what they are up against once they get there. If you thought peer pressure was bad, imagine the threat of receiving lower grades or being verbally harassed in class on a daily basis because of your personal views. As a conservative, your kids might enjoy arguing with their professors, but if they are interested in learning, this book can help them see which schools, professors, and academic fields to avoid.
6 Comments:
Why is anyone paying attention to Horowitz? He does not even have academic creds.
Why indeed, dear Hattie. Maybe because even those of us who have the academic creds, as you put it, would agree with him. Not to burst a fragile bubble, but academic credentials are quickly becoming suspect in a climate of substandard education, first, for years at k-12, and now in higher ed. As higher education institutions compete for fewer and fewer truly educated students, they must fill their class pool with substandard students who help pay the bill. And how do you fill those classes? by offering the dribble outlined in Horowitz's book.
Horowitz sounds (and looks) like a fat buffoon! I can't believe anyone had the nerve to write this book. The reason most academics are liberal, put bluntly: is because they are educated. They didn't spend most of their lives on a farm or out on the Texas prairie reading the bible. Plus, most academics don't go into to the profession for money, they do it because they want to make a difference.
The statistics say it all, the more education you have the more you tend to be liberal.
I hope to god Horowitz doesn't make a penny off this book, and maybe one day when his children are murdered by a different country because of their war on terror, he will realize that terms like terrorism are completely dependent upon who is creating the definition.
My only wish is that there were more academics out there.
Instead we are wasting trillions of dollars on the war on Iraq, which is a complete waste of time and energy. The only murdering going on is by Bush for sending our troops into a worthless war, and likewise killing innocent Iraqis.
If hell does exist (which it doesn't) Horrorwitz will be the first to go.
Gee, and Jesus held no degrees and came from backwards Galilee. Truth pays no attention nor homage to degrees. The prejudice and resentment of "anonymous, 7:32 PM" are obvious; class dismissed. I wish someone would actually take on Horowitz (and stop the stock-in-trade name-calling) because even those like me (on his side) would benefit from the exchange.
i wonder what all the pc directed faculty members would say if the shoe were on the other foot..i'd like to hear a professor pattern his classes around schumpeter or ayn rand and then hear all the talk about freedom..
"As a conservative, your kids might enjoy arguing with their professors, but if they are interested in learning, this book can help them see which schools, professors, and academic fields to avoid."
Yes, we must make sure our children are not exposed to various ideas (especially any ideas that they were not taught as children) that may lead to free, open and critical thinking. The last thing we need is a country full of citizens that can think for themselves. They might vote! Then where would we be?
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