David Horowitz is a fraud

This is a reprint of an article by Professor Michael Meeropol published in the April, 2006 edition of LEX BREVIS, the student newspaper of the Western New England College School of Law. The article is entitled "A Response to Horowitz."

THE ARTICLE FOLLOWS:

David Horowitz spoke at Western New England College on March 9.

He came touting his “academic bill of rights” which on the surface presents principles of academic freedom, free exchange of ideas, things that we all would agree with.

Unfortunately, Mr. Horowitz is a fraud. He is not interested in free inquiry; he is interested in stifling the arguments that present points of view that he doesn’t like. I came to listen. I wanted to see how he makes his arguments and how he deals with the truth.

His major thesis can be summarized as follows: Since the 1980s the far left has controlled universities and has been blacklisting people from Horowitz’s side of the political and academic spectrum ever since.

Here’s the interesting question. What evidence does he have? He doesn’t have any. He asserts that the left controls the academy. His so-called “evidence” is that 80% of college professors in the Humanities and Social Sciences state preferences for the Democratic Party rather than the Republican Party. This “evidence” actually contradicts a story he told to illustrate the left wing takeover.

Horowitz estimated that there are approximately 60,000 dangerous leftists in control of major Universities. How did he arrive at this number? He referred to the 218 members of the Harvard faculty of Arts and Sciences who voted no confidence in former President Lawrence Summers. He asserted that Summers was the victim of a “left wing coup” and ascribed to those 218 members of the Harvard faculty the far left perspectives of the people profiled in his book The Professors, the 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. He then stated that the 218 people were a certain percentage of the total Harvard faculty and thus he assumed given the total number of faculty in the country, that that same percentage would exist nationwide, leaving him the approximate number of 60,000 “dangerous leftists.”

There are two serious problems here. First, he asserts that the motivation for the 218 Harvard faculty was uniform: a desire by left-wingers to maintain control over a prestigious University by getting rid of a courageous President. Is there no possibility that among those faculty there might be a variety of points of view as to why Summers deserved a no confidence vote? In 1991 former President Beverly Miller of Western New England College was subjected to such a vote and an overwhelming 80% of the undergraduate faculty voted “no confidence.” This faculty majority was libeled by a (since departed) member of the Board of Trustees who asserted that the no confidence vote was the result of “sixties types who want to run the show.” The fact that the undergraduate faculty includes Business, Engineering and the (always suspect) Arts and Sciences professors who exhibited a wide range of political perspectives was obvious to all who could see and thus that absurd accusation produced the ridicule it deserved. It is absolutely absurd to use a vote of “no confidence” in a college President as “proof” that one is an extreme leftist. This applies equally to the Harvard case as it did in 1991 to the our own situation.

The second problem with Horowitz’s argument is that his “proof” that the left was out to get Lawrence Summers contradicts the evidence he presented for left-wing control over the academy in general. Who was this person that the left decided to “purge”? He was a liberal Democrat, former Secretary of Treasury in the Clinton Administration. If the left is purging Democrats, you cannot use the fact that 80% of college Professors in the Social Sciences and the Humanities are Democrats as evidence for left wing control.

I consider myself a leftist and I do not believe that Democrats are leftists. Some are, like Dennis Kucinich. Most are not, like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.

Horowitz’s presentation started with the false premise that the academy has been taken over by the extreme left. There is no evidence for this whatsoever. The “extreme left” remains a small percentage of the faculty in virtually all disciplines, even in the ones Horowitz wishes to attack most.

HOROWITZ AND ME

I entered the discussion as the last questioner. (I thank my colleague Sharon Williams for passing me the microphone as she was the last person recognized.)

I accused Mr. Horowitz of two counts of dishonesty. My first accusation was that when Horowitz discussed the Denver Colorado High School teacher, Jay Bennish, he had accused him of doing a “Ward Churchill dance.” I stated that he was conflating what Bennish said with what Ward Churchill said. Ward Churchill is a Professor at the University of Colorado who was quoted as saying (after 9/11) that some of the victims in the World Trade Towers got what they deserved -- they were not innocents --- they worked for the US government as “little Eichmans.” Needless to say this provoked a great deal of outrage with calls for Churchill to be fired or even worse. Since this high school teacher Jay Bennish was at that moment under suspension with his job hanging in the balance, I felt it was inflammatory and dishonest to imply that Bennish had done what Churchill did. Horowitz reiterated his assertion and dramatically stated that he had heard the tape and if he was wrong, he had $500 for me.

Well, here is what Bennish said. He was suggesting a parallel between the terrorist activity on 9/11 against the US and the US effort to kill Al Qaeda members in Pakistan. The missile strike ended up killing many civilians. Bennish argued that both acts could be considered terrorism. The student who was tape recording the class said, “We did not have the intention of killing their innocent people; we had the intention of killing a known terrorist…”[1] Later the same student asked about President Bush, “He stated he’s trying to kill innocents?” – a tone that clearly signaled disagreement. Bennish responded that according to Al Qaeda, the World Trade Center is a legitimate military target because it houses a CIA office, an FBI office and the center of globalized capitalism in many of those business firms. At no time did Bennish say that the people in the world trade center “got what they deserved” as did Ward Churchill. He did, however, introduce the discussion with the following words:
“… when Al Qaeda attacked America on September 11, 2001, they were not attacking innocents. The CIA has an office in the World Trade Center. The Pentagon is a military target, the White House is a military target …” He went on to say, “So in the minds of Al Qaeda, they are not attacking innocent people, they are attacking legitimate targets.” (emphasis added)

I submit that any open minded reading of the above must conclude that Bennish is not guilty of engaging in a Ward Churchill dance as Horowitz asserted and that I was right for calling him dishonest for conflating the two. However, Horowitz probably has the right to weasel out of his $500 bet because he did correctly quote some of Bennish’s words. (By the way, two days earlier on March 7, Horowitz spoke at Duke University and the C-SPAN recording shows Horowitz asserting that Bennish said the victims on 9/11 “got what they deserved.”)[2]

I was actually able to present a second accusation in my question. In the audience were a number of undergraduate students, including some of my own economics majors. A number of the economics majors are active members in the Republican Club and routinely engage in some vigorous, friendly, respectful debate about lots of economics issues both in class and on the Economics Club web site.

I enjoy good vigorous debate about issues and sometimes participate myself while at other times letting students discuss back and forth without intervening. In the classroom, I believe it is valuable for faculty to present their personal points of view but it is equally valuable for faculty to make sure students understand a number of different sides to questions that are raised. I know that over 34 years of teaching there are students who have not appreciated my classroom and teaching style, but I am confident that the vast majority of my former students will agree that I have always been fair.

I referred to the fact that I am the most left-wing member of the Economics Department at WNEC and that our department is quite varied. I then noted that Horowitz was asserting that most college departments were heavily weighted with the radical left and that he was in favor of “variety” in faculty approaches.[3] I said if you [Horowitz] really were being honest and truly believed in that diversity you’d be in favor of having at least one Marxist in every economics department in the country because in fact most economics departments have no left wingers.

He agreed with me that Economics departments were exceptions to the rule he was promulgating. He stated that economics uses a lot of Math and leftists are too dumb to do the math required to be good economists. He then argued that Marxism was a failed ideology having been proven completely bankrupt by the failures of the Soviet Union. He then asserted that since being in favor of Marxism is like believing the Earth is flat, he had no problem with Marxists being kept out of Economics departments at American Universities.

In other words, the man who started the evening being in favor of many different perspectives being presented and only wanting to make sure his side got a fair shake from those nasty left wingers who dominate Colleges and Universities (except now he admits in Departments of Economics) ended up being the man who concerning the one discipline where he admits his side is in the majority and where the left wing is virtually absent, refused to countenance diversity of opinion because he has made a judgment that being a Marxist economist is like believing the Earth is flat.

In that sentence he revealed that his “academic freedom” crusade is a complete sham. He really is a witch-hunter and we’d better be prepared to fight back vigorously.


[1] I have a printed version of the transcript of the recorded portion of the class from the local newspaper’s web site.


[2] We have show number 191779 (C-SPAN’s Book TV, March 7, 2006) on reserve in the undergraduate library [at Western New England College]. The quote is near the very end of the DVD.

[3] One of the goals as stated in the Mission Statement of “Students for Academic Freedom” is “to promote intellectual diversity on campus.”