Horowitz Decries 'Hate Campaign' · 02 October 2003
by Peggy Lowe, Rocky Mountain News, 10/02
David Horowitz used both calculated cool and peppery partisanship to insist Tuesday that his crusade for more conservative-friendly campuses is not about politics.
Bringing his quest for what he calls the "Academic Bill of Rights" to the Colorado public for the first time, Horowitz defended his work with state lawmakers and denounced those he described as the left-wing academics and media who demonize him.
But Horowitz's speech to a packed auditorium of 800 people at the Auraria campus was focused, in part, on a group of about 60 who attended a protest news conference held outside the Tivoli Turnhalle before his appearance.
Horowitz opened his speech by telling the audience that a "hate campaign" has been waged against him by those on the left who disagree with his views - which he said was the very problem today at U.S. colleges.
"I am the scary guy," Horowitz began his speech.
"I have been demonized in a way which is reminiscent of witch hunts," he said. "The witch and the brew here is myself."
The audience gave a final, mixed reaction of appreciative applause and boos after Horowitz's appearance ended about an hour and a half later.
Horowitz's $5,000 speaking fee was paid by student fees from Metropolitan State College and the University of Colorado at Denver, and the conservative Young Americas Foundation.
Hecklers were rare, but they turned up at both Horowitz's speech and the protest.
One raised his voice after Horowitz railed against UCD political science professors, who he said plaster their bulletin boards and doors with anti-Republican slogans, making conservative students feel alienated.
"Do professors feel so impotent that they have to broadcast their political opinions wherever they have a space that they control?" he asked.
"Like you?" someone in the audience yelled out, getting claps and laughs from the crowd.
Turnabout was fair play outside, when Felicia Woodson, Metro State's student-body president asked the protesters why Horowitz's message was even being allowed on campus.
"Free speech?" came the loud, sarcastic reply from a heckler.
Smiling and suggesting a more civil dialogue on politics, Horowitz said college professors must offer both sides of political arguments. His eight-point "bill of rights" isn't about filling some sort of Republican faculty quota, but rather requiring that teachers offer all points of view so students will learn to respond with reasoned arguments.
College classrooms shouldn't be like some conservative talk show on the Fox TV network - even though he often appears on it, Horowitz said.
"You don't want to be robbed of your education because somebody mistakes the university for the political arena," he said.
But some students who questioned Horowitz after his speech told him that perhaps he didn't hear his own call for fairness in politics.
Heather Peterson, a UCD freshman, wondered why the only party represented at the speech was the College Republicans. That, she said, is "completely hypocritical."
"He's saying, 'I'm not being political.' He's talking about people being bullied and having opinions, and it's totally one-sided," she said. "You see the Republican Party there. Where's all the other parties?"
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