The ACLU and Professor Organizations Attempt to Censor Conservative Book

February 15, 2006
Contact: Patricia Jackson
202-216-0601, ext. 478
[email protected]

The ACLU and Professor Organizations Attempt to Censor
Conservative Book

Press release, 02/15/06

A coalition of radical professors, students, and organizations has launched a smear campaign to discredit David Horowitz’s newly-released book, The Professors.

Using the misnomer, “Free Exchange on Campus,” the group blatantly distorts the content of The Professors and unscrupulously impugns the Academic Freedom Campaign launched by Horowitz through his organization, Students for Academic Freedom.

Among the spurious charges alleged by the group is that The Professors attacks faculty for their political associations and beliefs, rather than for their political advocacy and indoctrination of students in the classroom.

Notably, the introduction to The Professors addresses this criticism directly and states explicitly that the purpose of the book is not to condemn university faculty for their political views: “This book is not intended as a text about left-wing bias in the university and does not propose that this bias is necessarily a problem. Every individual, whether conservative or liberal, has a perspective and therefore a bias. Professors have every right to interpret the subjects they teach according to their individual points of view. This is the essence of academic freedom.”

“The statement condemning The Professors is a naked attempt by a coalition of leftwing groups including the ACLU, the National Education Association, the pro-Castro United States Students Association and People for the American Way to censor my book before the public has a chance to read it,” commented Horowitz. “The statement is a malicious smear of my book and of the academic freedom campaign. I have not ‘retracted’ any claims about indoctrination in the classroom as the document says.”

Members of the coalition also made statements unfairly linking Horowitz to Andrew Jones who offered UCLA students money in exchange for reporting on their professors, and falsely claimed that Horowitz has retracted allegations of classroom indoctrination.

“In McCarthyite fashion, the coalition statement accuses me of guilty association with Andrew Jones who is conducting a campaign at UCLA,” stated Horowitz. “I am not associated in any way with Andrew Jones nor is he my ‘protégé’ as the statement claims. Andrew Jones did work for me once but I fired him two years ago and have publicly denounced his campaign as the signers of this malicious statement know but choose to ignore. This is exactly the kind of attempt to suppress dissenting views that exists on our campuses today and that my book exposes.”

David Horowitz is the chairman of Students for Academic Freedom, author of the Academic Bill of Rights, and leader of a national movement to promote intellectual diversity and restore educational values to America’s institutions of higher learning. His most recent book, The Professors, was released Monday, February 13, by Regnery Publishing.

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