In 2003, David Horowitz began a campaign to promote intellectual diversity and a return to academic standards in American universities. To achieve these goals he devised an “Academic Bill of Rights” and launched a national student movement with chapters on 160 college campuses. His efforts have inspired legislation at the federal level and in more than a dozen states; have led to the passage of an “Academic Bill of Rights” by student governments from Montana to Maine; and have dramatically transformed the national debate on academic issues.
In this book, Horowitz unveils the intellectual corruption of American universities by faculty activists who have turned classrooms into platforms for their political causes. He describes how academic radicals with little regard for professional standards or the pluralistic foundations of American society have created an ideological curriculum that is at odds with the traditional purposes of a democratic education.
Indoctrination U. also gives a riveting account of the reaction to Horowitz’s campaign by professor unions and academic associations, whose leaderships have been taken over by the political left. The anathemas pronounced upon the campaign and upon Horowitz himself are not unprecedented, but have a long and squalid history in the left’s confrontations with its opponents. The story of the battle against academic freedom, told here in colorful detail, can also be read as a case study in the political methods of the radical left.
