David Joel Horowitz (born January 10, 1939) is an American
conservativeConservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and opposes rapid change in society...
writer and policy advocate. Horowitz was a member of the
New LeftThe New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
in the late 1960s before moving to the right in the 1970s.
He is a founder and the president of the
David Horowitz Freedom CenterThe David Horowitz Freedom Center is a conservative foundation founded in 1988 by political activist David Horowitz and his long-time collaborator Peter Collier...
, edits the conservative FrontPage Magazine, and writes for
Christopher RuddyChristopher Ruddy is an American conservative journalist. He is currently the CEO of Newsmax Media which publishes Newsmax.com, one of the top ranked web sites for conservative political news in the United States...
's conservative website
NewsMax. Horowitz founded the right-leaning activist group
Students for Academic FreedomAccording to its website, Students for Academic Freedom is "a clearing house and communications center for a national coalition of student organizations whose goal is to end the political abuse of the university and to restore integrity to the academic mission as a disinterested pursuit of...
.
Family
Horowitz was born to a Jewish family in
Forest HillsForest Hills is a 2.4 sq. mile neighborhood in the central part of the New York City borough of Queens. It is bordered to the north by Rego Park and Corona; to the east, by Flushing Meadows Park, the Grand Central Parkway, and Kew Gardens; to the west, by Middle Village and Glendale; and, to the...
. His parents, Phil and Blanche Horowitz were high school teachers. He taught English and she taught stenography. Horowitz majored in English and received a
BABachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
from
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League...
in 1959 and a
master's degreeA master's degree is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in English literature at
University of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States...
.
His parents were long-standing members of the
Communist PartyThe Communist Party of the United States of America is a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States.For the first half of the 20th century, the organization was the largest and most influential communist party in the country. The Communist Party played a prominent role in the U.S...
. Horowitz recounted his estrangement from his parents and gradual shift to the political right in a series of retrospectives, culminating in 1996 in his autobiographical book
Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey.
Horowitz co-hosted a 1987 "Second Thoughts Conference" in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
, described by
Sidney BlumenthalSidney Blumenthal is a former aide to President Bill Clinton and a widely published American journalist, especially on American politics and foreign policy....
in
The Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation.The newspaper is written as a...
as his "coming out" as a supporter of the right. According to attendee
Alexander CockburnAlexander Claud Cockburn is an American political journalist. Cockburn was brought up in Ireland but has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch...
, at that conference Horowitz recounted that his communist parents had not permitted him or his sister to watch
Doris DayDoris Day is an American actress, singer, and animal rights activist.Day's entertainment career began in her late teens as a big band singer. In 1945 she had her first hit recording , "Sentimental Journey", and, in 1948, appeared in her first film, Romance on the High Seas...
and
Rock HudsonRoy Harold Scherer, Jr. known professionally as Rock Hudson was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with his most famous co-star, Doris Day...
movies and instead required them to watch celebratory films about the then
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , also known as the Soviet Union , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed on the territory of most of the former Russian Empire in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.The Soviet Union had a single-party political system dominated by the Communist Party...
.
Horowitz has been married four times. His first wife, Elissa Krauthamer, of
Berkeley, CaliforniaBerkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
. is the mother of their four children, Jonathan Daniel, Benjamin Horowitz, Anne Pilat, and Sarah Rose Horowitz, who died in March 2008 at age 44 from
Turner syndromeTurner syndrome or Ullrich-Turner syndrome encompasses several conditions, of which monosomy X is most common. It is a chromosomal abnormality in which all or part of one of the sex chromosomes is absent...
-related heart complications. She is the subject of Horowitz's 2009 book,
A Cracking of the Heart.
In a review of Horowitz's paean to his daughter, Sarah, in which Horowitz explores their estrangement and reconciliation, FrontPage Magazine associate editor David Swindle wrote that Sarah—who cooked for the homeless, stood vigil at San Quentin on nights when the state of
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by land area, after Alaska and Texas; it is also the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
executed prisoners, worked with autistic children in public schools, and with the
American Jewish World ServiceAmerican Jewish World Service is a nonprofit international development organization, founded in 1985, which supports community-based organizations in 35 countries in the developing world and works to educate the American Jewish community about global justice...
, helped rebuild homes in
El SalvadorEl Salvador is the smallest and also the most densely populated country in Central America. It borders the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras. It lies on the Gulf of Fonseca, as do Honduras and Nicaragua further south.It has a population of approximately 6.2 million people as of 2009...
after a hurricane and traveled to
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with 1.18 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
to oppose
child laborChild labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...
-- fused "the painful lessons of her father's life with a mystical
JudaismJudaism is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people. Originating in the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Tanakh, and explored in later texts such as the Talmud, Jews consider Judaism to be the expression of the covenantal relationship God developed with the Children of Israel...
to complete the task he never could: showing how the Left could save itself from self-destruction."
After ending his first marriage, Horowitz married Sam Moorman. When they later divorced, he married Shay Marlowe. After the marriage with Marlowe also ended in divorce, Horowitz married April Mullvain Horowitz, his present wife. They live in Los Angeles County.
Career
In the late 1960s, Horowitz was in London working for the
Bertrand Russell Peace FoundationThe Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation was established in 1963. The foundation aims to continue the work of the philosopher and activist Bertrand Russell in the areas of peace, social justice, and human rights, with a specific focus on the dangers of nuclear war...
where he studied under
Ralph MilibandRalph Miliband was a notable Marxist and sociologist. He was married to Marion Kozak and the father of two British MPs, David and Ed Miliband, who were both members of the British Cabinet under Prime Minister Gordon Brown....
and
Isaac DeutscherIsaac Deutscher was a British Marxist historian, journalist and political activist of Polish-Jewish origin. He is best known as a biographer of Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin and as a commentator on Soviet affairs...
. In 1971, Horowitz wrote a biography of Deutscher.
Horowitz then wrote
The Free World Colossus: A Critique of American Foreign Policy in the Cold War and, in the early 1970s, became an editor at the New Left magazine,
RampartsRamparts was an American political and literary magazine, published from 1962 through 1975.-History:Founded by Edward M. Keating as a Catholic literary quarterly, the magazine became closely associated with the New Left after executive editor Warren Hinckle hired Robert Scheer as managing editor...
.
Horowitz was a supporter of
Huey P. NewtonHuey Percy Newton , was co-founder and leader of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, an African-American organization established to promote Black Power, civil rights and self-defense.-Biography:...
, and raised money for the
Black Panther PartyThe Black Panther Party was an African-American revolutionary left-wing organization working for the self-defense for black people...
. He has written that he recommended that the Panther Party hire a bookkeeper,
Betty Van PatterBetty Van Patter was a bookkeeper for the Black Panther Party who was beaten and murdered.After serving as a bookkeeper for Ramparts magazine, Van Patter became an aide to Panther leader Elaine Brown in 1974, after being introduced to the Party by David Horowitz.Later that year, after a dispute...
, who was then working for Horowitz at Ramparts. In December 1974, she was murdered. While her murder is unsolved, Horowitz alleges that the Panthers were responsible for her death, motivated, he states, by the desire to stop Van Patter from revealing the party's financial corruption.
Later, he cited that experience as the catalyst for reassessing his views that took him from the political left to the political right.
Activism on the right
In 1992, the
Heterodoxy magazine, which Horowitz co-edited, was founded. The magazine focused on exposing what it perceived as excessive political correctness on American college and university campuses.
Horowitz has opposed
reparations for slaveryReparations for slavery is a proposal that some type of compensation should be provided to the descendants of enslaved people in the United States, in consideration of the coerced and uncompensated labor their ancestors performed over several centuries...
as something inherently racist against blacks. He argues that applying labels like descendents of slaves to blacks would cause high downfall of their self-pride and segregate them from mainstream society. Horowitz purchased, or attempted to purchase, advertising space in school publications in order to publicize his opinion that African Americans are not entitled to reparations for Slavery in the United States. Many of these offers were refused and, at some schools, papers which carried the ads were stolen or destroyed.
While he supported the
interventionistInterventionism may refer to:*Interventionism is a political term for significant activity undertaken by a state to influence something not directly under its control....
foreign policy associated with the
Bush DoctrineThe Bush Doctrine is a phrase used to describe various related foreign policy principles of former United States president George W. Bush. The phrase was first used by Charles Krauthammer in June 2001 to describe the Bush Administration's unilateral withdrawals from the ABM treaty and the Kyoto...
, Horowitz opposed American intervention in the
Kosovo WarThe term Kosovo War or Kosovo Conflict is used to describe two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo. From early 1998 to 1999, the war was between Yugoslav police forces, Yugoslav paramilitaries, and the Yugoslav military, and the Kosovo Albanian rebel guerillas...
, arguing that it was unnecessary and harmful to U.S. interests. He has recently been critical of libertarian anti-war views.
In 2004 Horowitz launched Discover the Networks, a conservative watchdog project that monitors funding for, and various ties among, leftists and progressive causes. In his 2004 book,
Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left, Horowitz contends that leftists support, intentionally or not, Islamist terrorism and thus require ongoing scrutiny.
In two books, Horowitz accused Dana L. Cloud, associate professor of communication studies at the University of Texas at
Austin-In the United States:*Austin, Texas, the state capital of Texas*Austin, Arkansas*Austin, Colorado*Austin, Chicago, Illinois*Austin, Indiana*Austin, Minnesota*Austin, Nevada*Austin, Oregon...
, as an “anti-American radical” who “routinely repeats the propaganda of the Saddam regime” and, along with all of the 99 other professors in his book,
The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in AmericaThe Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America is a 2006 book by conservative American author and columnist David Horowitz.-Argument:Horowitz argues that U.S. universities are permeated by anti-Americanism and a left-wing bias...
, Horowitz accuses her of the “explicit introduction of political agendas into the classroom.” (pp. 93, 377)
Cloud replied in
Inside Higher EdInside Higher Ed is a daily online publication focused on college and university topics, based in Washington, D.C..The publication was founded in 2004 by Kathlene Collins, formerly a business manager for The Chronicle of Higher Education, and two former top editors of The Chronicle, Scott Jaschik...
that her experience demonstrates that Horowitz does real damage to professors' lives—and that he needs to be viewed that way, not just as a political opponent.
Horowitz's attacks have been significant. People who read the book or his Web site regularly send letters to university officials asking for her to be fired. Personally, she has received -- mostly via e-mail -- "physical threats, threats of removing my daughter from my custody, threats of sexual assaults, horrible disgusting gendered things," she said. That Horowitz doesn't send these isn't the point, she said. "He builds a climate and culture that emboldens people," and as a result, shouldn't be seen as a defender of academic freedom, but as its enemy.
After discussion, the
National Communication Association- Scholarly society :NCA is a scholarly society and as such works to enhance the research, teaching, and service produced by its members. Staff at the NCA National Office follow trends in national research, teaching, and service priorities...
chose not to grant Horowitz a spot as a panelist at its national conference in 2008 even after he agreed to forego the $7,000 speaking fee he had requested.
Horowitz replied, "The fact that no academic group has had the balls to invite me says a lot about the ability of academic associations to discuss important issues if a political minority wants to censor them." An association official said the decision was based in part on Horowitz's request to be provided with a stipend for $500 to hire a personal bodyguard. Association officials decided that having a bodyguard present "communicates the expectation of confrontation and violence."
Academic Bill of Rights
The issue of "political abuse" of the university is currently Horowitz's main focus. He, Eli Lehrer, and
Andrew JonesThe Bruin Alumni Association is a conservative group for alumni of University of California, Los Angeles. It has no official affiliation with the University of California or the official UCLA Alumni Association...
published a pamphlet, "Political Bias in the Administrations and Faculties of 32 Elite Colleges and Universities" (2004), in which they find the ratio of Democrats to Republicans at 32 schools to be more than 10 to 1.
Horowitz's book,
The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in AmericaThe Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America is a 2006 book by conservative American author and columnist David Horowitz.-Argument:Horowitz argues that U.S. universities are permeated by anti-Americanism and a left-wing bias...
(2006), criticizes individual professors for their professorial conduct. Horowitz accuses these professors of engaging in indoctrination rather than a disinterested pursuit of knowledge. Horowitz states that his campaign for academic freedom is ideologically neutral.
Horowitz and others promote his
Academic Bill of RightsThe Academic Bill of Rights is a document created and distributed by Students for Academic Freedom, a public advocacy group spun off from the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a think tank founded by former progressive, now conservative activist and writer David Horowitz...
(ABR), an eight-point guide that seeks to eliminate political bias in university hiring and grading. Horowitz says that bias in universities amounts to indoctrination, and charges that conservatives and particularly Republicans are systematically excluded from faculties, citing statistical studies on faculty party affiliation. Critics of the proposed policy, such as
Stanley FishStanley Eugene Fish is an American literary theorist and legal scholar. He was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island...
, have argued that "academic diversity", as Horowitz describes it, is not a legitimate academic value, and that no endorsement of "diversity" can be absolute.
In 2004 a version of the ABR was adopted by the Georgia General Assembly on a 41-5 vote.
http://www.aaup-ca.org/Larkin_abor.htmlhttp://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2003_04/fulltext/sr661.htm
In
PennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a state located in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to the east....
, the House of Representatives created a special legislative committee to investigate the state of academic freedom and whether students who hold unpopular views need more protection. In November 2006 it reported that it couldn’t find evidence of problems with students’ rights. In response, the students of UC San Diego formed a
FacebookFacebook is a social networking website launched in February 2004 and operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can add people as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by...
to oppose her stance and show their support for freedom of existence and life.
Muslim Students' Association
On April 14, 2008, the David Horowitz Freedom Center ran an advertisement in the
Daily NexusThe Daily Nexus is the university newspaper for the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara . It has a daily circulation of approximately 20,000 people....
, the University of California Santa Barbara school newspaper that stated, "the
Muslim Student Association
is a radical political group that was founded by members of the
Muslim BrotherhoodThe Society of the Muslim Brothers, often simply الإخوان al-ikhwān, the Brotherhood or MB) is a Sunni transnational movement and the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states...
, the godfather of Al Qaeda and
HamasHamas is a Palestinian Islamic organization with a socio-political wing and a paramilitary force, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
, to bring the
jihadJihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād is a noun meaning "struggle." Jihad appears frequently in the Qur'an and common usage as the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of Allah ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is mujahideen...
into the heart of American higher education." The
Nexus editor stated that Horowitz's ad, while not necessarily the view of the newspaper's staff, was a protected form of free speech and the paper's advertising representatives continued to accept other Horowitz ads. Meanwhile, the GW Hatchet at
George Washington UniversityThe George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive research university located in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on February 9, 1821 as The Columbian College in the District of Columbia. It is the largest university in the nation's capital...
apologized for running Horowitz's ad, noting that it will "provide more stringent guidelines for advertisements." Aharon Morris, a member of the UC Santa Barbara chapter of MSA, gave a statement that ran the next day saying that the underlying [message] was an "ambiguous and perceived threat" of a UCSB group being a terrorist organization and the ad is not only "hurtful but threatening" and could "incite violence" on campus. Horowitz responded in another article by arguing that the President and members of UCSB's MSA essentially supported the "jihad network" by refusing to sign a document to "condemn the
genocidalGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.While a precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime...
incitements and actions of Hamas and Iran."
Academia
Some stories Horowitz has used as evidence that U.S. colleges and universities are bastions of liberal indoctrination have been disputed. For example, Horowitz alleged that a
University of Northern ColoradoThe University of Northern Colorado, often called UNC or Northern Colorado is a coeducational public institution of higher education and research located in Greeley, Colorado, USA. The Greeley campus is the primary campus though a satellite campus exists in Lowry, Denver, USA...
student received a failing grade on a final exam for refusing to write an essay arguing that George W. Bush is a war criminal. A spokeswoman for the university said that the test question was not as described by Horowitz and that there were nonpolitical reasons for the grade, which was not an F. Horowitz identified the professor in this story as Robert Dunkley, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Northern Colorado. Dunkley said Horowitz made him an example of alleged liberal bias in academia and yet, "Dunkley said that he comes from a Republican family, is a registered Republican and considers himself politically independent, taking pride in never having voted a straight party ticket,"
Inside Higher EdInside Higher Ed is a daily online publication focused on college and university topics, based in Washington, D.C..The publication was founded in 2004 by Kathlene Collins, formerly a business manager for The Chronicle of Higher Education, and two former top editors of The Chronicle, Scott Jaschik...
reported. Dunkley said Horowitz never contacted him but instead "cooked this whole thing up."
In another instance, Horowitz stated that a
Pennsylvania State UniversityThe Pennsylvania State University is a state-related, land-grant, space grant public research university located in the University Park area and within State College and College Township in Pennsylvania, United States...
biologyBiology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy....
professor showed his students the film
Fahrenheit 9/11Fahrenheit 9/11 is a 2004 documentary film by American filmmaker Michael Moore. The film takes a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and its coverage in the news media. The film holds the record for highest box office receipts by a general release political film...
just before the
2004 electionThe United States presidential election of 2004 was the United States' 55th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. Republican Party candidate and incumbent President George W. Bush defeated Democratic Party candidate John Kerry, the then-junior U.S. Senator...
in an attempt to influence their votes. Pressed by
Inside Higher EdInside Higher Ed is a daily online publication focused on college and university topics, based in Washington, D.C..The publication was founded in 2004 by Kathlene Collins, formerly a business manager for The Chronicle of Higher Education, and two former top editors of The Chronicle, Scott Jaschik...
, Horowitz reversed himself and retracted the story.
Horowitz has also come under fire for material in his books, particularly
The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in AmericaThe Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America is a 2006 book by conservative American author and columnist David Horowitz.-Argument:Horowitz argues that U.S. universities are permeated by anti-Americanism and a left-wing bias...
, as
New York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan. Founded in 1831, NYU is the largest private, nonprofit institution of higher education in the United States...
Professor
Todd GitlinTodd Gitlin is an American sociologist, political writer, novelist, and cultural commentator. He has written widely on the mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular and scholarly publications.-New Left activist:...
has written. The group Free Exchange on Campus issued a 50-page report in May 2006 in which they take issue with many of Horowitz's assertions in the book and describe what they see as factual errors, unsubstantiated assertions, and quotations which appear to be either misquoted or taken out of context.
Some of the professors listed in the book as "dangerous" have replied. Caroline Higgins says she finds it absurd that she's being criticized for teaching about peace and social justice. She also notes that she puts her syllabi online so students already know what her beliefs are. Joe Feagin, who Horowitz criticized for studying racism and sexism, said that his conclusions are based on a 43-year research career in which he has published nearly 50 books and 180 research articles. Feagin asked about Horowitz's credentials, asking whether Horowitz has "done 40 years of solid research on racial and gender issues?"
Juan ColeJohn Ricardo I. "Juan" Cole is an American scholar, public intellectual, and historian of the modern Middle East and South Asia. He is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, he has appeared in print and on...
, who Horowitz criticized for his studies on the Middle East, says of Horowitz: "He is an ideologue and he has a particular view of the Arab-Israeli conflict which cannot be sustained by anyone who studies the region with primary texts and a global perspective."
Allegations of racism
Chip BerletJohn Foster "Chip" Berlet is an American investigative journalist, and photojournalist activist specializing in the study of right-wing movements in the United States, particularly the religious right, white supremacists, homophobic groups, and paramilitary organizations...
, writing for the
Southern Poverty Law CenterThe Southern Poverty Law Center is an American legal advocacy organization, internationally known for its tolerance education programs, its legal victories against white supremacists and its tracking of organizations it classifies as hate groups, militias, and extremist organizations.The SPLC,...
(SPLC), identified Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture as one of 17 "right-wing foundations and
think tankA think tank is an organization or individual that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economy, science or technology issues, industrial or business policies, or military advice...
s support[ing] efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable." Berlet accused Horowitz of blaming
slaverySlavery is a system in which people are the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand wages...
on "'black
AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
ns … abetted by dark-skinned
ArabArab people or Arabs are a panethnicity of peoples of various ancestral origins, religious backgrounds and historic identities, whose members, on an individual basis, identify as such on one or more of linguistic, cultural, political, or genealogical grounds. Those self-identifying as Arab,...
s'" and of "attack[ing] minority 'demands for special treatment' as 'only necessary because some blacks can't seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others,' rejecting the idea that they could be the victims of lingering
racismRacism is the belief that race is a primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. As a practice, it means the same thing as racial discrimination...
." Responding with an open letter to
Morris DeesMorris Seligman Dees, Jr. is the co-founder and chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center and former direct mail marketeer for book publishing. Along with his law partner, Joseph J...
, president of the SPLC, Horowitz stated that his reminder that the slaves transported to America were bought from African and Arab slavers was a response to demands that only whites pay blacks reparations, not to hold Africans and Arabs solely responsible for slavery, and that the statement that he had denied lingering racism was "a calculated and carefully constructed lie." The letter said that Berlet's work was "so tendentious, so filled with transparent misrepresentations and smears that if you continue to post the report you will create for your Southern Poverty Law Center a well-earned reputation as a hate group itself." The SPLC refused, and subsequent critical pieces on Berlet and the SPLC have been featured on Horowitz's website and personal blog.
Tim WiseTim Wise is an American anti-racist activist and writer.-Background :Tim Wise is an American anti-racist activist in the U.S., who started giving lectures in 1995 at over 500 college campuses across the US...
, self-described "anti-racist essayist, lecturer and activist" criticized Horowitz in the left-wing publication
ZnetZ Communications is a media group founded in 1986 by Michael Albert and Lydia Sargent. Its publications include Z Magazine, ZNet, Z Media, and Z Video and are generally of a left perspective....
for associating with alleged racists, pointing to his acceptance of funding from the
Bradley FoundationThe Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a conservative foundation with about half a billion US dollars in assets. According to the Bradley Foundation 1998 Annual Report, it gives away more than $30 million per year...
, which supported the publication of
The Bell CurveThe Bell Curve is a best-selling 1994 book by the late Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and American Enterprise Institute political scientist Charles Murray. Its central argument is that intelligence is a better predictor of many factors including financial income, job performance,...
, as well for running a modified piece by
white nationalistWhite nationalism is a political ideology which advocates a racial definition of national identity for white people, and a separate all-white nation state. White separatism and white supremacism are subgroups within white nationalism. The former seek a separate white nation state, while the latter...
Jared TaylorSamuel Jared Taylor of Oakton, Virginia, is an American journalist and an advocate of what he describes as racial realist explanations for the sociological and economic problems associated with non-whites, particularly blacks, in Western countries.Taylor is the editor of American Renaissance, a...
on the media treatment of black-on-white murders. When Horowitz ran the piece, he admitted that the decision to do so would be controversial but denied that Taylor was a racist, instead arguing that his "
racialismRacialism is an emphasis on race or racial considerations. Currently, racialism entails a belief in the existence and significance of racial categories, but not necessarily that any absolute hierarchy between the races, has been demonstrated by a rigorous and comprehensive scientific process...
" was an example of
identity politicsIdentity politics refers to political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of social minorities, or self-identified social interest groups. Not all members of any given group are necessarily involved in identity politics....
precipitated by an intellectual surrender to
multiculturalismMulticulturalism is the acceptance or promotion of multiple ethnic cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g. schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities or nations...
; Horowitz denied that he and his publication share Taylor's agenda.
In a 1997 interview with paleoconservative activist
Chuck BaldwinCharles Obadiah "Chuck" Baldwin is an American politician and founder-pastor of Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. He was the presidential nominee of the Constitution Party for the 2008 U.S. Presidential election and had previously been its nominee for U.S. vice president in 2004...
, Horowitz criticized the United States as an "anti-white racist" country and said that liberals "hate America."
Books and other publications
- Student: The Political Activities of the Berkeley Students (New York: Ballantine Books, 1962)
- Corporations and the Cold War (editor) (New York: Monthly Review, 1969)
- Sinews of Empire Ramparts, October 1969, pp. 32–42
- Empire and Revolution: A Radical Interpretation of Contemporary History (1969) ISBN 0-394-70856-3
- Corporations and the Cold War, edited, and with introduction (1970) ISBN 0-85345-160-5
- The Free World Colossus: A Critique of American Foreign Policy in the Cold War (1971) ISBN 0-8090-0107-1
- Second Thoughts: Former Radicals Look Back at the Sixties, ed. by Peter Collier and David Horowitz (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1989) ISBN 0-8191-7148-4
- Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the '60s, by Peter Collier and David Horowitz (New York: Summit Books/Simon & Schuster, 1989) ISBN 0-671-66752-1
- Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey (New York: The Free Press, 1997) autobiography ISBN 0-684-82793-x
- The Race Card: White Guilt, Black Resentment, and the Assault on Truth and Justice (Prima Lifestyles, 1997) ISBN 0761509429
- Hating Whitey: and Other Progressive Causes (Spence Publishing, 1999) ISBN 1-890626-21-X
- The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America’s Future (Free Press, 2000) ISBN 0684856794
- The Art of Political War And Other Radical Pursuits (Spence Publishing, 2000) ISBN 1890626287
- How to Beat the Democrats and Other Subversive Ideas (Spence Publishing, 2002) ISBN 1890626414
- Uncivil Wars: The Controversy Over Reparations For Slavery (2002) ISBN 1-893554-44-9
- Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey (Spence Publishing, 2003) ISBN 1-890626-51-1
- Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left (Regnery Publishing
Regnery Publishing in Washington, D.C. is a publisher which specializes in conservative books characterized on their website as "contrary to those of 'mainstream' publishers in New York." Since 1993, Regnery Publishing has been a division of Eagle Publishing, which also owns the weekly magazine...
, 2004) ISBN 0-89526-076-X
- The Anti-Chomsky Reader
The Anti-Chomsky Reader is a 2004 book criticizing the political and linguistic writings of Noam Chomsky. Several authors contributed to it under the editorship of Peter Collier and David Horowitz.-Contents:...
with Peter Collier (Encounter BooksEncounter Books is an American conservative book publisher. It is an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc. Encounter Books draws its name from Encounter , the now defunct literary magazine founded by Irving Kristol and Stephen Spender.Encounter Books publishes serious non-fiction...
, 2004) ISBN 1-893554-97-X
- The End Of Time (2005) ISBN 1-59403-080-4
- The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America
The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America is a 2006 book by conservative American author and columnist David Horowitz.-Argument:Horowitz argues that U.S. universities are permeated by anti-Americanism and a left-wing bias...
(Regnery PublishingRegnery Publishing in Washington, D.C. is a publisher which specializes in conservative books characterized on their website as "contrary to those of 'mainstream' publishers in New York." Since 1993, Regnery Publishing has been a division of Eagle Publishing, which also owns the weekly magazine...
, 2006) ISBN 0-89526-003-4
- Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party (Thomas Nelson Books, 2007) ISBN 1595551034
- Indoctrination U:The Left's War Against Academic Freedom (Encounter Books
Encounter Books is an American conservative book publisher. It is an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc. Encounter Books draws its name from Encounter , the now defunct literary magazine founded by Irving Kristol and Stephen Spender.Encounter Books publishes serious non-fiction...
, 2007) ISBN 1594031908
Histories co-authored with Peter Collier
- The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976) ISBN 0-03-008371-0
- The Kennedys: An American Drama (New York: Summit Books/Simon & Schuster, 1985) ISBN 0-671-44793-9
- The Fords: An American Epic (New York: Summit Books/Simon & Schuster, 1987) ISBN 0-671-66951-6
- The Roosevelts: An American Saga (1994)
Alternate Academic Views
- Ellis, M. H.
Marc H. Ellis is an American author, liberation theologian, and University Professor of Jewish Studies, Professor of History and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Baylor University.-Biography:...
(1997) Unholy alliance: religion and atrocity in our time Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers. ISBN 0-8006-3080-7.
- Henry Giroux
Henry Giroux, born September 18, 1943, in Providence, Rhode Island, is an American cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies,...
(2006) America on the Edge New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-7159-5.
External links