like pathologies. pathologies of an institutional nature, pathologies of a political nature or a dysfunction if you want a play on word. that the difficulties -- the world is difficult to begin with, but the political -- the institutional, the psychological, the ideological constraints on really sitting down and working out rational policies even within the government let alone then with other governments who are facing this was so extraordinary that i came up with a sense that we have to understand these things and the hope that's what we try to do. that we can try to get clarity on this. there are lots of lessons in

having made similar mistakes or witness similar mistakes made by others. but somehow if you just step back, you say but this war. you can say war is always with us but it's becoming more and more high tech. the weapons of mass destruction -- we've been with them. now there are entirely new levels. we have whole new levels of threats in terms of information technology and the ways to bring societies down now in the digital age. and the basic passions -- i actually try to understand and i did this a lot with the atomic bombs and why were the bombs dropped and it drew me in many areas. there's a love of violence. there's a sense of beauty in violence. there is the drive to make a better and better weapon, you

know, i worked -- i'm associated with m.i.t. and i became sensitive to the concept of sweetness, scientific sweetness. technocratic sweetness because this is a phrase that the manhattan project people used. why did you make the bomb? well, we wanted to win the war but it was such a sweet -- this is their word, not mine, problem. why do you want to make a hydrogen bomb when you've got an atomic bomb? because the problems are so fascinating and challenging and then you get the machinery behind this and the machinery takes on the life of its own. and then the machinery becomes so complex that you get into your turf wars. and your individual prerogatives and then you get the political pressure. ...

was not just the number of parallel between these two long, painful wars by two different generations now, but the depth and breadth of those parallels. and also some important differences. and so, i hope this becomes required reading at her service academies and certainly by our elected officials who deal with issues of war and peace. i just want to thank you for writing this book. just go thank you so much for having the chance to chat with

you. >> host: thank you. >> david horowitz argues that america's colleges and universities are more into promoting and teaching students in on a form for dissenting voices. mr. horowitz presents his academic to look right in his arguments against the current state of american higher education at the union league of philadelphia appeared this program as an hour 15 minutes. [applause] >> thank you, craig. craig has done a terrific job for organizing and building the philadelphia freedom center and i want to thank you and lily patrice as well who a courageous courageous -- [inaudible] there is the defendant in the most important free speech trial in our time.

in the netherlands he's on trial defending the right to criticize islamic terrorism, islamic hatred in islamic teaching of gays and oppression of women. twenty years ago, i appeared on a local los angeles television program on a panel with a hollywood rested. with richard mayfair. richard was the head of the screen rescaled and he was on the program because he was supporting a california ballot initiative that would have created a universal government health care system in the state of california. and when it was my turn i said, richard, socialism has failed all over the world.

why do you think it will succeed in california? to which he did not have an answer. we are in a starved moment where one of our two political parties and our president have went through a massive universal health care compulsory health care bill over the objections are not decision of the majority of the american people. we have a government and we are driving actually for a single-payer system, which is the socialist, communist, whatever you want to call it. but that's what it is, a totalitarian system, where the government will control your health. our government will only prosecute election fraud, which is a crime aimed at the heart of

american democracy. if the perpetrators are white cop. our government is suing the state of arizona because it will only -- or does not want to prosecute this violators of our immigration laws if their skin color is brown. in other words, our government has adopted the racist attitudes of the radical left of the french crowd that richard mayfair was speaking for 20 years ago. we have a president who considers america to be guilty before the fact and has toured the world bowing and apologizing to leaders of the most radical, oppressive regimes and racist

regimes on the planet. we have a president who thinks that encrypting our nation is a matter of equity because it will bring fairness and more equality to international order. how do we get to this bizarre moment in our national history? well, at the heart of this development, as the state of our nation's schools, beginning with their universities, the going rate down to the k-12 and. because the curriculum in our liberal arts colleges is that america is a racist, sexist, classes,, imperialist power that probably deserves to be attacked.

the heroes of this curriculum are the people who supported the communist empire and its a day and largest single out one. the most widely used textbook on american history, both the university, but especially of the k-12 level was written by howard zinn, a lifelong communist from a supporter of joseph allen, a supporter of candles on and a supporter of islamic terrorists fighting the united states. that is the assignment for our students and our country. how did our schools get to this task? and of course i'm speaking now -- i'm not speaking of physics professors in engineering professors. i'm talking about the liberal arts schools, liberal arts

colleges, where our students take their required courses on their way to citizenship. and not every teacher is teaching howards end. but it's the dominant text. cannot tell you that is a trend that's been going on for 30 years and will continue unless something is done about it. our colleges were all created back in a -- actually harbored in the 17th century in the 17th and 18th centuries and 19th centuries as training for priests. they were religious institutions and they instilled the doctrine of the particular denomination if he went to catholic school, you learned the catholic view of the world. and they didn't make a pretense to being liberal arts in the

classical sense of diverse -- intellectually diverse institutions. towards the end of the 19th century there was an industrial revolution in america and the scientific revolution. and the state universities were created land-grant institutions. and not saw the creation of what is called the modern research university. and the modern research university and where we get our precepts of academic freedom comes from this development. the modern research university conceived itself and promoted it both as representing the scientific aid, so that when there was not is of opinion that stake, when you had a controversial issues, the procedure would be by scientific methods. it would be the attitude was skeptical towards received doctrines and received truths,

including religious truths. gail, which was a school for ministers became skeptical towards religion and everything else and actually william f. buckley wrote a famous book called god and man a gal, protesting that yale had made this transition without a formal divorce of its founding in clearing up with the alumni or the people that had contributed to and built it. the academic freedom provisions, which were created by the american association of university professors stipulate that where there are matters of controversy and everything in the liberal arts practically -- everything that's important as a matter of controversy is a subjective field. you can't do a scientific experiment in literature or philosophy and get a result

because of our unresolvable conflicts of opinion. the academic freedom provisions and really the academic standards of the modern research the feedback in the minors the professor is obligated not to indoctrinate his students, not to instill it.turn can have a point of view, but that can be imposed on the students and therefore is obligated to present divergent opinions in a fair-minded and judicious manner. and to provide students with materials like books, reading assignments that reflect more than one side of a controversial issue. sometime in the 19th 70s, the radical cohort began to gain tenure in positions of power in the university and saw their

mission as the radical mission of transforming society, revolutionizing our society and a radical direction. and the university as an instrument of that political agenda and they began to reverse this hundred year development of the modern research university and revert to the 19th century model for professors come into a classroom to instill it.turn. those students today do not get get -- they don't get readings on two sides of controversial issues. i've audited courses. for example the supreme court, where the only book assigned is jeffrey toobin to be left-wing version of supreme court -- recent supreme court history. this is a violation of academic standards and academic freedom,

but the university avenue institution is pretty well unaccountable, both on the financial side, but especially on the curriculum, the curriculum site. i wrote a book called one-party classroom, which is just a review of over 150 syllabuses at 12 major universities. at the university of santa cruz there is a course, which is described in the university catalog in these exact words. the goal of the seven are is to learn how to organize a revolution. and it explains that the revolution is anti-capitalist. a proper academic course would examine the proposition , first of all that a democratic society, where you can vote people in and out of power needs

a revolution or that a revolution might be a good idea considering the bloody failures of revolutions throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. and it would present tax -- presumably on both sides of controversial issues as to whether capitalism is a bad or a good system, given all the other systems that are possible. but the scores just was how to organize a revolution, completely improper in any university, calling itself the modern research university that respects academic freedom. but especially in a statement to shun. seven years ago, i began a campaign to try to address the system. one of the serious problems is that 95% -- this is a harvard

study, but it's confirmed by just a dozen studies. 95% of professors and liberal arts colleges today are on the political left. they both laughed, they think last, they finance candidate of the left. that in itself is a huge problem. and you can't come about firing professors for their political views because that's kind of what we're trying to prevent the establishment of a politicized educational system. so seven years ago, i devised an academic bill of rights to address the system. and i did it for the chairman of the regions of the state university of new york, a system with 400 colleges -- 400,000

students and 69 colleges. i was introduced to them by a set of philadelphia dwelling on and he was thrilled at the academic rights i have drawn up. what i did was i codified the academic freedom provisions that the american association of university professors had devised in 1915 and had been part of the template of all universities for nearly 100 years. i just made a .1, two, three. and i presented them as right and much more radically as rights for students. that is if a professor was obligated, according to the aup to present views that diverge

from his in a fair-minded and judicious manner and provides students with materials that would allow them to think for themselves, if that was the professor's obligation, my bill for their students how to write to expect that from their professors. it was as simple as that. and for devising this academic -- well, what happened at the suny system was that we have the opposition from the teacher unions, which the afd or a uv and the nea are the big teaching unions. all of them run by leftist. all of them unalterably opposed to having two sides presented. and i say that because they were the chief opponents of this campaign for an academic to look

rights. and were faced with the opposition of this teacher unions and the left on the faculties. and because he was an appointee of governor of a tacky as for other regions and pataki had presidential ambitions, he became completely paralyzed. he had told me exactly how is going to put in place and then nothing happened. so i went to -- i devised a different strategy. i thought the only way for college presidents to have the spine to defend academic standards, which they all claimed to support list to get another act are involved. and that would be legislatures. i went to the colorado legislature and asked them to devise a resolution, not a lot

because it would be a very bad idea for legislatures to try to run universities. that's a very bad idea, nothing that i've ever supported. but to pass a resolution urging the university to adopt an academic elaborates. and i were to the president of the university of colorado and asked her to do the same before he went to the legislature. and she is said to me, we have all these protections. they're just go up to our website we don't have a problem. when i went to the legislature, the first thing that happened was even before we published the bill of rights, the rocky mountain news ran a story that i wanted to fire all the leftist professors in higher conservatives. the first principle of the academic world prices you cannot hire or fire a professor based on their political views. i put that men.

i knew there was already guaranteed and already respected, but i put it in to prevent people from attacking me to wanting to provide these professors. i'd never called for the firing of a leftist professor because of their leftism. i even fired the notorious fraud churchill, who said that the inhabitants of the world trade center deserved to die because they were nazis. i defended them because the first amendment of our constitution gives everybody the right to embarrass themselves in public and to come out with reprehensible views such as churchill undoubtedly has and not be fired for expressing those views. it's another thing he does in the classroom. but that was an internet article. despite this -- in the views immediately retract the story because i happen to know one of

the editors who was a libertarian and printed inaccurate story on the academic to look rights. later, the denver post ran an editorial, saying that david horowitz republicans want to fire leftist and liberal professors in the state of colorado. and just ignoring the truth. and that's because of the pressure of these teacher unions. a former lieutenant -- democratic lieutenant governor in the state compared me to joseph stalin and joseph mccarthy in a column in the denver -- in the denver post. but we got this bill -- the academic look rights, just a resolution to the education committee.

and when that happens, it was a political miracle if you will. the first thing in happened when they got it through by one vote on party lines, democratic party is that the pocket of the unions. everybody doesn't know that should know that. they don't even think for themselves on these issues. there was no chance that they would read the academic bill of rights and make them come to a reasonable conclusion. but lo and behold, when the six to five vote with them on the education committee for this bill, the president of the university of colorado appeared and went right to our legislatures and sad, will you withdraw this bill if we put the principles in place? and by the way, i went up on her website, the colorado website and there were no guarantees of academic freedom rights for students at the university of colorado. so of course we said yes, we withdraw the legislation if you

did the right thing. and then there was a joint resolution for both houses in colorado. and you know, the resolution was adopted. and of course, nothing happened. and nothing happened because as you may know, a couple of billionaires in colorado set out to make the colorado a blue state and succeeded. and the minute the republicans lost the majority in the house, it's just out there. and that's the biggest problem to change in our universities and getting any kind of enforcement. university administrators are scared of bayer radically -- i was going to say radical faculties. the faculties are not necessarily radical, but they are dominated politically by radicals. larry summers, who just resigned as the chairman of the economic advisors for president obama was

the most powerful president in history of the modern research community. but he ran afoul of the political left at harvard because he opposed the jews hating campaign to divest from israel. that was his first sin. and then he asked an airhead professor, who happened to be named black and cornell west to produce a scholarly work, something that hadn't been done in 20 years even though he was getting a six-figure custom and was a very privileged -- his title is university professor. and cornell west said all he had to do was larry summers had a problem with lack people. and the harvard faculty left rallied to his support. and larry summers became the first university president in the history of the modern

research university, 100 years to be censured by his own faculty and then fired. he was forced to resign because he was crippled. so university administrators are intimidated by their faculty unions, which are all, usually i should say, dominated and controlled by the left. and there's good reason for that. these leftists, their agenda is political. a true scholar doesn't want to be bothered with departmental politics. so i have been in this campaign has been tarred and feathered. i mean, they not only accuse me of being mccarthy, even though i've defended for churchill, even though i've defended erwin chemerinsky who is a flaming leftist. he was the dean of the law school at you see irvine because they then withdrew the appointments when the

conservative donors finally woke up to the fact that he was a leftist. i defended erwin and i debated him. i have no respect for his political views for sure. but you can't fire somebody for their political opinions. doesn't matter. i am portrayed as the torquemada of the university. worst about, there was a systematic campaign to say that i was lying and making up facts when i reported what students told me about what goes on in the classroom. and what goes on in the classrooms would shot most people if you haven't already heard the stories. i mean, i was just up at the university of massachusetts amherst and a political science major told me that his exam and a political science course with a speech by ronald reagan and

there was one question, which was can't explain why recognize from. this is on top nation. this does not allow the student to have another opinion from the professors. we had a similar case in colorado, were a student was given an exam -- and in this book are told this whole story of my seven year campaign the universities in this book, reforming our universities. the student was given an exam with a question so-called was explained why george bush is a war criminal. and it was a fairly traditional person. and so, she could not bring herself to answer that question and to explain why george bush is a war criminal. shows she explain why saddam hussein was a war criminal and

she was failed on the exam. and that was then adjusted by an appeals process. but what happened, i was attacked by an agent of the american association of university professors. by the way, the media generally, the mainstream big city papers all are on the political left when it comes to these issues. the news columns that i had invented the student, claimed they tried to find the student and a professor in the course and credit. for the first set of stories that came out was that i was lying. there is no such students and i had made the whole thing up. and then we went to work and they had to then of course there was a student, there was an exam, but that i had misrepresented the question on

the exam. and what had happened was that the professor had destroyed the exam papers and then he reconstructed it. but he reconstructed it so is the same question, which was, explain why the united states -- that the invasion of iraq was criminal -- it was a criminology course, which is why this kept coming up. which was the same question, but the education media inside higher ed.com, you know, they link to my response to all this. but the fact was that was kind of obliterated. now why do they call me a liar? because it would've been impolitic for them to call the student flyers, which is basically what they were doing. we have hundreds and hundreds of testimonies by students about what goes on in the classroom and it's not very subtle.

assessors will go on incredible rant. george bush about america being racist and sexist, imperialist and so forth. and every now then a warrant churchville, you know, is exposed. but if you don't have some respect for what students are telling you, nobody else is in the classroom who will tell you. a professor is not going to tell you what he's teaching. we had our greatest success -- well, by pursuing this legislative resolution path, i actually got john boehner was courageous enough to put it in the education authorization bill out, the principles of the academic delivery.

a mac at the university presidents buried frightened, even though it was just a resolution. i should say i was in a meeting with boehner and this legislative aides in the legislative aides said that the democrats -- there are four parts of the education authorization act that are nonnegotiable, that will absolutely not support the act. and they may have had a majority in the senate at the time if those are in. and one of them was the academic to live right. and i said to congressman, i said it's a multibillion dollars bill. they probably think the money is mainly wasted. but still, what if there is one student. the academic to liberate kuwait may be on this bill. and he looked at me and he said this is a fight i want. and the result of that was a compromise, where the american council on education, which

represents 1800 universities and colleges, the president said we have an indefensible position. collected david horowitz academic illustrates and we don't see what the objection is, although the aup was comparing the media, saying it was orwellian and comparing -- actually members to compare the two, germany, lawson health care, fascist japan and italy. i think that the campaign as i described in this book is very abstract divorce should be to every american. but conservatives in particular about how unscrupulous and the liberal so-called liberals are. that's why hate it when everyone refers to them. i'm a liberal. i believe the two sides to a controversial question. i think it would be tragic if our universities had 95% conservative professors. but i can't find a so-called

liberal. well actually have found one or two, to maybe out of the university that's willing to stand up and say that and defend that kind of criticisms that i've leveled. the result was that the american council on education came out with this statement in 2005, which pretty well reflected our concerns. it said that the core principles of american higher education are intellectual pluralism -- the intellectual diversity and academic freedoms and that students should not be indoctrinated. so every university of note in this country have signed on to that document. but only the universities in ohio have actually attempted to make a step towards implementing them.

why is that? because we went to the legislature in ohio and got a resolution for an academic elaborates. and the universities, the 17 major state universities came to us and said, will you withdraw the legislation if we implement the american councils. so we said yeah. and i will tell you -- there are two other universities i'm going to talk about in the state of pennsylvania, where we made even more progress. but the only reason that those ohio university said that if the cause we went to the legislatures. and i will say, they would not be 15, but we could have 2000 or 3000 universities sign on to this that the republican party would wake up in the conservative establishment and put this reform on their agenda.

every republican party, every state party should have an academic illustrates and its platform and put the pressure on. if that happens, the universities, there are good people in the universities and they will do the right thing. our greatest successes in the state of pennsylvania, where a courageous young legislature, who was an army ranger in mogadishu gave armstrong agreed to sponsor a bill in the legislature behind the academic elaborates. and we had, thanks to a friend in this state, we have the support of the speaker of the house in pennsylvania, john purcell. but the republicans did not have the stomach actually to pass the resolution, a toothless

resolution. and that's because of the power of the teacher unions with their allies in the local and statewide media. it's just a political fact. so what they came up with was what turned out to be a much better idea, which was to create a committee to look at the academic freedom principles. our students guaranteed the right to your two sites in a classroom. when al gore's inconvenient lie i guess is what you would call it, his alarmist propaganda film about global warming has been shown in classrooms across the country, never with critical material, never with a handful of other films, you know, with scientists challenging this global warming doctrine and

ideology. and no classes that i know are those materials that i'm familiar with produce. it was practically a partyline vote of some democrats switched over and some republicans. but the committee was authorized and we held hearings, of course, nine months and the state of pennsylvania. the democratic members of that committee, from the get go, from day one attacked it as one of them said this was a hunt for bigfoot. this was a mccarthy committee, a witchhunt. now the professor's name was never mentioned. it was all the committee reorganized was about looking to see if that academic freedom policies, to see if students are guaranteed the right to hear two

sides if there is a grievance procedure, if professors abuse the classroom as many do. that polyp was, to inquire. we have legislature, administrator after administrator, and swear that students were already protected. in fact, it was not a single state university in pennsylvania , which there are more than 17. penn state has many campuses, but there's also a pennsylvania state system, which has 15 i believe universities. not a single one of them, not one guarantees students the right of academic freedom to hear two sides to a question. there are wonderful academic freedom professions, especially at penn state or were at the time, which said in so many

words, students, it is said a teacher is obligated not to indoctrinate their students, but to give them the materials that would allow them to think for themselves. but it was in the employee handbook, students and not employees. this was for professors. apache system, which is the pennsylvania whatever it is, state higher education system for the 17 schools had it as part of the union contract. students are not members of the teacher unions. so students didn't have it, yet administrators came in with a straight face said we have all these protections in place and there are no complaints or their are only at penn state they said we only have 13 complaints. immediately the democratic legislatures jumped on gibson armstrong as a republican, saint

80,000 students and only 13 complaints. after the hearings were over, i wish it out of this when they were in place, we send an inquiry to the provost at penn state. how many gender discrimination cases do you have in a year? and how many on the basis of race? and how many on the basis of race? one. one gender, one race. and yet, there are tens of millions of dollars spent every year at penn state and other universities in the state on diversity deans and tremendous amount of literature. what would be so hard about doing this for intellectual diversity? which is the core of what an academic education should be about. so we were attacked. we were attacked by the democrats on the committee.

armstrong had 50 opportunities from pennsylvania students. none of them signed. he knew the names. students were afraid to sign statements. and the democrats on the committee were completely on the end of the press, completely uninterested in the student testimonies. and there were descriptions in the classroom. one professor attacked the monterey languages school, which is where army personnel get trained in foreign-language is, saying it was set up because america wants to kill colored people. i mean, it is tragic what is going on in our university. you students in a democracy, and america, intimidated for lodging a complaint when a professor of english goes on a rant about the war in iraq, completely unprofessional, completely outside their expertise.

there is one -- there are -- there are some good places that have appeared as a result of our campaign. last year's president of the modern language association, professor gerald graff at the universe be a villain only if they -- and everything he's a leftist. professor graff is a leftist. he writes for magazines like radical teaching. but he has -- and actually, he has a theory that teachers should teach the conflicts, the day shouldn't be at the kids on either side of the conflict. they should teach the conflicts. they shouldn't impose on teachers. it seems like very basic elementary stuff.

and he's been challenged. he is a lone voice, let me tell you. he has challenged now by professors, particularly in the education field, where they have devised the argument that they held is that you could have won of two views. you can have the radical view of social justice. social justice is no part of the curriculum. social justice meaning the redistribution of income. social justice.turn. in fact, they try to make it a requirement for graduation from one of the ed schools until there was a protest and they withdrew it. but now they've devised a psychometric model for determining whether a prospective teacher or whether an undergraduate in education

school has social justice values. and if they don't, they're not qualified to be a teacher. in other words, there's going to be a radical litmus for k-12 teachers in the imminent future if people don't wake up and start opposing -- opposing these ideas. and that they say in so many words, you can read this in the publication. the modern language association is the largest professional association of academic, 40,000 members. and in the last issue, the areas of the letter, which states in so many terms. and you can not only two views. you either have the radical view or the hegemonic view. now, what the left is grayed out is changing its names. so, my parents were communists

who call themselves progressives and we would have left us. i didn't go along with this change, but others said they were liberals. it makes it very hard to pin them down. so hegemonic means you're speaking for the ruling class of the white supremacist ruling class. so there's only two possible positions. one is to accept a radical critique. this is the prospective k-12 teachers. you accept the radical critique. and the other is that you represent the ruling class. then the authors of this letter or the author of this letter says, such a teacher when it accepts the hegemonic view is not qualified to teach the conflict. so for the left, which has now ascended in our liberal arts colleges, what is legitimate, the conflicts are within the

left. you know, you can be a feminist, marxist or socialist or a feminist, socialist or whatever. there's a spectrum within the left. but that is all legitimate. we are transforming our liberal arts colleges into training indoctrination and training centers for the political left and the democratic dirty. this country's democracy cannot survive the strength if it is that stopped in reverse. and to stop it. i mean, for anybody who is an actual liberal is only to bring it back into conformity with the scientific method and the modern research institution, where different ideas, divergent ideas our respect it at the university

level. they should be a respect for a different opinion. any discussion should take place on an intellectual level. and the fact that i'm going to close with those, the really bad trend in our universe be as evidenced by the fact that i -- and i'm not alone. robert gunther, and coulter, michelle malkin another conservative cannot visit a college campus these days without bodyguards. and without the university assigning five, 10, 15 security guard, just to protect her physical safety. that is not the majority of the student body. it's a small fraction of the student body. but the university administrators will not discipline the students, will not discipline the student

organizations. students for justice in palestine. the muslim student association, which is the arm of the muslim brotherhood. and both of them really are. the international socialist organization. all these organizations get money from student funds. and they behave like campus fascist. and university administrators will not touch them because they're afraid of of their radical faculties. that is the situation. so it's not an insoluble problem. there are plenty of people of goodwill in the university who would do something and somebody will get it there and put the pressure on them to do it. and what we showed in situation -- and actually i should close with this, the upshot of the pennsylvania academic freedom hearings, which were described as a total failure and waste of time by the press, by the teacher unions and ignored by the republican party

and the conservative establishment resulted at penn state, the fine academic freedom provisions were taken out or were extended from the employee handbook to apply the students that passed a resolution and applied them to all penn state students now for the first time in the history of this country or in the history of penn state have academic freedom rights. and the trustees at temple university did the same thing. penn state while the hearings were going on. temple university, where they were concluded. and so -- and i will value, those are the only two universities in america, where students have the right to hear to science of a controversial issue, which is a really sad commentary on the state of our universities. it's a sign of hope for the

future. because at the republican party will break up, there will be democrats who wake up. if this becomes an issue for conservatives, just to get the curriculum into conformity, with scientific method, with traditional academic standards. and by traditional, i'm a modern, liberal university, the one that though buckley complained about. if they were just live up to their own standards, we could solve this problem. thank you. [applause] >> we have time for a few questions. david does need to be out of here at the top of the hour, probably. we will also have some books if anyone else for purpose and signature of reforming the university. if there's any questions will get some microphones do you

guys. and please speak into the night. this is going to be televised. i do want to recognize members of our steering committee that came today. tell shafer, thank you so much. fox was a member of our steering committee, whether he knows it or not, we love him. i'm not also like to thank gary and stephen who couldn't be here today. ed snider as well for hoping us to host these events. thank you. [inaudible] >> -- has anything changed yet in terms of professorial -- >> yeah, that's a very good question. i -- the students are scared. they don't have -- because there are no conservative left, but really, i mean, two or three faculty does not do it. the students are afraid to bring

a complaint, what they will do is parrot buys what they think the teacher wants them to say, which is again a terrible commentary. i was able to encourage a student at penn state. and i have a whole chapter in this book, and reforming our universities, which describes what we went through, to file a grievance. and if i hadn't been there, absolutely nothing would've happened. to the fact that i was a presence in the provost that president greenspan your, while every president does palladium. and they give armstrong's father, with the chairman of the appropriations committee. so that got their attention. otherwise, this kid would've just been brushed off. courageous student did this. the issue with this.

he was in a speech communications class and he gave a speech on the mohammed cartoons. and it was at the free-speech issue. and he showed -- and he remembered the nea once funded the work of all cards paste christ, which the crucifix was inserted in a bottle of. and he said that however offensive you may regard the mohammed cartoons for the past christ, that protected under the first amendment, you know, that's -- let's face it, we have to live with the offensive speech. that's what free speech really is about. if the speech doesn't offend you, the person doesn't need the right to make it. he then, in the course of his speech, held up one of the mohammed cartoons. in muslim student in the class who was playing soccer with him called him every assist on that

basis. in the two leftist students said they were offended by his beach whereupon his professor came over to him and said, if you give another speech like that that offend students, i'm going to be forced to lower your grade, which is a direct infringement on his free-speech. that's where we are. so he filed his complaint and first of all they make you file it during the class. and he says to me i can't do it its drama class. as the book, do it after the class and will fight that issue with the concept, which it did. then you have to complain to the professor who is abusing you. and you have to complain to the chairman. so he went directly to the chairman. and the chairman of the department said that good public speaking doesn't offend people. so it came to my mind, martin

luther king didn't defend segregationist on. so, it took us to go through the process, the provost office, by the way, hands off. i met with pre-provost and their attitude was that the faculty has to make the decision. if it it's your regulation. it's an administrative ruling. so i finally encouraged the student to go to the team of the liberal arts college, whom i'd had conflict before has a pretty radical feminist. but maybe she's fair-minded. maybe she'll be fair-minded. it took 11 months to get these rulings. we had three courses and did not succeed in the other two. one of them was a course in which they showed al gore with

an independent truth without critical material. and she came down with an excellent rolling. in that ruling, she said that abraham lincoln's second inaugural address, which she said that the civil war was sent as a cursed by god for the sin of slavery, probably offended slaveowners, but it was considered the finest speech in the english language. and she said that the communications department would have to -- they'd have to hand out the academic freedom provisions and they would have to have a course for a lecture for the communications professors on the first amendment, so they would understand the principle. i was completely satisfied with that. however, it's not going to happen again. i don't know -- i actually do know one conservative on the faculty. this is the university with 113,000 students or something, or 80,000, whatever it is.

there's one professor, but this professor is an assistant professor in doesn't have tenure and i know this because he told me, scared. so without support, you know, they'd have to be fairly backless or extremely bold, however you want to look at it, in order to challenge professors it's probably in the department they're majoring in. this is a terrible situation. and i'm a direct appeal. for example, professor michael berube is a professor there. he endorsed -- or i submitted the academic bill of rights to him when i first drafted it. anything that he found objectionable i took out, just to get his support. and he said it's fine with him. and the minute i came out with it, he's one of the most

unscrupulous and on principle and vicious attackers of me personally, ridiculing me and attacking me. but you know, i've yet to develop a thick skin. so i peeled to berube. i said the students have no support. would you organize and professors -- liberal professors to help foerster academic freedom provisions for students? nothing, zippo. ..

when did people start saying it is worth it to major in sociality? >> too many questions. i don't think -- i think we are wasting money and injuring students by saying everybody should have this university education. some students would do much better in their life if they had some kind of a technical professional training. to answer that question. i think that some of this problem is being solved in and at universities, the university of phoenix and so forth. but harvard was created in 1636 and has had an incredible history. i guarantee you that people will be wanting to send their youngsters to harvard.

and these institutions are venerable. their world-class institutions when it comes to the sciences. what is very sinister about this is that a radical element has insinuated itself into their structure in a liberal arts division. it has taken hold feels like women's studies and converted them into political parties, where you have to subscribe to a radical political agenda in order to succeed. that is a problem that won't be solved, they can't be solved by the market. it has got to be solved by people who are interested as we are. it isn't a question of restoring the standards. it is really anyway, it is no different from trying to get you know, people when they vote, to have the credentials that allow them to boat, bike being citizens or not being dead.

i mean it is a similar problem to the outcome of standards. we have to reinstitute standards. if you are a radical and you hear the word standards you reach for your weapon. standard, that is just you know another way of enforcing racist hierarchy, sexist, racist and hierarchy. but standards is really what it is about. >> we have time for one more question. >> so, i think that there is really nobody better than helping create change than students, the kids themselves, and in listening, you spend a lot of time with universities, people and even if they sign these bill of rights i don't know how there is a way to actually enforce them. however, if students themselves are the ones asking for that kind of change in asking for

that ill of rights, and do you think it might be more effective? >> that is the way i began this campaign. i organize students. i think students -- first of all there are a lot of distractions. they have a lot of agendas, but you are asking an awful lot of the student to go up against their professor. i have launched or am in the process of launching this year, a little difficult because the election cycle, a campaign to adopt a dissenting book where we have students right now at about 45 campuses who will go to their professors, and if they are assigned a one-sided text in their course. as the professor to adopt the dissenting book, and if he says no go to the chairman, go to the dean, go to the chancellor and make it public.

i am hoping to embarrass the more decent element in the university and into thinking about their responsibility as educators to teach students how to think and not just tell them what to think. and i would like to recognize this gentleman because he ran for the harvard corporation. you have a question. >> the general theme of it is that the university professors are often not teaching the way they should, and my question is this. despite that fact and also in light of the fact that the number of administrators in the colleges has ballooned substantially and a lot of those administrators jobs are to do things as i see it, that aren't really related to what happens in the classroom or are related in a bad way. wood would a possible line of attack be to say in today's financial world with the colleges should do is reduce the number of administrators they

have very substantially. my question is, they did that come up with that have a positive effect on what you would like to see happening? >> well, as i pointed out, and i have had personal experience with this. the left is entrenched and the diversity in administration for example. i would guess that penn state and other universities like you are spending millions and millions of dollars annually for these diversity themes and so forth. i think there is probably a good chance, and 401(k)s, one case a year. i think you know probably you could get a lot of savings there. andrew hacker, who i have not agreed within 40 years, has written a book. the universities are out of control in terms of accountability. the waste of money is unbelievable, and there are many ways to economize. i don't think reducing the

number of administrators would ever help this problem one iota though. this is a problem, the lack of accountability of professors in the classroom. the lack of respect for students and the lack of respect for elementary, democratic,, liberal if you will, principles. speak why don't the trustees do something? they are the ones that hire the president and the administrators. >> here is why. i mean, the problem, the question is why don't trustees do something? i believe the university of pennsylvania has 90 trustees. i have had lunch with one of the trustees who said that, of course any lord with 90 people on it is a rubberstamp. anybody who knows anything about

running a corporation knows that secondly, he told me personally that there are five trustees that make the policies of the university and they are all loyal fist loyalists in group around the president of the university who is barred leftists. but trustees are usually, and i had a friend who, when i first met him, i immediately started in on all of my university experience is. and he said to me, he said david, i have been the chairman of the trustees at a major public university for 15 years, and i have no idea what was going on in the classroom. and that is because trustees are doing really important work, which is building the schools, raising money and so forth.

so that is how they see their roles. in the second place, if a trustee uttered a word about what went on the classroom, the american association of university professors, which is a marxist organization now, would be screaming bloody murder that there are political interference in the corporate business world, interfering and our sacred temple of reason. that is another one. you know, at duke university, there was a terrible incident a couple of years ago, where three white students were lynched basically by the university president and his administration where they were accused by a criminal who happened to be lack and a pathological liar and a drug addict of raping them, something that never happened. and since there was a particularly unscrupulous

prosecutor or district attorney attorney -- he is a prosecutor i think in durham, north carolina, who was seeking the black vote and was willing to demagogue this, the students for years, their lives were ruined. the university president immediately with no evidence, with nothing, suspended them, suspended the lacrosse season and i want to tell you there are conservative trustees at duke and they were defending the school. this is completely unconscionable behavior and why? because they are duke loyalists. because duke is a great university and it has a terrible department which has a marxist studies course where people who are complete amateurs when it comes to any of the subjects that marx was seriously concerned in, our training students to be marxist.

that is the bad side of duke. they have a racist, completely documented in the book by stuart taylor and casey johnson, but the racist and the black studies department and other studies departments couldn't wait for these white kids to be ruined because they were white and middle-class. nonetheless, duke has world-class divisions in medicine and engineering and physics and whatnot are ghosts of the trustees are defending that. i mean, i think it is no different from the cover-up in the catholic church over the child molestation. the institution is just so big and does so much good work that you cover up the bad, but the bad in this case is to return to the outside of my talk, is

transforming our universities into training centers for radicals and has totally transform the democratic party, which is now a left-wing socialist party, which it wasn't 30, 40 years ago. >> talk radio which is a major voice of conservatism. why don't you have the presence with hannity and o'reilly? >> me? hannity has been very good to me. first of all i am on the west coast so i can't come into studio. but when i do my professor's book, hannity had me on five times which was unprecedented, where we outed billy ayres for example. anyway thank you all for coming. [applause] >> thank you david borowitz. >> david horowitz is present at the david borowitz freedom center. use the author of numerous books including one party classroom and indoctrination u.

from reformation visit horwitz >>eedom center.org. >> i'm holding the essential and generic, why science alone, solve our global problems. its author joins me, henry petroski. welcomes there and tell us what is the reasoning behind the subtitle here, why science alon? problems? >> we care a lot about the global problems climate change and so forth and we also hear a lot about the importance of what science will do science will do to help alleviate these problems or out rights all them. the history of science and technology teaches us that science and scientists generally do not solve problems, they help but engineers of the problem solvers. engineers and problem solving are really hand and glove. >> in your book you define the difference between scientists and engineers and how they were together, tell us about that. >> scientists generally want to understand the world given to

us, the universe, classic sign to study the planets and stars and the origin of the universe. assembling knowledge really, getting to the bottom of things but engineers, on the other hand, want to change of world and introduce new things coming new machines and devices, things that contribute to our civilization and comfort. scientists and engineers it to gather in research and development which we hear a lot about but the scientists are on the research and and engineers are on the development and and there has to be passing of the baton from understanding the situation to change in the situation through engineering. >> what's the difference between how engineering and science god as to where we are and engineering and science will take us into the future? >> as you know a lot of people think that those are the people that got us into trouble in the first place. we always have incomplete

knowledge, science is always accumulating for their knowledge so we are working as engineers with incomplete knowledge of the world's and the laws of nature. so we make mistakes in that sense. innocent mistakes in the sense that they were done generally speaking without full knowledge of their implications. that's not to excuse them because we should look down the lines to what the implications of what ever we do will be, however, if we try to study the problems in depth we never get to studying the problem and that is a fine engine to really separate the issues.

and i think it is a very good metaphor and it is not original with me actually, but speed bumps are sometimes helpful and i try to point that out in the book also, that they make us think and recalibrate. they make us think about whether maybe we are not on the right road with the right street and we are being reminded of that. we are going to fast, which gets back to what we were just talking about, that if we are going to fast to a solution we might miss some of the implications that we might regret later on. >> you are going to be presented later on here at the national book festival.oo what are you going to tell theiu folks that come to see you? >> i've only got about 20 minutes in order to allow time for questions and answers so i'm going to focus on the difference between science and engineering. engineering. i think there's a general misunderstanding about that. a lot of times engineers are

just grouped with scientists. not that they present that but it is inaccurate because of the distinction that i try to draw. especially in these days when we're trying to deal with so many global problems. important issues. we hear a lot out of washington where we are, that if we want to innovate, of want to change the way we do things to affect the economy and improve it we need to throw more money at science. that leaves engineering out of the equation entirely. maybe there's a confusion. maybe engineers are intended to be included in science but more often than not it is clear that they're not included. and by not understanding that connection we miss opportunities. all the great innovations of the world and all history our engineering innovations can they are usually done if not always done with incomplete scientific knowledge and i will talk about

some of those examples this afternoon such as the steam engine. there were no signs on which to base the steam engine. it was only after the steam engine was operating for a couple centuries that scientists began to look at it as an object for study. the right brothers are another excellent example of trying to develop an airplane and give us powered flight. the right brothers looked for scientific basis on which to design their wing and propellers and even wrote to the smithsonian institution and asked what do you have in your files that will help us and they got there is nothing directly related to what you want to do. so what the right brothers had to do was go and do their own science. they had to do tests to figure out what shape of propeller should have. something as simple and basic as that. the airplane was developed with a very little science to back up

and i want to emphasize things like that this afternoon so that we understand that if we just wait for science to bring us the raw materials for innovation we're going to have to either way very long time or they're wasting time because we don't need complete information to move ahead. >> they you consider yourself a scientist or an engineer? >> i consider myself both. but i am in engineer in that i am very interested in -- books i see as creations but i am a scientist cause i do have to get to the heart of the matter and in most of my studying, includes a lot of science. so you really learn to think like a scientist as well as an engineer. one of the things i will talk about is albert einstein to show you can be both. he is a classic example but it is not widely known. is widely known he worked on

patents when he was young because he couldn't get a job as a scientist. but in the 1920s he began to be an inventor in his own right. after he won the nobel prize he could have sat back and do science but there is a special challenge to invention and engineering. what he did was a very mundane thing. among others but refrigerators in the 1920s were very new. they were subject to weeks and the refrigerant they leak was poisonous. so whole families were being killed when they were sleeping because of a leaking refrigerator. einstein said there must be a better way and that is exactly what an inventor says. he went on to inventor refrigeration system that would not leak. he tried to market it. but the timing was not right. refrigerator companies came up

with free on which is not poisonous. so they just replaced refrigerant. as we know decades later we discover that freon doesn't poison people but it poisons the atmosphere. that is another one of those examples of unforeseen consequences of. >> we are talking with henry here is a portion of one of our programs. >> i am a fan of globalization. i was warned at the time when large numbers of african countries had just gotten their independence or getting their independence, or had independence for a while, and in africa, in the context i was born and later i found out in asia, the air were -- to cover

very quickly, and i don't want to use the word class, because the hat in africa the level where we could call ourselves class. groups of people were either prosecuting or they were prosecuting others. those of us that felt persecuted by those in power started to move around. we left their countries of origin and went elsewhere. that was easy to do, and that means i had lived or globalizing that i didn't realize there is in a globalizing world. when i hear people use the word multicultural i think about my school in nairobi where we, all of us came from different countries and we were all searching for a better life and economic progress.

but to move from a to b, from country to country, to language to language from hemisphere to hemisphere seemed just so much easier and more let's say, we take it more for granted that my grandmother's generation. and then i come of age in the information age. i think generations like my mother and my grandmother somehow got a taste of it, but didn't grow up in it. i am not just a child of globalization but i'm also a child that is intellectually -- after 1989, after the fall of the soviet union. >> why was that the case? how did that impact your life directly? >> gave impacted it directly if we accept the huntington's

thesis that there is a class of civilizations and there is a clash between the west and islam in the sense that i was born into the muslim civilization as defined by huntington, and lived it and breathed it, was committed to it with loyalty, believed in it, and left it and came to the west and did the same thing. lived it, breathed it, made friends, and made my future here and was able as an individual to compare not just the geographical differences, not just the mundane material differences, but the differences and value systems. i came to really appreciate one or the other and they made a choice, and i think that makes it, if you are looking to what is it that informs how i interpret events today, the events that we are living in everyday life, that more than

anything else, the fact that i think exposed the thinking in both worlds and that i feel i'm able to compare. my opinions are you know one of many, one of a thousand opinions it is objective. it is my opinion but that is how i interpret facts and events that we are living history and. >> you would say that a number of the primary factors that influenced your thinking are derived from your being part of and being influenced by globalization, you are being part of a tribe,. you are also as i understand it, also your own background in terms of your education and being exposed to multicultural circumstances. would you say that is the foundation on which your book is derived from? and your very being?

>> yes, the only thing i would add to that is that i have been exposed to different types of education. my grandmother and my mother and my koran teachers have given me a different set of education from what i would, you know, what i would label a western education. western education was in individualism. it was in responsibility. it was a sense of adventure, not just adventure and traipsing all over the world but adventure into the unknown, science, reason. that for me is what i associate with the west and my grandmother, my mother and my koran teachers and preachers educated me in loyalty to the clan, tradition and loyalty toward god and the hereafter, loyalty to the prophet mohammad and following in his example. so i was educated in both places, but the educations are

radically different. >> to watch this program in its entirety, go to booktv.org. simply type the title or the author's name at the top left of the screen and click search. >> wendell potter is a former executive with cigna health care. mr. potter your book, just coming out in november 2010, "deadly spin." what is said about? >> be it means finally i'm able to tell my story and a method that ivan had a chance to do before she's take people behind the scenes to make sure people really understands what goes on in corporate america and how influential people like i used to be, pr people in influencing public opinion for the sole purpose of changing policy in influencing public policy. and in particular i use the debate on health care reform and how big special interests including the interest issue was able to shape and have the legislation took shape and how it was finally passed.

>> you what was your role in influencing how people saw health care? >> my role was to try to make sure people understood were misunderstood in fact some of the problems that we have in this country in terms of the number of people who are underinsured or uninsured. a big part of what goes on is misleading people and making people think that hey it may not be as bad as you may have heard of being. the reason for this is the insurance industry wants to make sure its profits are protected. big insurance companies profit on the status status quo they don't want to have too much change because they cannot -- upset wall street. >> what will people learn by reading "deadly spin"? >> they will learn what goes on and how their opinions are being manipulated. in fact, why they think how they think and what goes on behind the scene to influence how they think and how they act. >> now, as far as the health

care reform act that passed this year, what is your opinion of that? >> it is a start. it wasn't perfect and it certainly was influenced by the special interests, but it is a big win also for consumers because it does a lot of things that will help consumers. it will allow a lot of the practice of the health insurance industry that should've been outlawed long time ago and it will bring a lot of people into coverage who haven't had coverage in a long time. their 50 million of us who don't have health insurance coverage now. this will bring a lot more people into coverage. >> is benefit the health insurance companies? >> it does because it will give them to customers. they were successful in keeping a big part of the reform out of the bill and that was to create a public option so they won that round, so they will get a lot of new customers and a lot of new revenue. it is somewhat i guess you would say a win-win for them. it will keep our private health care system in place. some people don't like that but it will keep private insurance industry going, but it will also bring a lot of